TRAVEL LONELIER

JACK IN THE COMPANY AND GO ON YOUR JONES

There are lots of reasons not to travel on your own. You might have no-one to chat to at meal times. You might have a lot of time with your own thoughts. You might get lost. Then again, there are the upsides: you might have no-one to chat to at meal times. You might have a lot of time with your own thoughts. You might get lost. In the age of connectivity, travelling by yourself is the ultimate switch-off, the purest way to immerse yourself in the here and now; to use the eyes, ears, mouth and nose your makers gave you, and not just the pads of your thumbs. This could be a grand, outdoorsy adventure — try a safari at Natural Selection’s new base in Namibia’s

Nkasa Rupara National Park (naturalselection.travel), or the newly opened section of California’s Pacific Crest Trail through the Sierra Nevada mountain range (pcta.org), or even a sea-kayaking adventure on Naerøyfjord in Norway (muchbetteradventures.com) — but don’t underestimate the joys of being solo in an unfamiliar city, either — where you can meditate on the universe without giving up any mod-cons. Try Porto (the new Lisbon!), Hamburg (the new Berlin!), Edmonton (the new Toronto!), or Seoul (still Seoul!) and if you can, skip a few time zones. Also, post this out-of-office response: “I am away.

See you when I get back.” Do not apologise.