Traveling Solo: Balancing Work And Adventure – If you want to meet new people, consider an adventure trip. Organizers say group trips often result in lifelong friendships.
There’s a meme going around that says Jesus’ real miracle was having 12 close friends in their 30s. It’s a joke that makes millennials laugh and sigh, as most feel their circle of friends is getting smaller by the year.
Traveling Solo: Balancing Work And Adventure
Millennials tend to feel the most lonely when planning a trip. Undertaking any solo activity is still viewed with scorn, or even pity, making it difficult to go on the trip of your dreams without friends or a partner.
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This is why adventure travel companies have become so popular among the millennial generation. They cater to young solo travelers who want to join a group of like-minded people to explore dream destinations. Many make long-term friendships along the way.
Erika De Santi, decided to start her adventure travel company WeRoad when she realized that there were no companies for millennials who wanted to travel in groups and were looking for friends.
“There were no group trips in our generation, nothing that met our needs,” De Santi said. “In 2017, two of my founders went on a group trip with an international competitor. They really enjoy it, but the social part is gone, the community spirit is gone.”
WeRoad offers small group trips for solo travelers and focuses on group dynamics and the human component of the trip. Group aged 25-35 or 35-49 years.
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“With my founders, we always say that we fight loneliness with our work more than anything else,” De Santi said.
“Our generation is a generation that is happy to be single – it’s not a social stigma, it’s a way of saying ‘I have my independence, I have my freedom, I have my flexibility.’ , finding the time, space, and location to make new friends or build long-term relationships has become increasingly complicated, because the last time we spent a lot of time with a large group of people was in high school. .”
That’s why the focus of adventure travel groups is as much on the social experience as it is on the travel part.
“People are attracted to the small group style of travel because it’s the perfect balance between having a group of friends ready to explore and independent time to do your own thing,” says Zina Bencheikh, Managing Director EMEA at Intrepid Travel, another adventure travel company.
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“There is also an additional safety net through local guides that tourists can contact for tips and help if they need it.”
Especially for women, the possibility of backpacking with a group as a solo traveler is very empowering, because being a solo female traveler has its own concerns and risks that solo male travelers don’t need to consider.
Filippo is somewhat of a veteran when it comes to WeRoad travel. He recently went on his second WeRoad trip – a two-week trip across Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula – after previously going to Jordan with the company. They say it gets easier to make friends the longer the tour.
“It was easy to make friends with anyone in the group in Mexico, it was a really close-knit group – more so than in Jordan, because we spent two whole weeks together,” said Filippo. He has not seen anyone from the Jordan group since the 2021 trip, but said this would not be the case for the group sharing the trip through Mexico.
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“We have plans to meet again during the Christmas holidays. Maybe not everyone will be there, because we live far away and everyone has their own lives, but that’s the plan.”
Usually Filippo prefers to travel alone, or at best with just one or two people. However, he said, for certain destinations it is best not to go on a naughty trip alone.
Unlike WeRoad, Intrepid caters to all ages, from 18- to 29-year-old commuters to the Premium range offering high-end eco-friendly travel.
Bencheikh said that many of Intrepid’s customers are over 40, and there was even a 78-year-old traveler who completed the Everest base camp trek with them earlier this year. “This shows that ‘adventure travel’ is for all ages and doesn’t just mean outdoor activities. It can also mean traveling to a new destination and immersing yourself in its culture and history. You are never too old to get out of your comfort zone.
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“We hear a lot of stories about people meeting new friends on our trips – and then staying in touch and traveling with them again,” Bencheikh said.
Intrepid was the first tour operator to become carbon neutral in 2010, and the first global tour operator to verify science-based carbon reduction targets in 2020, according to Bencheikh.
“Our trips are designed to be low impact, so we stay in locally owned accommodation whenever possible and eat at locally owned restaurants whose food is sourced locally. All this helps avoid the use of long, carbon-intensive supply chains. We are also removing short-haul flights under 90 minutes from our top 50 itineraries this year and, where possible, using alternative transportation such as trains and buses,” Bencheikh said.
“Overall, the travel industry needs to focus on decarbonizing our business because if we don’t take immediate action, there will be no world to show our customers.”
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De Santi agrees that operators need to plan to minimize the impact on their destination countries. “We are very aware of the impact we have and we continue to monitor it to understand how to minimize it, but we also try to understand how to maximize the social impact we have,” he said.
“For example, a typical tour operator moving in our numbers could rely on, I think, 200 tour guides to run tours – instead we have 1,100 people. The social impact we can have on local communities and economies by choosing the right destinations and the right local experiences is enormous.”
The only downside to adventure group vacations, compared to solo independent travel, is the cost, according to Filippo.
“I really liked it, everyone was really nice and the group was great,” he said of his WeRoad trip. “Probably the only downside is the cost. It was quite expensive, and some of the facilities we used in Mexico, for example, were not worth the price we paid.” Have you ever considered traveling solo? Maybe you’ve seen some of the “reasons-why-you-should-solo-travel” blog posts before. But there is something about traveling alone that makes people think “lonely” and “dangerous”. When I explored Sapporo and Phuket on my own, people asked me if it was worth it and what made it meaningful. While I sit here contemplating whether I will travel solo again, here is an honest “review” of my experience.
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Even though you plan everything in great detail, most of your days are unpredictable. Plus, if you’re open to the possibility of traveling with other people you meet along the way, you’ll never know for sure what will happen next. For example, when you go to a new hostel location, the people there will be different. You don’t know if people will be friendly and if you’ll have anyone to hang out with that day. Maybe you don’t feel sociable all the time, and you get very nervous when you meet other people. In other words, things are uncertain and if you don’t mind that, go solo.
There is nothing better than traveling with people you love and enjoy spending time with. When things feel lonely and awkward, sometimes I think that I should be the one with them. Imagine a warm hug with someone you love instead of having to endure the cold yourself. But when the option of traveling together is not available, traveling alone makes sense. Unless we have decided to travel to a certain destination together, if you really feel compelled to go somewhere, just do it.
If you can find a reputable hostel with good reviews, they can be great to stay in and hang out with. Good hostels usually have great facilities for hanging out, and they often hold events to get people to socialize. If you choose to participate in this event, it can be very exciting and every day will be different. It can also be assumed that if you live in a hostel, people will be open to making friends, thus creating a friendly environment. At first I was surprised, but it turns out there are lots of solo travelers looking for friends to hang out with! This makes it easier for an introvert to make friends.
Financially, traveling alone is more expensive. It’s best to share food in Asia, but when you’re eating alone, you can’t split the cost of the meal. If you take a taxi, it will also cost more, and you are hesitant
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