Solo Travel Ideas: Best Destinations & How to Start

Solo Travel · 9 min read · Published 2026-03-08

A practical guide to solo travel in 2026 — the ten best destinations for first-time solo trips, plus how to plan, stay safe and meet people on the road.

Solo travel grew faster than any other category in 2025, and 2026 is set to do it again. The reasons are practical: you go where you want, when you want, at the pace that suits you, and you almost always meet more people than you do on a group trip. Here's how to start.

Why solo travel works You don't need to wait for anyone else's diary, budget or interests to align. Decisions get made in seconds. If a place is wonderful, you stay; if it isn't, you leave the next morning. And the often-quoted "loneliness" of solo travel is mostly a myth — solo travellers strike up conversations with each other constantly, and most hostels, walking tours and group activities are populated by people in exactly the same boat.

Best destinations for first-time solo travellers We recommend starting somewhere safe, walkable, English-friendly and well-served by hostels or boutique guesthouses. Our top ten:

### 1. Lisbon, Portugal Friendly, English widely spoken, brilliant hostel scene and walkable from end to end. Possibly the easiest first solo trip in Europe.

### 2. Edinburgh, UK Don't underestimate solo travel inside the UK — Edinburgh in particular is purpose-built for it. Festivals, walking tours and a compact centre.

### 3. Tokyo, Japan The single most solo-friendly city on the planet. Eating alone is normal, public transport is foolproof and safety is exceptional.

### 4. Berlin, Germany Cheaper than London, hostel and coworking culture is huge, and English is the default in most bars and cafés.

### 5. Chiang Mai, Thailand The first stop on most Southeast Asia routes for a reason — affordable, slow-paced, packed with other solo travellers.

### 6. Mexico City Massive, exciting, surprisingly safe in the central neighbourhoods (Roma, Condesa, Polanco). Direct flights from the UK make it realistic for a first long-haul solo trip.

### 7. Budapest, Hungary Cheap, easy, social. Thermal baths and ruin pubs are practically designed to start conversations.

### 8. Bali (Ubud and Canggu) Yoga, coworking, surfing and the strongest "solo traveller community" outside Europe. Easy to extend a one-week trip into a one-month one.

### 9. Vienna, Austria A safer, smaller alternative to Berlin. Coffee-house culture is perfect for slow solo days with a book.

### 10. Reykjavík and the Ring Road, Iceland The road trip almost everyone does at some point. Renting a car solo and driving the Ring Road in 7–10 days is one of the great solo travel experiences.

How to plan your first solo trip 1. **Pick a destination from the list above.** Trying to do somewhere "harder" first time often kills the habit before it starts. 2. **Book the first three nights' accommodation only.** This forces you to commit but leaves room to extend, leave or change cities once you're on the ground. 3. **Stay in a "social" hostel for at least the first night.** Even introverts benefit from breakfast-table chat on day one. 4. **Plan one anchor activity per day.** A walking tour, a cooking class, a museum. The structure prevents the "what do I do today?" paralysis. 5. **Tell someone your rough itinerary.** Share your accommodation address with a friend or family member at home.

Safety basics - Use ride-hailing apps rather than street taxis (Uber, Bolt, Grab depending on country). - Avoid carrying everything in one bag — split cash and cards across two locations. - Photograph your passport details page and email it to yourself. - Keep a paper copy of your accommodation address in case your phone dies. - Trust your gut. If a situation feels off, leave. There's never a good reason to stay.

Meeting people on the road The easiest formats: - **Free walking tours** in any major city. Almost everyone goes alone. - **Hostel pub crawls** if you drink — usually £5–£10 for the night. - **Cooking classes** — almost always full of solo travellers and couples. - **Day tours** to nearby towns or natural sites. - **Coworking spaces** in destinations with a digital nomad scene (Lisbon, Bali, Mexico City, Chiang Mai).

Budgeting for solo travel The single biggest cost difference is accommodation — couples split a room, you don't. To compensate: - **Hostel private rooms** are often half the price of equivalent hotel rooms with a shared lounge to socialise in. - **Apartments via Airbnb or Booking** make sense for stays of a week or more, where the kitchen offsets the higher per-night cost. - **Single supplements on tours** can be brutal — look for tour operators (Intrepid, G Adventures) that waive them or pair you with another solo traveller.

For more on stretching budget, see [How to Travel on a Budget](/travel-guides/how-to-travel-on-a-budget). And if you can't decide where to go, [spin the wheel](/) — solo travel often goes best when you let go of the planning entirely for the first decision.