In Ålesund, Lena Otterlei is packing for this year’s holiday trip. Lena Otterlei checks the camping equipment before setting off for northern Norway. Photo: Sara Lovise Roaldseth / news The dental health secretary will drive north on holiday to Norway. She is single and used to traveling alone. Since he hopped on a cruise on the Nile in 2006, there have been many exotic destinations. – It’s worth it. To challenge yourself and get out and see different things, she says. In this case, you get travel tips both from Lena (49), who has a permanent job and is established, and Emma (23), who travels while she thinks about what she will study. On the way to Machu Picchu in Peru. Here she is at the Eiffel Tower in Paris. It is rarely difficult to get someone to take a picture of you when you are alone on a trip. No one has run away with either the camera or the mobile phone. Lena Otterlei also likes to pack up the tent and go on a trip. Here she walked the Kongevegen over Filefjell. The trip to Egypt in 2006 was the first holiday trip Lena took on åleine. On a tour of India, there was a trip to the Taj Mahal. It is only when she traveled to India that she has experienced losing her luggage. Lena Otterlei likes to talk about her travels. The experiences have been lined up. She has, among other things, been on a cycling trip in Cuba, a road trip in Iceland and taken the Trans-Siberian railway through Mongolia to China. Lena Otterlei makes photo books when she comes home from travel. They are nice to pull out and look at between holiday trips. Photo: Sara Lovise Roaldseth / news Some trips have been group trips. Other trips have been entirely on my own. – After the first time it went well, and then it went well the second time too. Then there was no reason to stop travelling. Lena Otterlei recommends others who want to go on holiday, even if they are single, to jump into it. She clearly thinks it’s an advantage to enjoy being in your own company, but has also met new friends with whom she is still in contact while travelling. Photo: Sara Lovise Roaldseth / news – There is something about it when you travel alone, then you are a little more concentrated. You get a little more familiar with things before you travel and you are more attentive during the trip, she says. Her experience is that it goes well. – The most important thing is that I am not dependent on others to travel out and experience what I want to experience. Lena’s best tips for traveling alone Find out what you want. There are many different trips, both domestically and abroad. Dare to try! Book a group trip the first few times. Preferably together with a small group. There will be a completely different atmosphere in small travel groups, Lena believes. Well small intimate hotels. Then you come into contact with other people more easily. Also with those who work there. Do they make the grip that makes you feel safe on your trip. Whether it’s having extra money in your own pocket, or whether it’s having frequent contact with those at home. Well always own room. Although it is more expensive, Lena likes to be able to retire in the evening and have some private time. If you feel safe enough, try traveling completely on your own. Then you are not dependent on anyone else. It’s just asking people if you wonder about something. If you don’t know how to order a train ticket, ask. People usually help, is Lena’s experience. Do you want to travel for longer periods? Emma (23) does. Her best tips can be found further down in the article. Think more people travel alone Veronica Blumenthal is a tourism researcher at the Institute of Transport Economics. She says that the booking agents booking.com and Tripadvisor report that solo travel is increasing in popularity. Photo: Nils Kare Nesvold Veronica Blumenthal, tourism researcher at the Institute of Transport Economics, believes that more people travel alone without having specific figures to show. – More and more of us live alone, which often leads to more of us also traveling alone. She points to several advantages of that. Among other things, it can be easier to travel in high season if you are alone. – It can be easier to find a place in a dormitory for one person than for a larger traveling party. The same applies to finding tickets for performances or getting a place on organized tours. One of the disadvantages she points out is that it can be more difficult to remember the trip. – You can tell friends and family about it, but you have no one to share it with you, she says. The travel company TUI sees that more people like to travel alone. Read what tour operators say here: Travel company about those who travel alone Wenche Samuelsen is the day-to-day manager of the travel company Carpe Diem, which specializes in single travel. They make group tours for people who travel alone and have many regular customers. What is new this year is that they have more new customers, and that they are younger, says Samuelsen. – It is very exciting, says Samuelsen. The travel company TUI sees that more people like to travel alone. In the last year, single trips have increased by 30 per cent, says communications consultant Anne Mørk-Løwengreen. – The desire to travel is at an all-time high among Norwegians in general, and there is a lower threshold for traveling alone. It is not always easy to get time off from work or other obligations at the same time as a friend or loved one, explains Mørk-Løwengren. Travel company Ving states that approx. 5 percent of the trips they have sold in recent years are to people traveling alone. – There are many people who live alone and who also go on holiday alone, but there are also those who are in family and couple relationships who want to spend some time for themselves on a holiday. This applies both to sun and bathing destinations, as well as trips to various big cities, writes Marie-Anne Zachrisson in an e-mail to news. Has traveled for the last two years Emma Heggdal Brevik is only visiting Molde to work and earn some money. Ideally, she would like to travel, for example back to this beach in Valencia in Spain. Photo: Privat In Molde, Emma Heggdal Brevik (23) has just returned home from a trip. In August, he travels again. And she also travels alone. – It is such a great experience, says the 23-year-old. She started traveling when the choice of study was not entirely to her liking. Together with two other friends, she traveled for three months around Australia, Indonesia and Thailand. She was bitten by the travel bug and wanted to travel more, but the traveling party had no chance. Instead of scrapping her travel plans, she decided to go on a trip alone. Emma Heggdal Brevik asked herself: If I don’t do it now, when will I have time to do it? And then she left. Photo: Private – Why not? I just have to throw myself into it, she thought, and book a trip to South America. On the plane she wondered what she had gotten herself into, but she consoled herself with the fact that she could only go home if it got too bad. – I tried to be a bit confident and push myself to go outside my comfort zone. There are many things that can go wrong, but if I only have to think about those things, I won’t get anywhere. So I just had to try to think positively, she says. She was surprised at how quickly she came into contact with others. – Most of the other people I met also traveled alone, she says. The picture is from Sugarloaf mountain in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. The trip added more flavor. Emma Heggdal Brevik says that of course she feels lonely in some places, but then she just moves on. Photo: Privat Sidan has been in both Spain, France, Greece, Albania and North Macedonia. She has only been around for short periods to work. The trip has made her feel much more confident in herself. – It gives a lot of self-confidence that one was able to navigate alone through a country far away where both the language and the culture are completely different. You get a big boost. If you come across a small bump in the road, you know you’ll be able to get on no matter what, she says. Emma’s best tips for traveling alone Push yourself to dry. When Emma ordered a ticket for her first eel trip, she thought it was really scary. But already on day two she met others who traveled alone and who told how well it had gone. It helped, Emma remembers. Find new ways to travel. Emma Brevik quickly realized that it was going to be expensive to travel as much as she wanted. That is why she has combined traveling with work. She has worked both at a hostel and as a volunteer, including at a center for homeless cats. When she works as a volunteer, she uses little money. Then she lives for free, and often gets part of the food for free. Use apps actively. Emma has used many apps that have helped her both in finding work and places to volunteer. In addition, they have made it easier to get in touch with others when travelling. She has used an app just to get in touch with other women who are on tour. She recommends it if you are afraid of ending up in uncomfortable situations. Stay in a hostel. The 23-year-old always lives in a hostel, preferably in a dormitory. There she easily comes into contact with others. Take a short walk at the start if you are unsure. Emma suggests that you can choose to go on a trip to Oslo or Sweden if you don’t feel safe enough to go far at the start. Here is Emma Heggdal Brevik on the mountain Morro do Pai Inácio in the national park Chapada Diamantina in Brazil. There were not all places in Brazil where she felt completely safe alone. Then she changed her plans and traveled on. Photo: Private Emma Heggdal Brevik does not know how long she will continue the journey. She has given herself at least one more year, even if she feels some pressure that she should start studying. – But right now I’m in the travel bubble, that’s what I want to do, she says. There are many people who voluntarily go on holiday without a travel companion. See reportage here. Published 11.07.2024, at 18.47 Updated 11.07.2024, at 19.47
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Lena Otterlei and Emma Heggdal Brevik give tips for traveling alone – news Møre og Romsdal – Local news, TV and radio
