Solo(ish) travel in Mexico City

Embracing the middle way. Plus, the best solo travel advice I've ever received.

Solo travel, I’ve learnt, is something of a misnomer. I often think back to the time I was travelling in Florence. Moments before I tucked into a gigantic plate of pasta, I heard a tapping on the glass beside me.

A woman, seated with her husband, was gesturing for me to join them. On that occasion, I politely (and wordlessly) declined, and resumed inhaling my carbohydrates. However, I do think this story is indicative of how, as a party of one, you might often find yourself a lot less alone than anticipated.

Alone, you notice, and are noticeable, to others, in a way that you aren’t when you’re absorbed in the company of friends. You are quite literally facing outwards, unhindered by someone else’s schedule. You can take the time to linger and chat to someone in a coffee shop, or even (as I did on the same trip to Florence) meet at the entrance to a church, where you’re both rejected for failing the dress code – and subsequently spend the day together.

But you don’t need to rely on these chance encounters – which happen, in my experience, when you least expect them, and, occasionally, when you’re least in need of them. I also recognise that, while talking to strangers is a weird flex of mine (I blame my maternal grandma, who modelled this for me growing up), others might regard this notion with a special type of horror reserved for ritualistic folk dance and vegan cheese.

Which is where solo(ish) travel comes in. That’s what I consider myself to be doing right now, as I’m four days in to a trip to Mexico. I did, in a literal sense, come alone, booking a single seat from Heathrow to Mexico City. But this trip is very much solo(ish) – in a literal and virtual sense, supported by others.

For example, during this current phase in Mexico City, I’m staying in an all-female shared dorm at Casa Pancha, a hostel with a packed activities calendar (everything from Mezcal tasting to run clubs), and I’m doing four hours of Spanish every morning in a group of five, with Spanish in the City school. Three days in, sitting down to write this is the most prolonged period of solo time I’ve had yet.

This first week was always going to be of a more sociable flavour – I had planned it that way, choosing my hostel based on the premise I’d meet like-minded patrons (and I was right). For the next part of this trip, when I’ll travel to Oaxaca, things are a little more solo. Having originally booked another dorm, I thought better of it and went for a private room in Selina Oaxaca (I’ve always loved the Selina franchise, having stayed there in Dublin, Barcelona and Tel Aviv). However, I’m already planning ways I might meet others – so I’m taking advantage of the city’s many walking tours (a tried and tested way to meet people, I’ve found in the past) which means I’ll be in company for a least a couple of hours a day.

Then there’s the virtual connections. The Google Maps lists of recommendations I’ve been checking off as I move around the city, for instance. A few of my friends have either been to Mexico City recently, or are planning to go – and I’ve found that sharing these lists helps me feel connected to them from afar.

I used to leave things more to chance on my solo trips – thinking I would, as I did in Florence, likely meet people along the way. Now I’ve realised that I feel better knowing when my social ‘fix’ will come along – I can plan around it, like mealtimes. Although I go through more introverted phases – most of 2024, for instance – and have some very introvert-adjacent habits (namely a writing career, a fiction addiction and a podcast about alone time), I know I am, fundamentally, an extrovert. This means I get demotivated if I don’t have enough social contact on any given day – and so it’s a need I account for, even on a so-called ‘solo’ trip. And I don’t have to choose one or the other. It’s not like it invalidates the solo travel experience if I have communal experiences alongside it.

That said, I have a fairly robust internal barometer for when I need me-time. But I can generally trust myself to honour that instinct – I don’t need to plan for being alone right now, because alone is my default state (obviously, if I were travelling with a friend, partner and/or children, it would be a very different kettle of fish). The social connection I’ve planned into this trip, and will continue to do as I go alone, is the scaffolding in which the sweetness of solitude exists.

The best solo travel advice I’ve ever received

📍 Save every recommendation to a Google Map: If you’re really organised, you could create specific lists like ‘Mexico food’, ‘Mexico parks’ (there are enough of them)

✨ Take a luxury item, just like on Desert Island Discs: This doesn’t necessarily have to be expensive (in fact, it’s probably better if it’s not) but it’s good to take something that feels like a home comfort, whether that’s a pair of silk pyjamas or your favourite face cream.