The Solo Travel Reset: How a Week in the Same Place Changes the Trip

Most people can’t even imagine how tiring solo traveling can be. Although every day of a trip looks the same and seems to have plenty of energy, in reality every single trip, especially long ones, have an enormous load of fatigue that just waits for the right moment to strike. Often it’s a tiny incident that is enough to exhaust the traveler. For example, a delayed flight, an unpleasant conversation with locals, or just a really bad night of sleep.

I have always tried to plan in order to manage travel fatigue. A long while ago I began to plan in for a ‘reset’. Over the years the amount of time for this has varied. However, for a long time now a planned in one week reset in the middle of a long solo trip has been by far the most effective method I have found for combating and managing both mental and physical fatigue. This article is for people considering similar long solo travel. Here we will take a look at why a planned in one week reset in the middle of your trip is ideal, we will then take a look at some possible places where you might like to base yourself for such a ‘reset’. After that we will consider the possible things that you will be doing whilst at your ‘reset’ location. Book early.

Why one week, not three days

We add weeks to our itinerary for all sorts of reasons, but three or four days is the absolute minimum required to recover from anything, and the body and mind will simply return to their usual state of fatigue long before then. Two weeks of ‘rest’ becomes a completely different sort of trip in itself, so for most people one week is just right.

Day 3 marks when the body starts to slow down, day 4 is when your mind starts to catch up and finally on day 5 the real rest begins. Seven days later and you are ready to hit the road again. Testing this out for yourself will prove that this is in fact the case.

Where to do the reset

The location of your reset is also crucial for your overall travel experience. Your reset location should have:

Affordable accommodation. That you can comfortably stay in for a week. A small apartment with a kitchen, for example. A short walk from the place you are staying to some affordable cafes and a small general market. The area has to be small enough, so that the traveler knows it right away and can orient himself or herself without too much effort. And the less decisions the traveler has to make during his or her reset, the better. This is also the reason for choosing a place that the traveler has already been to. Some local shops or stores (even a market). Some natural beauty within walking distance.

Places to avoid are Major Capital Cities with too much going on on a constant basis, Small Towns with not enough going on, and places where you do not speak the local language.

Local guidebooks and travel-writers often offer their favorite ‘relaxation’ locations, only to be utterly wrong when I explore the place in more deeply. I recently asked a local guide at such a place for his favorite places to relax in the area. His recommendations were entirely at odds with the guidebooks.

What to do during the week

A Reset Week is NOT a Sight Seeing Trip. The following are the activities that you can do during a Reset Week:

The same morning walk to the same cafe. Reading for hours in the afternoon. A long lunch you take time over. Cooking some meals in the apartment. Writing in a notebook, slowly, across multiple sessions. A daily nap if your body wants one. One small daily exercise. Long phone calls with people at home. Going to bed early.

The middle of the week

After the middle of the reset week, around days four and five of a 7-day sojourn, I find that the obligations to see everything to do everything have passed. Now the obligations of ‘life’ have taken over. Hours are spent reading, lengthy hours of reading in the same location; long leisurely lunches where one has time to catch up on reading of one’s own. Time in the kitchen to prepare some of one’s own meals, writing in one’s own notebook and taking plenty of time to get it all down – and reading in between sessions; naps that the body had been needing all along; daily stretches of only one exercise, to restore balance, not to get in shape. Long phone calls with loved ones from afar; to bed very early in order to get to it all the next day.

This is the critical part of your trip. After the reset, your trip will be traveling at a much slower pace, allowing for all of the previous experiences to ‘settle’ in your brain and make sense of it all. As a result, decisions as to where you need to be on your trip will become so much clearer.

In fact, most of my best trip decisions have been made during my reset weeks. I have made decisions on how to change the itinerary of my trip, whether to extend my trip or to return home early. All of these decisions have been made after I have returned to full functioning capacity after my reset week.

The cost

The cost of a “reset week” as I call it (around 40 hours or so of travel time plus the price of your accommodation) is far less than the cost of your time and the stress of traveling while being tired, which translates into poor travel decisions resulting in cutting your trip short. A monthly rate for accommodation in moderately priced places works out to $30-40 per night.

When to schedule the reset

40 to 60%. That is the ideal time for a reset, when you are 40% of the way through a 10-week-long trip and have 60% of the time left, which would be around the 4th and 5th week of your trip. For a 6-week trip, that would be the 3rd week, for a 12-week trip it would be around the 6th and 7th week.

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The summary

One week of doing almost nothing in the middle of a long trip is the most under-rated structure I have found for traveling long distances. Try and build a reset week into your next long trip. The week will repay itself many times over.

The Logistics of Going Alone

Solo travel rewards more upfront planning than group travel, because there is no travel partner to share decisions with while on the road. If arriving in a new destination alone, having pre-booked your first night’s accommodation, having advised someone at home of your itinerary, and having basic knowledge of where you are are all crucial to mitigate arrival stress.

The Social Question

Traveling alone does not mean to travel without people. Most solo travelers have many great experiences meeting other travelers as well as locals. There are many hostels with common areas where travelers can meet and many activities, walking tours and cooking classes where solo travelers can meet others with similar interest.

The Safety Layer

Preparation for safety on a solo trip is pretty simple and goes a long way to prevent any problems. For example, sharing detailed itineraries, knowing the local emergency numbers and embassy contact details, having physical and digital copies of important documents, and generally having your wits about you and trusting your instincts when things start to go pear-shaped.

The Takeaway

Solo travel can lead to the most personally significant travel of your life. Yes, there is a great deal of planning involved for solo travel and a great deal of emotional work but the reward is confidence in your ability to travel anywhere and deal with any situation and that is transferable to group travel, enhancing your experience of it.