By the beard of Chuck Norris!

Travelling solo has its perks, and yes I do mean besides being able to lounge topless around without the fear that your manboobs will make your travel partner dry retch.

All my previous travel has been done with a travel partner and I’ve enjoyed it immensely and like travelling solo it offers many benefits. It’s always nice to have a friend to share the experiences with and fill your friends in on the small details that you were to drunk to recall (like that girl you were kissing was really a man). Those horrible waiting periods at places like airports are much more bearable with a friend who you can pass the time with by chinese burning and nipple crippling (nipple cripples are strictly guy to guy frolicking and should not be used on female travel partners, chinese burns are acceptable). Accommodation also works out cheaper with a friend as does transport where you can half the fare of a taxi ride.

That being said I’ve decided to kick it solo on this trip for the following reasons.

Decision Making: Planning my day is entirely up to me on the trip, when you’re partnered up decisions must be shared and mutually accepted. This can often cause issues as you might have something in mind that your partner doesn’t, normally this is resolved by doing your separate activities and meeting up after. Problems arise when this starts to happen all the time and you realise that you both had vastly different ideas on what the holiday was about. One of you may enjoy drinking himself impotent late every night on cheap Thai whiskey while your friend likes to sleep early and get up at the crack of dawn to surf. Really it comes down to making sure you and your buddy are travel compatible and don’t take it for granted that just because you’re great friends back home that you’ll be good to travel together. Often friends don’t make good travel partners and I’ve bumped into a few travellers that are barely on speaking terms despite being lifelong friends back home. Pretty tough to check compatibility though prior to the trip as you’ll be in a vastly different environment but maybe a camping trip together or a nude game of scrabble. Being alone on this trip I can wake up and set my own itinerary and pace and not have to worry that it’s ruining someone else’s holiday. This is a big thing for me as I do like to drink and have a good time and that normally results in a sleep-in/hangover which can really piss off travel mates.

Being a Moron: I can be a moron at times (ok so most of the time) and this tends to cause some headaches for whoever I’m travelling with. For instance last trip after withdrawing some money I forgot to remove my bank-card from the machine and realised a day later and by that time the machine had devoured it. Not content with how high I had set the stupidity bar I then accepted my friend’s offer of borrowing his bank card and transferred all my money into that account. Sure enough the next day I get some money out and leave his card in the machine and it gobbles it up which gave me a delicious serving of Deja Vu. So now I’m in a foreign country with no money in my wallet and no means of getting more. This doesn’t worry me to much as it’s my mistake and I know in the end not to panic as somehow things will get resolved but what worries me is my retarded antics inconveniencing someone else. I don’t mind having to drive to the bank and somehow communicate to them that I need them to crack open the ATM machine and rescue my lonely card/s but I hate someone else having to do this because of me. So on this trip being a retard will only affect me and that’s a good thing…isn’t it?

Makin’ Friends: I feel travelling alone you’re more inclined to socialise, I don’t plan to spend 3 months chatting to myself so travelling solo encourages you to get out there and strike up conversations with strangers. I sometimes worry that I won’t make friends and will end up being a loner crying himself to sleep (kidding) but then I think back on previous trips and recall having many great moments with people I’ve bumped into. Last year myself and another Aussie guy I met wandered the Bali streets on NYE and handed out at least 50-60 bottles of bingtang to the locals and partied hard. I also attempted to swoon a barmaid I met in a bar full of transvestites and we’re still in contact so really I’m worrying about nothing.

Well I think I’ve ranted enough, leave a comment and I'll leave you with a picture of pure genius!