Thank you for Joanna Moorhead’s wonderful article on solo travel (Long lunches, casual friendships, no one to worry about: solo holidays are brilliant for older women like me, 5 March). I’m on my first ever solo holiday, after 52 years of marriage. When I arrived in Vietnam, the guide who met me asked: “Why are you travelling alone?” I felt taken aback, but gather that this type of direct question is a cultural norm.
Much travelled but always with family, I feared that I might feel melancholy. Far from it. Apart from my itinerary, which was planned with a travel agent, I’ve felt liberated by doing what I wanted, without worrying about everyone else.
Vietnam is a fascinating country with a turbulent history to spice things up. Sightseeing has been refreshingly different. Visits to a series of mausoleums may seem grim, but far from it. These ornate, diverse complexes near Hue reflect each emperor’s unique personality. The only problem I’ve encountered is mansplaining – on long-haul flights and in restaurants.
Why am I alone? My husband has severe frontotemporal dementia. Of course, my thoughts turn to our excellent holidays together, but those days are gone and I’m lucky that, for me, still working hard and earning, carer’s respite can be exotic. I look forward to getting back to see him. Meanwhile, don’t hesitate, sisters – go travel!
Rosalind Duhs
London
• I recently spent a month travelling solo in Italy and it was one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever done. Women over 50 are more than able when it comes to navigating transport issues, meeting new people and experiencing new challenges. Many doubt themselves and worry that they’ll be lonely, but there is a fantastic world out there waiting to be explored.
With translation apps, some basic phrases and a dose of common sense, you can travel easily, and once you’ve travelled with partners, family and friends, it is such a joy to do things like this for yourself.
I never felt alone and I found Deborah Ives’ Facebook group Solo in Style, mentioned in your article, so empowering – always supportive, with great practical advice and a good kick up the backside when needed (when I lost a bag and felt very sorry for myself).
You meet amazing people when travelling alone and can change your plans at a moment’s notice. You also learn to dig deep and realise that you have resilience and abilities that you never thought you had.
Janice Falconer
Falkirk, Stirlingshire
• In my late 20s, I travelled solo around Brazil by bus. I bought a one-way ticket, and returned three years later. When I tell people this, nobody bats an eyelid. But now, in my 50s with a grownup son and the same sense of wanderlust I had three decades ago, if I mention that I’m going to Mexico for a month, or have just returned from a trip to Cuba alone, I seem to get a response from women of my age of either horror or awe: “What, on your own?”
Yes, always – my time, my itinerary. A last-minute ticket to the theatre, people-watching at pavement cafes, a book and picnic in the park, eating what I want when I want, an impromptu afternoon of live music and beer, galleries and museums, and a flea market – always a flea market. No people-pleasing, no negotiating. When I do want company, what could be better than striking up a conversation in a cafe or gallery, or booking myself on to a local cooking course or a small tour? I travel alone, but I am never lonely.
I was once in a restaurant at lunchtime with my mother, where there was a woman sitting alone – a traveller, engrossed in a book, she had a couple of glasses of wine, a main course and a dessert, and some chitchat with the waiter. I must admit I was a little envious. I wondered what she had planned for an afternoon alone in London.
Later that day, my mother, who hates being alone, said: “Did you notice that poor woman on her own at lunchtime? I felt so sorry for her.” I guess it’s all about perception.
Sam Menezes
Newington Green, London
• Age does not need to be a barrier to travel if you can still get about. In February 2020, I went on a trip to Morocco when I was 92. I use a walker for fractures in my back, but I can walk quite fast and had no problem keeping up with the tour group. On the first morning in Marrakech, I overslept and found that the tour had already left, so I got a taxi and followed their itinerary in the hope of catching up with them. In fact, they had missed their planned visit to one of the most impressive palaces. I went round it (free, when they saw my walker) and then walked on my own to a shopping street, to be dazzled by the mounds of colourful spices and the gorgeous silks in the clothing shops.
It was useful to speak a bit of French for asking directions, but I had no trouble finding a taxi back to the hotel, where our kind and competent tour guide invited me to lunch because he felt bad at having left me behind. Excursions to the Marjorelle Gardens, the Atlas mountains and Essaouira caused no problems. I had worried that no one would want to socialise with someone as old as me, but I was lucky enough to find an interesting group aged about 50 to 75 who would meet for drinks before and after dinner, and were quite prepared to chat.
I was even saved from the ultimate holiday disaster of losing my wallet by the quick-thinking tour guide. I had not noticed it fall out of my bag while I was taking a photo by a stream in a Bedouin village. A small boy selling beads picked it up and handed it to our guide.
It was only a six-day tour, but we said goodbye with regret. Morocco is a fascinating country with plenty of landscapes to look at, a tradition of superb workmanship and a cuisine that is both Arab and French: tagines and patisserie. A coach tour there was a great experience and perfectly feasible at 92.
Jennifer Wells
Lewes, East Sussex
• I am reading the feature about solo holidays on a rare day when my toddler is in nursery and I am not snowed under with work (or rather, I probably am, but am ignoring it). The article feels like the dreamy promise of a very distant future that might never happen. For those parents who, like me, can only dream of an actual holiday, may I suggest skiving off work occasionally for a solo lunch (me, just now – toast slathered with mayonnaise and tomato – good enough to pass for tapas), a solo walk, a solo trip to the cinema? If you half close your eyes and put your phone away, it almost feels like freedom.
The ironic thing is that I did go on the odd solo adventure in a past life and had to fight hard to get over the loneliness of it. Oh, how I would love my loneliness back. It puts me in mind of a line from Rainer Maria Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet: “Love your solitude”.
Name and address supplied
• I’m married to someone who does not fly, so I took the plunge at solo travel nearly 20 years ago and have never looked back. Argentina, Antarctica and the Iguazu Falls were ticked off my bucket list. The terror of dining alone in Buenos Aires was dispelled by taking a book – no mobile phones in those days.
Wherever I travel in the world, there are helpful and friendly people, so don’t be afraid to ask. The Galápagos Islands were so much better on a small boat than a cruise, and viewing Machu Picchu from the Sun Gate, having walked the last part of the trail, was incredible.
At 77 years of age, I depart next week to tick off Chile’s Atacama desert and Easter Island. So I say, go for it – what have you got to lose?
Andrea Stow
Cleckheaton, West Yorkshire
• Joanna Moorhead’s article resonated with me. Unable to afford solo travel when a young student, I began to travel within Europe in my 60s – single again and with adult children and grandchildren.
I deliberately chose smaller cities with art galleries and museums that drew me, eg Porto for the Serralves museum, Málaga for the Picasso museum etc. Below is a poem that I wrote in situ that perhaps speaks to this issue.
Gillie Harries
Bristol
Restaurante Avero, Porto
14.03.2018
I eat alone
You are alone?
The charming maitre d’ asks.
Yes, for now, alone
I respond.
I sit, Giselle has slammed
Her fury over the city,
Beside the plate glass window
A bowl of sopa fava warms
My chill constitution
I overlook the garden
Of Virtudes
A virtuous quiet
exciting
Lunch for one:
Clean vinho verdhe
Olives bread oil
Painted with the ombre
Of balsamic
A solitary woman
At peace,
Perhaps
like the American
Or French woman
seated
before me
Her back says
She is enjoying
This feasting also
Bom Dia.
A nacreous light
Fades up from the
Atlantic coast
Along the rifled Douro.
A yellow crane
Moves its load
Minutely, safely
As we women are
Now permitted
Lone movement.
The change, the shift;
Carefully, slowly
Safely.
Aptly, on gazing up
And this being a gallery,
The black painted outline
Of a bold female, faces
Down the room
Her eyes contest
The space
And a tree branches
Clear from her cranium
Knowledge, and solidarity
Saint of lone women
Diners,
We have come of age.
No longer pray for us.
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