Travelling solo is, ironically, the least lonely way to travel

This is a big call, but I think Frank from Finland is the most interesting person I’ve ever met on a train. With long dark hair and beard, and a serene smile, this gently spoken stocky young bloke is seated diagonally opposite me in the first class carriage of the Berlin to Krakow express. Not only is he from Finland – somewhere I haven’t yet been – but he’s from a tiny village way up above the Arctic Circle near the border with Norway. And his mother is Sami, from the First Nations people of the far north. We have plenty to talk about, as the Polish forests zip past.

It helps that first-class seating on this train is set within compartments, which have two rows of three seats facing each other; the layout is almost an invitation to talk. And talk I do, not just to Frank but to JJ and Jennifer from the US, who are sitting directly opposite on the window side. With them, I chat about American politics and voting systems and our travel experiences in general, and we realise we’ll likely be meeting again in Krakow on the same vodka tour. Later in the journey Luis and Laura from Brazil take these seats (they have a reservation), and I’m able to gauge the South American take on Central Europe.

This isn’t the first time I’ve been chatting with strangers on this Eurail train trek, which will eventually take me from London to Istanbul. The free-flowing conversation and air of goodwill backs up an unexpected observation I’ve made along the way: that I don’t feel at all lonely while travelling by myself.

That seems counter-intuitive, in that you’d assume solo travel was the loneliest form of travel, and that travelling with a partner or friend would be the most sociable way to go. However, I’ve discovered that travelling by yourself might actually be more social than travelling with someone else.

How do I make that out? Through experience.

Every day of the six weeks of travel from London to Istanbul, I speak to people. Sometimes there are conversations with waiters and hotel staff that range beyond the transactions in hand, but frequently I have long chatty conversations with fellow travellers, often aboard trains.

The Corona sleeper train journey from Budapest, Hungary, to Brasov, Romania, for example, offers fine opportunities for discussion, given its over 15 hours’ duration and its old-school dining car. While enjoying a leisurely dinner of goulash soup and pork ragu as the Hungarian landscape passes by, I strike up an enjoyable conversation with the inevitable fellow Australians (hi Noel and Robyn from Newcastle) at a nearby table.

Nothing stops you talking to other people when travelling with a partner, of course. But there is something about travelling as a couple that creates an insulated environment: you can often solve problems between the two of you rather than asking for help, you can mind each other’s luggage, and you don’t feel such a pressing need to socialise as does the solo traveller.

I’ve certainly felt that pressure on the road this year, so I talk to anyone and everyone, notching up many enjoyable chats with locals and fellow travellers. On reflection, I suspect I feel more vulnerable on my own, and therefore more in need of social interaction. Thinking it over, that’s not a bad thing – it forces you to make contact. Craggy castles, dazzling art treasures and grand museums are all well and good, but in the end making connections is what travel is all about.

The writer travelled courtesy of Eurail, Visit Berlin, Visit Malopolska, and Small Luxury Hotels of the World.