The days when women travelling alone were looked at with pity are over. Going on holiday alone stands for freedom, openness and courage. Many women consciously enjoy solo holidays and organise their trips individually and according to their own ideas. When you travel alone always make sure you have internet for emergency cases and to follow up on nationalcasino.com.
Travelling alone can be a liberating experience for many women: no compromises, no agreements. But not everyone feels comfortable travelling solo.
WHAT YOU CAN DO
On holiday alone, but travelling with a group
If you want to be travelling alone but also appreciate the security of a group and are open to contact and interesting people, you can join a group tour.
There is a wide range of tour operators for group holidays, as well as a large selection of travel themes and destinations: The spectrum ranges from trips especially for singles or trips just for women to theme-specific trips – from active to meditative to art, culture or music trips.
Hotels for solo travellers
Here, the single room is not a storage room, but just as spacious and well located as the double rooms. Activity programmes invite you to join in and socialise. At dinner, you can choose between eating alone or at a communal table. This checklist provides an overview of how to recognise hotels that cater to solo travellers.
Travelling alone on a hiking tour
Travelling alone as a woman on a long-distance hike – is that a good idea? Whether it is scary or rather enjoyable to be alone and on foot in nature depends above all on your own personality. For environmental educator Heidi Witzmann, for example, solitude is pure relaxation. She has ventured on a hike of over 1000 kilometres on the Baltic Forest Trail. She spent two months on the trail, travelling through three countries and several national parks, staying in a wide variety of accommodation and even spotting bears. You can read the encouraging story of her hike at Anderswo.
Women’s travel network: Exchange with other women welcome!
Sara Glöckner has set up the internet portal ‘The Female Traveller’. Her aim: to offer women who want to travel alone and are looking for tips, addresses or travel partners an opportunity to exchange ideas. In an interview with Anderswo, Sara talks about her own travel experiences and explains why sharing experiences among women is so helpful.
VOLUNTOURISM
Women who prefer to roll up their sleeves on holiday and do something meaningful with their free time will find many exciting volunteering opportunities under the heading of voluntourism – from caring for a mountain pasture to planting trees to prevent avalanches. Here, too, it is usually easy to make contacts.
HOW IT WORKS BETTER
You can also spend a voluntourism stay in Germany and help with the apple harvest, for example. However, voluntourism is not all bad. If you want to volunteer in the Global South and actually make a difference, you should pay attention to the following things:
- Reputable organisations: Contact reputable organisations. You can recognise them by the fact that they integrate intensive preparation and follow-up work into your stay. The government-funded weltwärts programme can help you find a reputable volunteer organisation.
- Sustainable holidays: To travel as sustainably and ecologically as possible, you can use specialist travel agencies or organise your trip yourself. Make sure that you combine your volunteer placement with a holiday that benefits the local people. You can find more information about sustainable holidays here: Gentle tourism: 15 travel tips for sustainable holidays
- Reflection: It is important that you are aware of your role in the global system and what consequences your actions may have. Reflection before, during and after your voluntourism holiday is therefore extremely important. The non-profit organisation Brückenwind, which acts as an exchange and information platform for volunteers and critically scrutinises voluntourism, offers help here. For reputable organisations, reflection is a must.
- Qualifications: You should only do volunteer work for which you are sufficiently qualified. It makes no sense for anyone if you teach in a school without having completed a teaching qualification. You are more likely to harm the children and hinder the work of the local teachers. So don’t focus on what might look good on your CV, but on what you can really help with. Incidentally, you should always be able to communicate in an appropriate intercultural manner. This will help you to avoid misunderstandings and interact with the locals on an equal footing.
- Duration: A serious volunteer placement does not last just a few days. It takes time until you are well prepared and familiarised. It is therefore best to bring several months with you.
