Traveling solo? Check out these resources
If you are planning a trip where you will travel alone, you have choices. You can go off all by yourself, join a group of other singles, cruise with a group of other solo travelers or book a land tour of singles and join them at your destination.
Several organizations, tour companies and Web sites will help you decide.
One of the oldest organizations that helps solo travelers is Connecting, solo travel network, www.cstn.org. To take advantage of all its services, one must become a member, which costs $35 per year. For this you get access to a calendar of singles-only tours and cruises, including more than 400 trips listed at all times. Membership also includes six issues a year of Connecting: Solo Travel News, a 20-page electronic newsletter, Web site sections on tips for single travel, and stories and features on single trips. You can look over a sample copy of the newsletter on the Web site before joining.
The site also has a Single-Friendly Travel Directory, a resource of more than 250 travel suppliers, such as tour companies, resorts, cruise lines, spas, societies and other groups. It offers trips where you can be matched with another single, or in some cases can take a trip and have a room to yourself without paying a single supplement, the bane of solo travelers.
Trips offered in this network are a Spanish Adventure for Singles 50+ in January, with no single supplement charge, another titled Discover the Real India, one for Tunisia, a Vietnam Multisport trip and New Zealand Biking.
A service based in the United Kingdom for single travelers worldwide is Solos, www.solosholidays.co.uk. This option is for those who are not in a committed relationship; unattached singles only, whether widowed, separated, divorced or simply not in a relationship. Tours are organized by age group. There is one set of tours for ages 25 to 45, another for those 30 to 59 and another for anyone over 45. On longer trips, ages may be mixed. The normal size for one of the groups is 15 to 25 travelers.
Prices are based on a single room with private bath and most of their trips have no single supplement. Sometimes, if you have to share a room it will reduce the price. Find the kind of trip you want by entering type, month, year or a search word. Most trips leave from the UK, so factor that into the cost. Click on Special Offers to find some unusual places, such as Simply Solo's Hurghada, which is in Egypt, on the Red Sea.
In print
Whether you are traveling the world alone or with someone, you may want to prepare yourself health-wise by getting a copy of the "CDC Health Information for International Travel 2008" volume, edited by Paul Arguin, Phyllis Kozarsky and Christie Reed, published by Mosby at $24.95.
For many years, this resource, known as "The Yellow Book," was only available to doctors, but now we all can get a copy and become informed about such things as which destinations require which malarial preventive.
More minor problems are also covered, including how to deal with jet lag and how to avoid food poisoning.