Solo travel, from 40 interviewees who went alone.

Forty of our interviewees filed their trip as a solo one. Twenty-nine of them were women. The most common surprise was not safety, it was scheduling: the third day alone in a new city is the hardest, not the first. This page aggregates what the interviewees actually did, where they stayed, how they budgeted, and what they wished they had known.

Where our solo interviewees went

Lisbon and Porto led (eight interviewees). Oaxaca and Mexico City followed (six). Kyoto, Ljubljana, and Chiang Mai each had three or more. Two interviewees who traveled to Cairo alone reported it as the trip they were most cautious planning; both said in retrospect the caution was warranted for the first two days and unnecessary after that.

Aggregate budgets

Median solo budget across the corpus: $110 per day including accommodation. Range: $34 (Chiang Mai, hostel dorm, street food) to $310 (Tokyo, mid-tier ryokan). The cost driver is accommodation choice, not activity choice.