Travel Tips: Solo Travel

'You are travelling alone, sir?' asked the friendly student on the train, and the answer was both yes and no: I was a lone traveller, but I was going to Varanasi with two friends who were in the next compartment. This set me thinking about solo travel again.

Chris and Martina, my next-door companions, were excellent travelling companions, taking the absurdity of India with Irish humour and very good grace considering their lack of time (they only had one month in India). But there's quite a difference between ships that pass in the night and permanent travelling companions, so here's a list of the pros and cons of travelling with companions.

The Pros of Travelling with Others

• The joy of sharing: When you are travelling with others, you share the experience, and this is a good thing. Sure, you might want to enjoy some travel experiences alone, but talking about good times in the pub is the one of the greatest ways to enjoy nostalgia to its fullest extent, and if you travel alone you can never really share the experience with anybody, even in a travelogue.

• A lack of loneliness: Company is a good thing, especially at meal times, which can be the loneliest part of the day for the solo traveller. Without company, meals become a judicious balancing of the book you're reading while trying to scoop up butter chicken with nan bread, and when the meal's over and you're full, the last thing you want is to sit around surrounded by conversation and laughter, reminding you of your solitude. I often make friends at meal times, but having travelling companions is a real bonus when it comes to the long evening pig-out.

• Moral support: If you're ill, someone steals your backpack or the man with The Power at the railway office has been getting you down again, it's a godsend to have someone to prop you up again and push you back into the ring. On your own, things like this tend to elicit one of two reactions – despair or determination – but when there's someone else there it's easier to see the funny side and realise that it doesn't really matter if things go wrong. The man with The Power is hopeless against the man who doesn't care what happens.

• Not home alone: If you have a partner in travel, you have a partner in returning. It's good to have someone else to talk to about your trip, and it's good to know that there's someone else who has to find a job, settle back into life and balance that with a desire to hit the road again.

• Share the load: Travel companions lighten the load, mutually. When you're tired, your friend can go and get the Cokes in to bring you back to life; and when he or she is getting sick of standing in the queue, you can swap places. There are practical applications too, such as guarding the luggage while one of you dashes off to the toilet, that lone travellers just have to grin and bear.

• Lower costs: Life is cheaper when there are more of you: double rooms, even triple rooms, save you money, and when eating you can split dishes, making the meal more interesting and probably less expensive. It's also good to have someone around when you're experimenting with the food, because getting an unknown dish between two isn't such an expensive waste if it turns out to be unpalatable.

• Mutual motivation: If you have travel companions you often end up being motivated into going to see or do something you otherwise might not have bothered with, and it often turns out to be well worth the effort. When you're travelling solo you bounce between keenness and apathy, and in the latter state you're going to drop everything that isn't really special. Good travel companions don't suffer your apathy gladly, and they can provide just the tonic you need to make you get up and go.

• Safety in numbers: If you're a lone female traveller in a male-dominated country, then you may get hassle, you may be completely ignored, or you may be treated as if you shouldn't be travelling independently and should be back at home cooking for your five screaming children. I obviously can't speak from experience, but I've met loads of strong-willed women who travel alone very happily and successfully; it's just important to be aware that lone female travellers can expect more hassle than their male counterparts. Rise above it, I say; paternalistic societies that treat women as second-class citizens will one day reap what they sow.

The Cons of Travelling with Others

• Splitting the bill: Everyone hates getting the bill and having to sit down and work out who has had what, what it costs, and how much change they should get. True, in a lot of Indian restaurants they are more than happy to split the bill for you – much more so than in England – but nothing beats solo eating for financial simplicity.

• Lack of independence: With companions, you are shackled to making joint decisions, and depending on the personalities involved, this can be a deal-breaker. A lot of travelling couples go their own way during the day and meet up again at night, but if you're going that far you might as well split up and go alone. Personally I love the freedom of being able to decide exactly where I want to go and when I want to go there; if there's more than one of you, this is much harder to achieve.

• Familiarity breeds contempt: If you are alone you don't have a problem with snoring, the only bad feet are your own, and you don't end up with other people's shaving residue littering the basin. On the other hand the walls are often so thin in hotels that this advantage of solo travel is somewhat qualified, especially if you're using a communal bathroom...

• When plans go awry: The worst thing about splitting up for the day and going your separate ways is meeting up again: punctuality is one of the least common virtues on the road, and in the rare case that your companions do turn up on time, it's a pain if you want to duck home during the day and grab something when someone else has the key. Planning days this well is not what the flexible traveller wants to do, but the only solution is to leave the key with the hotelier, often not a good idea, or to invest in a combination lock. I have the latter: it has saved me much hassle.

• Taking it out on your friends: In the inevitable tantrums and frustrations of travel, it's easy to turn on your travelling companions and rip them to shreds as if it's all their fault. If you are alone this is not possible, and so you have to learn new ways to get rid of your anger; shouting at the locals is highly counterproductive, having a go at the man with The Power is asking for trouble, and kicking walls hurts your feet, so you learn to take anger as it comes, deal with it and, without bottling it up, dissipate it. I tend to deal with anger by stepping back, thinking logically and looking for the funny side, which I almost always find; if not, I go mad for two minutes and suck my beard, which also seems to work. I would never have developed this skill if I'd had a companion to kick or commiserate with.

• Falling between two stools: If you have a companion but you don't have a specific plan, you'll never get anything done. The four vultures in Disney's Jungle Book are just like travellers without a plan: 'What do you wanna do?', 'I dunno, what do you wanna do?', 'I dunno, what do you wanna do?', and so on until the sun sets and another day has flown past. It's much easier to sit around doing nothing all day if you're with friends, but if you're alone it can be miserable to have nothing planned (though often it's great) so there's a motivation to do things. With others sitting around doing nothing, it's fine for you to laze too, and as a result you get far less done as a group than as an individual.

• One isn't the loneliest number: When you're alone, you're never alone for long: someone will either start a conversation with you, or you'll spark one up yourself, something that's much rarer if you're already involved in a group conversation. My computer is a glorious weapon in the conversation wars because people ask me what I'm doing, and it flows from there; and if the other travellers don't ask, the locals will, and from that conversation other listeners get interested. There aren't too many journalists around who carry their office around in their pocket and have managed to finance a three-year trip from writing, after all.

Summary

There's no doubt that I've really enjoyed being a lone traveller; that said, I now travel with my wife and soulmate, and I love it. I sometimes wonder how people do it in groups, but then I find out that they think I was mad to go it alone. I suppose it's whatever makes you happy, but here's a handy summary to help you decide.