Rolling solo: You and the road

By Mark Sedenquist

Travel columnist

Updated: 11:22 a.m. ET June 19, 2007

Mark Sedenquist Travel columnist • Profile • E-mail

For many people, a road trip is a group adventure — a family expedition or a bunch of friends hitting the highway for a holiday. For others, the appeal of the open road is that it offers solitude, a time to think without having to accommodate anyone else. If you're one of these just-me-and-my-car types, there's no better time than summer to hit the road.

A solo road trip gives the traveler absolute power, the opportunity to control every aspect of the trip. Of course, one choice is to control nothing at all, to simply let the direction and events of a day dictate where the traveler goes and what happens as a result. Whatever the traveler's style, there's only one person to please — and one person to take the blame when things go wrong. For some, this is daunting. For others, it's road-trip nirvana.

Popular literature usually portrays young men as solo road trippers, but the majority of solo rollers I know are women. I have been responding to requests for travel advice through my Web site, RoadTripAmerica.com, for 11 years, and in my experience, far greater numbers of women, both young and old, hit the road solo. It's an equal-opportunity adventure.

There are some obvious advantages to road tripping alone:

1. There won't be any arguments about which shock-jock radio station to listen to or what kind of music to play.

2. You can sleep in or you can get up before dawn — and you don't have to wait for the shower.

3. You can get to know other travelers whom you might not even notice if you were traveling with others.

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4. You can "think out loud" and say things that you would never say in the company of any other living person. In fact, you can do just about anything you want in the confines of your vehicle (hopefully in a safe and sane manner).

5. You can choose the level of planning and routing for your road trip. I frequently advise first-time solo adventurers to choose a route without plotting a strict itinerary. Even if the end date is fixed, a solo road tripper can enjoy the luxury of changing plans along the way.

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6. You get to be a "renegade" if you want to be. As a travel columnist, I make my living providing clear, concise and (hopefully) good advice, but when I am on a solo road trip, I frequently break one or more of the "rules," usually the one about telling someone where I am planning to go. I trust that my expertise and the hundreds of thousands of successfully completed road-trip miles will contribute to a satisfactory completion of my adventure. My point is, when you're on a solo trip, you get to make up most of the rules. Embrace your inner renegade — it's good for the soul!

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