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12 Nights on My Own and Looking for Human Interaction

Posted by (Oregon) on

I'm beginning my first solo trip to Europe (I travel in the U.S. solo regularly) just before spending three weeks in Toledo, Andalusia, and Madrid with my husband.

Alone, I'll have five nights in Segovia, two in Salamanca , and four in Caceres. With the exception of the first jet lagged day, I'll have a car. The plan is to day trip mostly. I will be visiting Segovia with my husband as a day trip from Madrid, so I will save all but walking around town for that.

I paint, and I want to visit a number of smaller towns, hike, etc, for sketching and photographing with an eye for later painting. But twelve nights is a lot of alone time. Ideally, I'd like to find three or four evening/night time activities with other people. I'm up for concerts, but that's not going to take care of too much alone time as it won't involve conversation. Any suggestions? Tours in small groups? I'd be happy just to have dinner with an English speaking fellow tourist.

My dates are: Segovia April 10th-14th, Salamanca 15th-16th, Caceres 17th-20th. Provided you don't mind my making photos and sketches a priority (you can go anywhere you like), I'd be happy to treat a fellow traveler to transport there and back on one of my day trips. PM me if you are going to cross my path and would like a day out or a dinner companion.

Posted by
2527 posts

Just strike up conversations with tourists and locals alike. You'll get an idea if people want to chat early on or wish you to go away.

Posted by
650 posts

Bruce, that's an excellent suggestion, and I plan on doing that. But I'm looking at fail safe more structured activities. I realize that I'm going to smaller places, and it just may not be possible.

Posted by
4105 posts

Your best bet might be to check with the tourist offices as your first stop in town. They may be able to set you up with a local.

Posted by
650 posts

Gerri, have you tried that? In past trips, we've enjoyed talking to locals, but only briefly in commercial transactions, except about Trump this last 2016 trip before he got the Republican nomination. Those conversations were started by expats, conductors, waiters, metro personnel, clerks, and even IT people. They were curious and we had no real answers. We got asked about him in Barcelona a week ago, but those conversations were less curious and more accusatory. We still didn't have any good answers, They didn't want to talk about Catalonian independence any more than we wanted to talk Trump. That despite all the Catalan flags we saw. Oh, and in Prague, we got little mini lectures on the fly from locals in support of architecture. That was lovely, but not companionable.

Posted by
425 posts

A food tour might be a lot of fun and a way to interact with others. Devour Tours is who I used in Madrid, but I'm sure you could find other good companies for Segovia, etc.

Posted by
650 posts

slws, The problem is I'm not finding tours in Segovia etc, except day trips from Madrid and not food based. I realize the problem may be that where I will be is too small for evening tours.

Posted by
4154 posts

I didn't look at this in any detail, but Eatwith seems to have lots of options for Spain. I did this one night in Rome and it was a very enjoyable.

It looks like there are some walking food tours, too. There are probably many more. I also did one like these in Rome.

Both my experiences were great for spending some time with other people. My dinner and walking tour were targeted toward English speakers. Not all participants were native English speakers, but that made the experiences all the more interesting.

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