Eating alone
What would eating alone feel like?
Your Next Chapter • Tools & Experiments
No one to go with?
You do not have to start with a flight.
Small experiments to find out what solo travel actually feels like for you.
A 33-page interactive workbook for people who want to travel and are not yet sure how they would feel going alone.
Sophia Husbands
Maybe there's somewhere you keep thinking about
A city you keep looking up. A beach you have saved on your phone. A trip you have mentioned more than once.
You would love to go, but the person you hoped would come cannot make it. Maybe they are not as interested as you are, or life has changed and the person you once imagined travelling with is no longer part of the picture. So you start wondering whether you could go on your own.
The evenings
What would I do in the evening?
Feeling lonely
Would I feel lonely, and would everybody notice I was by myself?
Regret
What if I booked the whole thing and wished I had not gone?
You do not have to work all of that out in your head. Booking an entire holiday is a rather expensive way to find out.
Your first solo travel experiment does not need a passport
Most travel advice starts once you have already decided to go. Where to stay, what to pack, what to see, how to get around.
This comes before the itinerary.
You are not trying to recreate a holiday close to home. You are testing one part of solo travel at a time. If eating alone is what bothers you, try lunch on your own. If evenings are the part you are unsure about, try an early dinner or a cinema trip somewhere familiar. You might start with a coffee, a class, an afternoon somewhere new, or a few hours doing your own thing during a trip with somebody else.
Table for one
Have lunch on your own somewhere familiar.
The evening question
Try an early dinner or a cinema trip by yourself.
Somewhere new
Spend an afternoon in a nearby town, a class or a café.
Inside a shared trip
Take a few hours doing your own thing on a holiday with somebody else.
Then notice what happened. What felt easier than you expected, what felt awkward, and what would you like to try next?
A smaller experiment gives you something that thinking about it cannot: your own experience.
I tested Liverpool before committing to three months there
I was going to be based in Liverpool for three months for work. I had never been there and knew nobody, so a week beforehand I drove up alone to see how the city felt.
I was apprehensive. I even considered driving home rather than staying overnight, but I had packed an overnight bag so I could decide once I arrived. I gave the weekend a few anchors: serviced apartment viewings, a curry, the docks and the Beatles Museum.
And I stayed. Not just the night. I spent the next three months there, trying life in three different parts of the city to find out which suited me.
That weekend did not tell me everything. It gave me enough real experience to decide what I wanted to do next.
You can test solo travel without taking a solo trip
One of my favourite solo travel memories happened on a holiday that was not actually solo. Years ago I went to Manhattan with a friend and her mother in law. On the final morning, before I flew home, I went off on my own for a few hours.
I jumped on the subway, wandered around flea markets, haggled, chatted to people and had a brilliant time. It became one of the highlights of the whole trip.
You do not have to book an entire holiday alone to find out what it feels like to make the decisions yourself. Sometimes a morning is enough to teach you something.
I am not going to pretend solo travel feels wonderfully free every minute
I have felt lonely while travelling alone. There have been moments when I wished somebody familiar were there. The feeling did not define the whole trip.
Being alone and feeling lonely can overlap, but they are not the same experience. I have had solo days that felt peaceful and solo moments when I missed company. Neither one tells me everything about whether I enjoy travelling alone.
Before you decide, find out what is actually making you hesitate
"Solo travel is not for me" can hide several very different concerns. Maybe it is eating alone, or evenings, or personal safety, cost, finding your way around somewhere unfamiliar, or becoming ill when nobody familiar is nearby.
Those concerns do not all need the same response. Some things you can test close to home, some need preparation, and others need proper research before you decide.
The workbook helps you pull those worries apart and ask what exactly you are concerned might happen, what you can find out first, what you could test closer to home, and what would help you feel more prepared.
A concern does not automatically mean do not go. It is information.
Find out before you commit.
Test parts of solo travel before spending hundreds on the full trip.
Turn a vague hesitation into something you can test.
Instead of ‘I am not sure I could travel alone', work out whether it is dinner, evenings, navigation, safety, loneliness or something else.
Make your next decision using your own evidence.
Finish with real experiences to draw on, not another month of wondering what it might be like.
You may already do more on your own than you think
A commute. An appointment. Sitting in a café. Driving somewhere unfamiliar. Wandering off to a market or museum for an hour while travelling with other people. Those experiences count too.
One of my closest friendships began on a flight while I was travelling for work. I briefly looked at my iPad, then looked up, noticed the woman beside me was wearing a scarf I liked and told her. We started talking, and that conversation became a friendship. We later travelled around Europe and the United States together.
Going somewhere on your own does not mean experiencing it in isolation. Sometimes you notice more because you are on your own.
Travel Mode
Plans change
I have a name for the mental shift I make when they do. Travel Mode.
I still plan, but I try not to hold onto the original plan so tightly that I miss the experience I am actually having. A train might be cancelled, the weather might change, somewhere I was excited about might disappoint me. I deal with whatever genuinely needs dealing with, then look up, adjust and see what else is around me.
You will meet Travel Mode properly inside the workbook.
What will you leave with?
By the end of No One To Go With? you will have:
A clearer idea of what is actually making you hesitate.
A shortlist of solo travel experiments that fit you.
One first experiment you are ready to try.
A simple way to reflect on what happened.
More evidence about what travelling alone might look like for you.
There is no promise that you will finish the workbook and decide you are a solo traveller. You may want to do more, you may discover that some parts suit you and others do not, or you might decide that you simply prefer travelling with company.
There is no right result. The point is that you will know more than you did before.
Real pages
A glimpse inside
This is a workbook to use, not just read.
Inside you will find:
- Practical solo experiments starting close to home
- Spaces to write and reflect
- Questions to help you separate different concerns
- A worked example showing how I tested Liverpool
- A reusable reflection page for every experiment you try
- Optional AI prompts if you want help thinking something through
The workbook can help you decide what to try and what to notice afterwards. You still have to go and have the experience for yourself.
This is for you if
- You keep thinking about somewhere you would like to go but do not have anyone to go with.
- You are curious about solo travel and do not want to jump straight from wondering about it to booking a whole holiday.
- You are willing to try something smaller first and use what happens to decide what comes next.
- Or perhaps you have travelled alone once or twice and are still unsure whether you want to do more of it.
This might not be for you yet
If you already travel happily on your own and mainly want itineraries, hotel recommendations, destination guides or packing lists, this probably is not what you need. This workbook comes before that stage.
About
About Sophia
I'm Sophia Husbands, founder of Your Next Chapter.
Solo travel feels normal to me now. It was not always that way. I was apprehensive before my first solo leisure trip, and over time doing things on my own became more familiar. Some became things I actively enjoyed.
I have travelled solo, spent months living abroad, taken solo pockets of time inside shared trips, and had plenty of moments when things did not go according to plan. What I eventually realised was that I did not want to keep missing places I wanted to see simply because nobody else was available to come with me.
I created No One To Go With? for people who are curious enough to find out what going solo might feel like, without having to start with the biggest version of the experiment.
Featured in
ITV • Metro
My experiences around travel and changing direction have been featured in the media, including ITV and Metro.
Get the workbook
No One To Go With?
33-page interactive workbook
- Practical solo experiments starting close to home
- Spaces to write and reflect
- Questions to help you separate different concerns
- A worked example showing how I tested Liverpool
- A reusable reflection page for every experiment you try
- Optional AI prompts if you want help thinking something through
£27
Have a discount code? Add it at checkout.
Interactive PDF, immediate download. Type into the fillable areas or print the pages you would rather complete by hand.
Questions
You do not need to know whether solo travel is for you before you begin.
Your first experiment might be a coffee, a cinema trip, a class, an afternoon somewhere you have been meaning to visit for years, or a few hours to yourself on your next holiday.
Try something. Notice what happens. Then decide what you want to do next.
Give it a go and see what you discover.