my solo travel spiel (ft. Sartre)

posted mar 2026

I travel solo a bunch! I’ve done this since ~2018? And I still love it!

Sometimes, people considering their own solo travel ask me about it. Since ~2023 I’ve usually replied with a short spiel consisting of a barrage of excitement and then a pretty strong warning. Here is that spiel.

Jean-Paul Sartre’s No Exit contains the famous phrase “Hell is other people”.

It’s an oft-misunderstood phrase¹, and I think that:

• a correct interpretation succinctly explains why I enjoy solo travel
• a rejection of a common cliché misinterpretation explains what I warn people about solo travel

why i like solo travel

Hell is other people is supposed to mean that others can trap us inside their view of who we are. We are cognizant of others’ presence, we rely on them to define who we are, and thus any decision we make or action we take always “prices in” being seen by others (and our priors of their priors of us).

To be clear, this isn’t a wholly bad thing. We live in a society, crimes are probably on-average bad, and being cognizant of others probably promotes “公德心” and makes you act in a way that’s compatible with society.

But it’s certainly a burden, and one that’s lifted² when you travel solo.

You can wake up as early or as late as you want. You can be as price-sensitive as you want to be. You can skip whatever must-do activities or spend as much time on some random thing as you want.

Beyond the freedom to control your itinerary, you can also simply be different sans judgement. I think a corollary of Sartre’s idea is that we can be trapped in different self-definitions when “seen” by different groups of people³. So choose a new you each trip! Go be super smiley, or artsy, or complimentary, or whatever you want to be!

A common rebuttal is that plenty of people can be really easy-going. I counter-claim that even if I’m travelling with a friend who guarantees that they’d say “yes” to exactly everything I’d want to do, the things I’d propose we do would heavily “price in” my opinions of their preferences.

but it can be isolating, so ramp up ~slowly

A common cliché misreading of Hell is other people is that it just means that other people suck, or that the ideal human life would contain fewer humans in it.

I certainly personally disagree! My life is far more whole and joyful because I get to live it with all the people around me at all degrees of closeness.

And you might disagree too! In which case, you should be warned that solo travel can feel incredibly isolating. You can (and probably will!) go days without having an actual conversation. Especially if you’re in a country where you don’t speak the language⁴ or if you’re doing hikey adventurey things, you can probably genuinely say <10 words in a day.

It’s totally fine if you discover that solo travel isn’t for you! But I think it’s useful to make the process of finding out cheaper (financially, emotionally, etc.). Plenty of my friends have been excited about the prospect of solo travel, then booked O(weeks) duration trips as their first taste, only to cut it short and pay for an earlier flight back.

This often kinda sucks. I think it sucks less if you make your first trip smaller and easier. Go somewhere “easy” and conventionally-touristy for 3 days!

This is framed as a warning for people who might be overly-optimistic about solo travel. But I think it applies to people who might be overly-pessimistic too! Give it a cheap try, and maybe you’ll discover you like it.

I certainly didn’t have a crazy strong a priori understanding that I’d enjoy travelling solo (and the first times I did it were ~circumstantial / for ~school). I think it’s kinda hard to figure out if you’re comfortable with this kind of isolation without actually trying solo travel⁵, so go forth!