Choosing Somewhere to Stay When You’re Travelling Alone
Travelling solo gives you the freedom to stop wherever you like, but choosing where to spend the night can feel a little different when there’s nobody beside you to offer a second opinion. Kerri looks at finding places that feel safe, practical and enjoyable, whether you arrive on two wheels or towing a camper.
Choosing somewhere to stay when you’re travelling alone is about finding a place where you feel comfortable enough to settle in and enjoy being there.
Choosing somewhere to stay when travelling solo doesn’t have to be complicated. A few things worth considering include:
- Choose a caravan park, campground or accommodation where you’ll feel comfortable travelling alone.
- For your first few solo trips, consider staying near a town or other travellers rather than heading somewhere completely remote.
- Try to arrive before dark, particularly when visiting somewhere unfamiliar.
- Check practical things such as mobile phone coverage, amenities, security and access before you book.
- Trust your instincts. If a campsite or accommodation doesn’t feel right, there’s nothing wrong with moving on.
- Whether you’re travelling by motorcycle, camper or caravan, choose somewhere that suits your own experience and confidence level.
Campervan parked beneath trees beside the water at an Australian campground
When you’re travelling with somebody else, choosing where to stay can be as simple as finding somewhere that looks nice, has a vacancy and hopefully isn’t next door to a family with six children, a barking dog and a karaoke machine.
Travelling alone makes you look at things a little differently. It doesn’t mean you have to be frightened of every campground, caravan park or country motel you come across. Far from it. But when I’m travelling on my own, I tend to think a little more about where I’m going to spend the night, what the surroundings are like and whether I’m going to feel comfortable once I get there.
First Solo Trips
That was something I learnt through motorcycle touring, and it applies just as much now that I’m travelling with a camper. For your first few solo trips, I think there is a lot to be said for making things easy on yourself.
A caravan park in or near a country town, a well-used campground or accommodation where there are other travellers around can be a much easier introduction to solo travel than disappearing down a dirt track and finding yourself completely alone beside a river somewhere.
There may well come a day when that quiet riverside campsite is exactly what you want. You might even find yourself deliberately searching for somewhere without phone reception, neighbours or anybody playing Cold Chisel through a Bluetooth speaker three sites away. But you don’t have to prove anything on your first trip.
Kerri relaxing outside a motel with two motorcycles during an Australian road trip
Start Somewhere You Feel Comfortable
When I first started travelling independently, I wasn’t looking for the most remote campsite in Australia. I wanted somewhere I could arrive without too much fuss, get myself organised and enjoy being away, and that’s still pretty much how I look at it.
If I’m on the motorcycle, I might be looking for a motel, pub accommodation, a cabin or a campground where I know the bike will be reasonably secure and I can get something to eat without having to carry half a supermarket with me. Motorcycle luggage has an interesting way of making you reconsider what constitutes an essential item. Two pairs of shoes can suddenly seem like outrageous extravagance.
With the camper, my priorities change a little. I need somewhere I can comfortably get into, preferably without having to perform a reversing demonstration for an audience of retired caravan owners sitting under their awnings. If you travel long enough, I’m fairly certain that audience eventually finds you. They don’t necessarily say anything. They just sit there quietly and watch.
The important thing is that the place suits you. Some women will feel perfectly comfortable in a remote free camp from their very first trip, while others will prefer a powered site in a busy caravan park with showers, reception and a café five minutes away.
Neither approach is wrong. Solo travel isn’t a competition to see who can camp the furthest from civilisation. It’s about finding the level you’re comfortable with and building from there.
Kerri standing beside a 4WD and caravan at an Australian caravan park
Trusting Your Gut When You’re Travelling Alone
One of the most useful things I’ve learnt travelling on my own is that if somewhere doesn’t feel right, I don’t have to stay. It might be the campsite itself, the surroundings or simply somebody nearby who makes me uncomfortable. Sometimes you won’t even be able to put your finger on exactly what it is, and that’s okay.
If your instincts are telling you that you’d rather be somewhere else, pack up and go somewhere else. You don’t need to justify the decision to anybody, and there is no trophy awarded for spending the night somewhere you didn’t like simply because you’d already paid $38.
The same applies when you’re travelling by motorcycle and you’ve booked accommodation ahead. If you arrive and the place bears only a passing resemblance to the photographs online, which were apparently taken during its brief golden period in 1987, there is nothing wrong with reconsidering your plans.
I’d rather lose a few dollars and sleep somewhere I feel comfortable than spend eight hours lying awake wondering whether I should have listened to myself in the first place. That isn’t being frightened. It’s simply making your own decisions, and that, after all, is one of the great attractions of travelling solo.
Kerri setting up her campsite beside a 4WD after dark
When the Pub Kitchen Closes Early
One of the simplest things you can do when you’re travelling somewhere new is try to arrive while there’s still plenty of daylight. It isn’t particularly adventurous advice, but neither is trying to find site 47 in the dark while towing a camper through a caravan park that appears to have been laid out by someone using a bowl of spaghetti as a planning diagram.
In daylight, you can have a proper look around, find reception, work out where the amenities are, see where you’re going to park or set up, and get a general feel for the place before settling in.
On the motorcycle, I like arriving with enough time to get the bike parked securely, unload what I need and work out where I’m going to eat before everything in a country town closes for the evening. There is nothing quite like arriving at 7.45 pm and discovering the pub kitchen closed at 7.30.
Arrive Before Dark
With the camper, arriving early gives me time to get set up without feeling rushed. It also means that if the site is awkward, the ground isn’t quite what I expected or I simply decide I’d rather be somewhere else, I still have daylight to do something about it.
Once I’ve stayed somewhere before and know my way around, arriving later doesn’t worry me nearly as much. But when I’m going somewhere unfamiliar, particularly on my own, I would much rather have an hour of daylight I didn’t need than spend twenty minutes driving around in the dark looking for a tiny numbered post hiding behind a hedge.
For me, it isn’t about being nervous. It’s just about making travelling easier, and when you’re travelling solo, making life easy for yourself is generally a pretty good policy.
Cabins in an Australian caravan park with a bush turkey walking past
