The life of a solo traveler can feel isolating at times, and even lonely. The challenge is to enrich the experience by balancing the solitude (which I actually love and don’t mind most of the time) with connections with others. I do this in a variety of ways, some more successful than others, as you will see.

The Rarity of Solo Travelers

I’m not talking about business travel, where solo travel is probably the norm. I’m talking about traveling for pleasure. Camping trips. Fishing trips. Hunting trips. Road trips or flying or sightseeing trips to far off places. Vacations. I’m sure there are many people who do travel alone (and I’m a member of some FaceBook groups targeting those people, so I know they are out there). But on this trip I seem to be the exception and not the rule. Everywhere I go I see primarily couples, older or younger, some with young children, others in groups of couples or families. Over the three weeks I’ve been traveling I have yet to see an obvious single woman (or man) at any of the campsites when I have been out biking or walking around. In restaurants, museums, tourist sites, and the like, the same is true. Couples, families, groups of men or women, but very rarely someone clearly alone.

The one exception to that was when I was at the Driftwood Inn on Bailey Island. The Inn has a restaurant that serves breakfast and dinner and I decided to partake of both (as a reward for surviving all that rain in the previous days…). At breakfast I noticed an older woman (like me) sitting at the table next to me. We weren’t facing each other and both of us enjoyed our coffee and beautiful views out the windows in contemplative silence. I was looking all around the room and out the windows and taking everything in. I noticed she did not look around at all, and barely looked out the window. She ate her breakfast and left soon after.

Over the course of the day I thought about her and decided it was a missed opportunity to make a connection. I resolved to invite her to join me for dinner if she made another appearance. I went to dinner at the appointed hour (they ring a bell at 6pm to let all the guests know it’s time for dinner. There is only one service, guests having put in their orders ahead of time). A few minutes after I was seated the same woman came in and was seated again at the table next to mine. I looked for an opening to make eye contact, smile at her or say something, but she didn’t look at anyone in the room. Just sat there facing the window. Didn’t order a drink. Didn’t order dessert. Didn’t look around. Ate her meal and left.

Conversations with Strangers

After reading the above you are probably thinking that I’m going about my travels in relative silence and not engaging with anyone along the way (other than the occasional meet-up that I’ve already described in other articles). You would be wrong. That would be very isolating and not in a good way. Engaging with strangers here and there is actually very easy, and also very rewarding. I’m convinced that all humans crave and need connection with other humans, so it is important to work those opportunities into the solo traveling experience. Here are some examples from the first three weeks:

I’m so glad I did. As I was looking at her art and prints scattered about we struck up a conversation. I knew I wanted to buy one of her small prints but was having trouble picking one out. As we chatted she told me about her art and the Giclée technique for making the prints (a printing technique I was totally unfamiliar with). I kept circling around her tables picking up one print and then another. Finally, I asked her to pick one out for me that represented the island and scenery that so mesmerized me. By that time she knew I was staying at the Driftwood Inn, which is located very near the Giant’s Stairs, a local destination on the island. The print she chose is in the photograph and depicts a scene near the Stairs where I went walking several times while on the island. What a treasure! She has led a very interesting life and our conversation lasted well over an hour and long after I had paid for my print.

As I waited for my order, I asked about the pictures, assuming they were members of the family who had owned this restaurant going back generations. But no. Turns out that this “Wall of Grandmothers” first existed at a different well-known, popular restaurant somewhere else in Saint John. When the restaurant became a casualty of the pandemic and folded, the owners decided they couldn’t destroy the legacy of these pictures, added so lovingly to the wall during the years of the restaurant’s operation. So they were offered to the owner of Slocum and Ferris, who was very happy to have a place to display them for all to see. I sat eating my lunch at one of the tables right next to the pictures, and enjoyed imagining all these grandmothers living their full lives as young women, girls, mothers and finally grandmothers.

So as you can see, I am having great fun meeting new people through various casual encounters. If I hadn’t been camping, if I hadn’t been out riding my bike or taking a walk, or taking a ferry ride, or any number of other mundane activities, my life would not have been enriched by these interesting individuals. Most of them I will never see again, but the memories will linger.