Women are packing their bags and exploring the world by themselves. Solo travel can be a great time for introspection too.
She aimlessly sauntered the steep winding roads pausing every now and then to window-shop as she pleased. Taking in the cold mountain air of Mussoorie, she stopped for a cup of piping hot tea and spent hours talking to the locals about everything and nothing in particular. But what Rachna Mushran, 38, savoured most during her trip to the picturesque hill town was the pleasure of being anonymous and being able to do her own thing.
"You can follow your own agenda. You need not get out of bed if you don't want to. Solo travel is so much fun because, if only for a few days, you can be completely who you want to be - adventurous, carefree and totally at ease," she says.
A study by Eastern Michigan University reveals that an increasing number of women are travelling alone for leisure. The study came up with five motivational dimensions for women who travel alone - experience, escape, relaxation, social, and self-esteem.
Shweta Vepa, 24, recently went to Kovalam all by herself. Her motivation? Relaxation. "We are constantly thinking about this and that everyday. My trip was so much fun because I just didn't want to think about anything. I stayed at a star hotel, got pampered and came away completely relaxed." For her, it was a relief to be on her own and to "tune off".
But not all solo women travellers are looking for frothy fun. Some women also travel to get some distance from life to put it in better perspective. Solo travel often offers the luxury of deep thought, which can seem like a long forgotten pleasure in the daily grind that is life. It can be an intimate conversation with the self without having to answer the doorbell or lay the table for dinner. Even if you don't end up figuring out who you really are towards the end of the trip, you still would have had a great time.
Australian Taree Booth, 29 and a single mother, left her eight-year-old son back home to backpack all over Italy. "My son was top priority for so many years. I craved to be by myself and do something for myself. So I decided to go to another country," she said. A study by Southern Cross University, titled Meaningful travel: women, independent travel and the search for self and meaning, showed that the tourism experience incorporates more than just physical travel to a place. It can also involve spiritual elements, psychological and physical benefits, altruism, self-development, and life-change. And of course, the door of a holiday romance is always open.
But to be able to travel solo, women should be comfortable with themselves.
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