The A-Z of Solo Female Travel: N is for Nightlife

Ah, here we go again. Another installment of The A-Z of Solo Female Travel that I know virtually nothing about! I don’t drink and my nights are generally packed with getting home from something Guiding-related at quarter to ten and promptly jumping in the bath. But let’s give it a go!

Nightlife is a big thing for many travellers, especially the younger ones. What’s the point of going somewhere if you don’t go to a pub, club or Full Moon party and drink until you pass out? Maybe you’ve even chosen your destination on the grounds of cheap alcohol. I personally think cheap alcohol probably isn’t such a bargain if you’ve had to pay for a flight to the other side of the world to get at it but if you’re after sun and adventure and you’re heading roughly in that direction, fine. It doesn’t hurt to have cheap alcohol as a bonus.

I think I have three things to say on the subject of nightlife.

Stay safe

A slightly blurry long-exposure picture of me standing on the streets of Reykjavik in the dark. In fact, being winter, this is only 7 or 8pm.

First and foremost, stay safe. This is all exactly the same as at home – don’t get drunk alone, don’t leave your drink unattended, make sure you always have a way of getting home etc. But being away from home will bring up extra complications in those things. If you’re travelling solo, you may not have a buddy to get drunk with. I’d highly, highly recommend you make a friend before you go out and get hammered. Find someone in your hostel, someone on a day trip, just make a friend. This is for your own safety. Get that friend – who you trust – to look after your drink if you have to leave it at any point. And as for getting home, when you’re tipsy, you might find you can’t remember the name of your accommodation, you can’t remember where it is or how to get there and you can’t explain to a taxi driver where you want to be taken. If your accommodation has a card, put it in your wallet. Otherwise, have the name and address – in the local alphabet as well as your own – either in your phone or preferably on a piece of paper that you can hand to someone.

Maybe you’ll meet someone at the bar, club or party. Maybe you want to go back to their accommodation – or take them back to yours. I’m not going to say don’t do this but be careful. Be careful, of course, with leaving public places with a stranger. Make sure someone knows where you’re going, have an escape plan (that trusted friend who will phone with a “sudden emergency” at your signal), know when to change your mind and pick someone who will let you change your mind. At the first sign of pushiness or of not listening when you say no, you turn and run.

But also be careful of potential disease and pregnancy when you get wherever you’re going. Condoms are your best friend, they really are. Keep a few in your wash bag or your first aid kit or in your bag when you go out and make sure they’re in date and in good condition. If it’s been in your wallet, folded and refolded for several years, I almost guarantee it’s going to break. Be aware that running to the nearest pharmacy in the morning for emergency contraception may not be a possibility and won’t protect against infection anyway.

Mind your possessions too. Try to leave everything possible safely back at your accommodation – the less you’re carrying, the less you’ve got to lose or get stolen. Remember those pre-loaded payment cards I talked about last time? Take one of them out with you. You don’t want to lose the card that’s linked directly to your bank account. Better to lose just the card that you transferred £50 onto earlier. If you can manage to leave your phone behind too, great. Anything you do take, keep in a secure pocket, preferably with a zip, or in some kind of hidden storage under your clothes or at least in a crossbody bag with a zip = harder to quickly slide off your shoulder and run off with.

Try to make it a part of your trip

A tiny bottle of Brennivin, a traditional Icelandic spirit, among my rock collection.

By that, I mean see if you can make nights out lean more towards the cultural than merely getting as drunk as possible as cheaply as possible. Make it an experience, one you can only have in this location. Make it more than a cheaper, hotter version of what you’d have at home.

For example, what’s the local drink? Try brennivín in Iceland or pisco sours in Peru and Chile or Lao khao in Thailand. Is there a ritual? Is there a food to eat with it? Food plus alcohol is always a good idea. Is there an event? An occasion? In other words, is there anything you can do to make your night out unique to your trip?

Can you find out more about the drink by doing a tour of the place where it’s made or where the ingredients are grown? Plenty of places do brewery tours and vineyard tours. Learn about it, consider it, go home with it as something you understand and appreciate rather than merely a thing that left you with a hangover and a bit of a gap in your memory.

Have fun

A tall decorative glass on a copper table in a bar in Reykjavik. The glass contains Coca-Cola, I'm afraid.

It’s so easy to just warn you off all the dangers, just like your parents do the first time you bring up the subject of travelling solo. And just like when you first start thinking about it, think about the fun you’ll have as well as all the dire things that can happen. Wear the neon face paints or the sequin jacket, drink the sweet colourful cocktails that come in buckets, make friends, laugh wildly with your existing friends, feel the music deep in your soul and if your memory of the exact details is a bit patchy, you and your possessions have got home safely and you’ll have the memory of it at least being a that happened that you enjoyed.