Whether you’re looking for a short getaway to Belfast or Portugal or a far-flung adventure to Thailand or Singapore, these destinations are perfect for travelling solo.
Traveling alone is no longer a niche pursuit, since more than three-quarters of Brits have done so or are planning to do so in the future. While we are aware of the many joys of solo travel, it is undeniable that the world looks different when you look at it from a different perspective, and choosing the right destination can mean the difference between a memorable solo trip and a less satisfying one.
The best places to merge and mingle are cultural big-hitters like New York, Stockholm, or Austin, where you won’t run out of things to do or people to meet. It is easy to become absorbed by a crowd at an art gallery or to be subsumed by a group of revellers on the dancefloor in a city that is action-packed and anonymous. However, adventure travel is also attractive to solitary travelers, and adrenalin-oriented landscapes such as South America, Southeast Asia, and the Caribbean are ideal for solo adventures. It is common for lone travellers to find themselves within a tribe when they participate in festivals, which provide a focal point and instant pop-up community. Traveling alone is only as lonely as you want it to be, so open your mind and pick one of these top solo travel destinations.
Costa Rica
Costa Rica’s coastline extends its generosity to travelers. The following places are ideal for solo travelers in Costa Rica: Tamarindo, Santa Teresa, Puerto Viejo, La Fortuna, and Nosara. The friendly hostels like Tamarindo Backpackers offer single travelers a chance to meet other yogis and surfers as they clamber through bat-bedecked caves or climb volcanic peaks.
In addition to outdoor adventures and development, Costa Rica is one of the world’s most biodiverse nations. As a result, it is a great destination for eco-minded adventurers and a feel-good getaway.
You can easily explore Costa Rica by hiking, mountaineering, kayaking, or ziplining through the jungle. Solo travelers will appreciate being able to travel alone. As reassuringly familiar as farm-to-table dining, sustainable travel, and hip cafes are from home, Costa Rica is also tantalizingly exotic and constantly surprising.
Stockholm, Sweden
As a city spanning 14 islands connected by bridges and dotted with a cobblestoned old town (Gamla Stan) and a scattering of elegant parks, Stockholm is a fantastic city for solo female travelers. With its safety and slickness, it is an ideal city for solo female travelers. Get your bearings on a GPS-guided Vespa Tour (vespastockholm.com), finishing up in hip Södermalm at the Pet Sounds Bar (psb.bar), the gin-soaked sister to the legendary record store across the street.
On Skeppsholmen, you’ll find the Moderna Museet (modernamuseet.se), or you can take things shamelessly pop at the ABBA Museum Hall of Fame (abbathemuseum.com). At the geographical and figurative heart of Stockholm, Berns Hotel (berns.se; from £220) is the chandelier-draped grand dame, but Miss Clara Hotel (missclarahotel.com) is the stylish young upstart. Situated in the former Ateneum girls school, Nobis offers 92 rooms with original art nouveau decor, herringbone parquet flooring, swirly bentwood bedheads, and arched windows overlooking Sveavägen Boulevard.
A Michelin starred lunch can be purchased for only £24 at Mathias Dahlgren’s airy, informal Matbaren brasserie (mdghs.se) on the waterfront. Stockholm will never supplant Copenhagen’s crown for cutting-edge cuisine (the Danish capital has 15 Michelin stars to Stockholm’s nine).
Stockholm isn’t Stockholm unless you’ve been on the water. Lunch at the Waxholms Hotel will take you away from the city to the idyllic harbour town of Vaxholm.
Canada
Canadian cities are known for their civility, culture, and class, but it’s the outdoorsy assets within easy reach of Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, or Ontario that make the country a mecca for solo travellers. With six time zones, Canada offers a vast array of landscapes, from soaring mountains to remote beaches, wild tundra to lush rainforests.
Canadian cities also offer outdoor adventures for outdoors enthusiasts, so even cities deliver for outdoors-obsessed solo travellers. Highlights include kayaking or rafting the South Nahanni River in the Northwest Territories or navigating the swells and surf of Nova Scotia. Stanley Park in Vancouver is one of those rare city parks that offers a bit of ruggedness, but offers an easy ride to Granville Island, which has one of the world’s greatest food markets and street food scenes.
Dawson, a quirky town in the Yukon Territory north of Vancouver, offers a glimpse of Canadian small-town culture, plus a music festival (dcmf.com) that shouldn’t be missed by culture-craving solo travelers. During the winter months, Dawson offers snow-based activities, while in the summer, hiking and biking are popular.
New York, USA
The act of taking the bull by the horns in one of the world’s most high-octane cities alone is like taking the bull by the horns. But you’re never alone, bored, or conspicuous in this big anonymous city. In New York, people don’t care about who they are with; and their insouciance is contagious.
Solo travellers are better at accomplishing their do-do list when they arrive in New York, so go eat that pretzel in Central Park, explore the Met Museum’s art-lined walls, walk across Broadway, watch a world-class show, shop the big brands of Fifth Avenue and Williamsburg boutiques and soak in an urban spa like Aire Ancient Baths (ancientbathsny.com) in Tribeca.
With urban wineries in Brooklyn, classic Jewish delis in Manhattan, and virtually every national cuisine represented in some corner of the city, dining solo makes a relaxed affair. Several of Manhattan’s top cultural and artistic attractions are moments away from each other, but it’s also just a quick subway ride to any other neighbourhood. The iconic jazz joint Minton’s (mintonsharlem.com) serves Southern-style soul food like smoked praline pork chops and bourbon-loaded cocktails to the soundtrack of former Minton’s players like Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, and Charlie Parker.
Dominica
Dominica is a world away from the pricey honeymoon resorts on its neighbouring islands, even though the Caribbean might not seem like an obvious choice for solo travelers. Dominica, a geothermal island about the size of Anglesey in Wales, has deterred swanky multinational hotels and package tourists for decades with its volcanic craggy coastline and lack of white-sand beaches. A thrilling menu of adventures awaits on this island – trekking to bubbling lakes, caving through gushing gorges, rafting through mangrove swamps – and the promise of affordable accommodations alongside stylish splurges makes it an ideal backpacking destination. Known for its fascinating British colonial heritage, vibrant cultural scene, and disarmingly caring locals, the island is genuinely backpackable.
As a result of Hurricane Maria, the island is eager to welcome tourists back and want to rebuild its infrastructure, so spending your tourist dollar here is a truly responsible choice. Cocoa Cottage (cocoacottages.com; £85 per night) is a quirky B&B that’s affordable, while Secret Bay (secretbay.dm; £550 per night) is an eco-lodge that’s swanky. As an eco-minded adventure destination, Dominica is set to re-emerge as an unspoiled gem.
Thailand
In terms of transformational solo travel, Thailand is still hard to beat, even though it’s where it all began for travellers all over the world. In addition to courses in Thai cookery, massage, yoga, and scuba diving, Thailand is a well-trodden route that makes it particularly safe for solo female travellers.
Thailand’s waterfall-studded, rainforested north and hippie hubs like Pai are all accessible from Chiang Mai, a more chilled urban Thai experience than Bangkok. 137 Pillars (137pillarschiangmai.com; from £220 per night) boasts 1880s Lanna architecture, but you can also find quirky, charming and more budget-friendly flashpacker joints like Mo Rooms (morooms.com; from £42).
Go south to find the beach of your dreams, whether it’s diving with whale sharks off Ko Tao, combining health with hedonism on Ko Phang Nguan, or kiteboarding and kicking back in Hua Hin. It is genuinely hard to feel stressed in Thailand, thanks to its serene spirituality and the fact that eating well is a gloriously democratic and informal pleasure.
Austin, Texas
A smile is never far away in Austin, whether it’s across a shared plate of streetfood, across a grimy dancefloor, or across a steamy swimming hole. Texans are known to be friendly, some would say notoriously so, and Austin is a place where you’ll always see someone smiling. As much of Austin’s best eating can be found on food trucks, solo travellers can join other diners at bar-style seating and never feel alone when dining out. A vintage Airstream serves grilled banana and bacon doughnuts (gourdoughs.com), which are cult dishes in Austin.
Located on South Congress, where there are organic grocery stores, vintage stores, coffee shops, taco shacks, and music venues like the legendary Continental Club, is hip hotelier Liz Lambert’s Hotel Saint Cecilia (hotelsaintcecilia.com; from £220) and the San Jose Hotel (sanjosehotel.com; from £140).
A tour of Hops & Grain Brewing (hopsandgrain.com) is the best way to see this up-and-coming creative neighbourhood near South Congress. There are bars and cafes in converted bungalows on Rainey Street (raineystreetbars.com), once a residential street turned urban phenomenon. Wake up early to cycle the 10-mile circuit around Ladybird Lake along the new hike and bike trail, then cool off at the beautiful Barton Springs pool (free before 8am; £2 after).
Belfast, Ireland
In recent years, Belfast, once shunned by travellers because of sectarian violence, has emerged as one of Europe’s most culturally vibrant and friendly city break destinations. It is a city with a big heart where lone travellers can find new friends in a bar like The Spaniard (thespaniardbar.com) in the Cathedral Quarter. A few stylish but oddly affordable boutique hotels dot the city, including the Bullitt Hotel (bullitthotel.com; from £90), which stands out as the city’s smartest hotel. Meanwhile, on the food scene, mainstays like Mourne Seafood (mourneseafood.com) rub up against innovative upstarts like the Muddlers Club.
As the city’s number-one tourist attraction, the Titanic Quarter is well worth visiting, as are the MAC Belfast and Ulster Museums, both located in the stunning Botanical Gardens. During the Victorian era, Belfast was a wealthy shipbuilding centre, and leafy parks like Lady Dixon and Lagan Meadows remind us of our city’s gentle past, often overlooked by tourists.
Portugal
Would you like to travel short-haul to a sunny destination without being surrounded by families? Solo travellers can easily arrive alone at Portugal’s enviable surf camp scene, and clink bottles of Sagres with new friends that evening as a result of its enviable surf camp scene.
Portugal can afford to be generous with its coastline, so no stretch feels dominated by families or couples but a healthy mixture of the two. With over 800km of coastline, you can choose from dramatic cliffs, stellar surf breaks, dune-covered beaches and serene sandy islets. Besides the beaches, solo travelers can hike granite peaks in Parque Nacional da Peneda-Gerês or explore traditional villages in the lesser-explored Beiras, increasingly popular with wine lovers and retreat seekers.
The Portuguese cities of Lisbon and Porto, in addition to the beautiful scenery, are very unconventional and informal compared to their Spanish, French and Italian counterparts. The Portuguese calendar is filled with festivals, so if you plan a solo trip, do a solo jaunt at Lisbon’s Festa de Santo António or Porto’s Festa de São João, or find a smaller jazz or rock festival down the coast.
You can listen to the mournful strains of fado music at any time of year in Portugal.
Singapore
Those travellers didn’t try hard enough to dismiss Singapore as a sterile stopover city, which was once fashionable. With its world-class cultural institutions, space-age green spaces, and thrillingly diverse hotel and restaurant scene, Singapore is a cultural and culinary melting pot of the 21st century. There are dramatic contrasts in Singapore, which travellers love most; historic Hindu temples sit beneath skyscrapers, world-class museums have rainforests as their back garden, and crumbling 19th century shophouses are now repurposed into vintage boutiques and speakeasy-style cocktail dens. Because of its long history of migration, Singapore is one of Asia’s most ethnically diverse cities, and one of the most racially integrated. The majority of Singaporeans are Chinese, but there are significant Malay, Indian, and Eurasian minorities. Consequently, travellers can experience countless colorful cultures and cuisines without leaving the island. An extra bonus: English is the primary language spoken, so there are no language barriers, enhancing the friendliness and security of a city that is already welcoming and extremely safe.
Tekka Market, one of the most vibrant and colourful sights on the island, is one of the most frequently Instagrammed sights in Chinatown, where the smell of sweet cured pork mixes with the smoke from the Hindu temples of Little India. Haji Lane, in Kampong Glam, the Arab quarter, is lined with boutiques, retro barbershops, and – the ultimate badge of hipster pride – a Tokyobike store, putting Singapore in touch with Copenhagen, Berlin, Melbourne, and Shoreditch. The marriage between East and West is so successful in Singapore because European influences blend comfortably with Chinese, Malay and Indian traditions.
