Dining Alone While Travelling: The Most Underrated Joy of Solo Travel

Window bench at one of my favourite Melbourne cafes - The Quarter, Degraves Street.

The short version

• Dining alone isn't lonely. Once you've done it a few times, it becomes one of the best parts of travelling solo.

• Start with breakfast. It's the most forgiving meal of the day, and the best way to watch a city wake up.

• Window benches, hotel club lounges, and hotel lobbies are the three places that make eating alone feel easy.

• A buffet breakfast is a solo traveller's secret weapon. (More on Alice Cooper in a minute.)

• Bring a journal or a Kindle if you want to. Or don't. Sit with your thoughts.

• It's like a muscle. The more you do it, the easier it gets.

Let's get one thing out of the way.

Most women I talk to say the part of solo travel that worries them most isn't the airport.

It isn't the hotel.

It isn't even getting on the plane.

It's the first time they have to walk into a restaurant on their own.

That tiny knot in the stomach. The voice in the back of the head asking, "Will they think I'm sad?

Will they wonder why I'm by myself?"

I've heard it hundreds of times.

And here's what I'll tell you, the same thing the women who've travelled solo for years will tell you: dining alone isn't the hard part of solo travel.

It's one of the best parts.

The industry has trained us to think of a table for one as a problem to solve.

A pity seat.

Something to apologise for.

It's not.

It's a front-row seat.

To the food.

To the place.

To the rhythm of a city you don't yet understand. To yourself.

According to our research, people who travel solo aren't looking for sightseeing. They're looking for experiences that mean something.

And one of the most meaningful things you can do, sitting in a café or at a bar in a city you didn't know last week, is just be there.

Eat.

Watch.

Think.

Sometimes the table for one is where the real shift happens.

Start with breakfast (and yes, the buffet counts)

If you're easing into eating alone, start with breakfast. It's the most forgiving meal of the day. There's movement. People are coming and going.

Nobody's lingering. Nobody's looking. There's no expectation to sit still for an hour with nothing to do.

And if you're staying somewhere with a proper buffet, even better.

A buffet is a solo traveller's best friend.

You're never really sitting down.

You're up at the egg station, then the coffee, then the pastries, then back for fruit.

You're cruising the room. You're not "dining alone." You're moving through the experience.

Some of my best buffet breakfasts have been on the road on my own.

One in particular sticks with me.

QT Hotel, Canberra.

I was at the egg station, asking for poached, when I looked across and realised the bloke standing next to me waiting on his omelette was Alice Cooper.

Yes. That Alice Cooper.

If you're a Gen Xer, you'll know what happened next.

I had a full Wayne's World moment.

I'm not worthy. I'm not worthy.

He said good morning. I said something that probably wasn't a real word. He moved on with his omelette to the smoked salmon.

That's a story I would never have if I'd been waiting for someone to come down to breakfast with me.

The whole point of a buffet, when you're solo, is that you're free.

You eat what you want.

You go back as many times as you want.

You leave when you want.

And every now and then, you bump into Alice Cooper.

You can't script that.

The crack-of-sparrow café

I'm an early riser when I travel.

So if you're the same, this section is for you.

If you're a sleeper-inner — fair enough. Skip ahead. No judgement.

Here's the thing I've learned about cities.

There's a window of time, before most travellers have even thought about getting up, when a place shows you who it really is.

I'm talking crack-of-sparrow early.

That's when I'm out the door looking for somewhere that's just opened.

The chairs are still being put down. The barista is firing up the machine — that first hit of coffee in the air that hasn't been wasted on anyone yet.

Locals are folding open the paper.

A few people in suits are getting their flat whites to go.

A street cleaner is finishing up before the foot traffic starts.

This is the city without the show.

Not the influencer version.

Not the tour-bus version.

The real one.

You see the rubbish trucks doing their rounds.

The bakers carrying trays out the back of restaurants.

The salt-of-the-earth crew that makes the whole place actually function.

And the suits — the city VIPs, heading off to whatever it is they do.

I love watching how people dress for work in a city. You can tell more about a place from twenty minutes of morning foot traffic than from an entire afternoon of sightseeing.

I'll sit at the window for an hour or more with coffee and local breakfast and watch the whole thing unfold.

You're not just visiting a place when you do this.

You're starting to understand it.

One of my favourite spots for the morning ritual in Melbourne is The Quarter on Degraves Street in Melbourne. Window bench.

Flat white. People in their work clothes cutting through the laneway. I could stay there half a day.

That's the deepest kind of local immersion you can have.

The small, unscripted moments that make you feel like you belong somewhere you've never been before.

The window bench (and why I always look for one)

There's a small thing I do when I'm choosing where to eat alone, anywhere in the world.

I walk past until I find a window bench.

That's it. That's the whole trick.

I don't book. I don't ring ahead. I'll walk down a street and look in.

If a café or restaurant has a bench seat at the window, I'll go in. If it doesn't, I'll keep walking. (Sounds picky, but you can't assume — plenty of nice places don't have one.

The good news is when you start looking, you'll see them everywhere.)

From the outside, it looks like a seat choice. From the inside, it changes everything.

You're not facing an empty chair. You're facing a city.

A mother walking her child to school.

A market stall opening up.

A waiter setting tables across the road.

The slow choreography of a place doing its thing.

The women I've interviewed talk about their "window moments" all the time. Grounding rituals, they call them.

They don't want to be parked in the middle of a room surrounded by couples and big groups.

They want a corner.

A window.

A bar seat.

Somewhere they can just be.

One woman put it like this:

"Sometimes I just want to sit with a coffee and just be."

Same.

It's not about being seen.

It's about seeing.

Yes, you can do fine dining for one

Let's get something else out of the way.

You don't have to give up the good restaurants because you're travelling alone.

I'm a foodie. I'm not missing out on a great meal because there's nobody to split the wine with.

The first time I went to Supernormal in Melbourne by myself, I just walked in.

I almost didn't, to be honest. Big shared plates, busy room, no booking — I assumed it would be awkward.

But I walked in anyway.

The maître d' looked at me, looked at the menu, and said, "If you'd like to try a few things, we can do any of our shared plates as 'for one' portions. Would you like the window bench?"

Done.

I sat at the window. I ordered four things I would never have got to try if I'd had to compromise with someone.

The staff topped up my wine. I watched Flinders Lane do its thing.

I've been back many times since. With friends. With family. On my own. The food and the service is that good.

Here's the thing nobody tells you.

A lot of restaurants will adapt their menus for solo diners if you ask.

Half-serves.

Tasting flights.

Smaller versions of multi-course menus.

Some chefs love it when someone shows up alone wanting to try as much as possible. They take it as a compliment.

You're not missing out by being solo.

You're getting more of the menu, not less.

(Side note — there is no way I am missing the cheese tasting at Ashgrove in Tasmania just because I happen to be on my own that day. Absolutely not. The cheese is too good.)

There is no way I am missing out on a cheese tasting at Ashgrove.

My best-kept secret: the hotel club lounge

Now we're getting into the good stuff.

If I had to give you one piece of advice that would change how you eat alone on the road, it would be this.

Look at the club lounge.

Not the restaurant. Not the bar. The club floor.

Most people scroll past it because the room rate looks more expensive at first glance.

But once you do the maths on what you'd actually spend on food, drinks, snacks and an evening glass of wine, it starts to look very different.

Here's what most club lounges include:

• A proper breakfast (not a pastry and a juice — a real one, often as good as the main restaurant)

• All-day tea, coffee, soft drinks and snacks

• An evening "canapés and drinks" hour, usually between 5 and 7

• Wine, beer, spirits, sometimes cocktails

• A nice space to sit during the day if you just want to put your feet up

Stack that up against breakfast out, two coffees somewhere, a glass of wine and a plate of something before dinner — and you're roughly even on price. Sometimes ahead.

And that's before you factor in the part you can't really put a price on.

You have somewhere to go.

That's the thing solo travellers don't realise they need until they have it.

A space where the staff start to recognise you.

Where you don't have to walk in cold and ask for a table for one.

Where you can sit, journal, work, or rest your feet without buying something to justify being there.

It becomes your home base.

My favourite is the club lounge at Shangri-La Sydney.

It's not a token offering. The breakfast is genuinely beautiful. The evening canapés are substantial enough that you don't really need to go out for dinner.

And the view — this is probably the best view you'll ever have in Sydney. Harbour, Opera House, Bridge, the lot.

Eating breakfast up there feels a bit ridiculous in the best possible way.

The staff look after solo guests beautifully too — there are a lot of business travellers up there, so they're well practised at looking after people who are on their own.

I've stayed there many times. On some trips I've barely left the building for a meal and not felt like I missed a thing.

A few other club lounges I've loved in Australia and beyond:

• Dorsett Gold Coast — a great club, easy to settle into for a few days

• Pullman Melbourne — comfortable, reliable, well looked after

• Hyatt Regency Hua Hin in Thailand — this one's a treat. Private pool inside the club spaces, satay stations, a whole spread you don't really get elsewhere

If you're nervous about eating alone in a new city, a hotel with a club lounge is one of the easiest places in the world to start.

"Meeting other travellers in those spaces makes me feel part of something bigger."

That's how one of our research respondents described it. And it lines up with what I've seen myself, over and over.

https://youtu.be/wetsZdZUbWw

The other secret: the hotel lobby (yes, even if you're not staying there)

Here's something a lot of people don't know.

You don't have to be a guest of a hotel to sit in its lobby.

I'm telling you this from years of doing exactly that.

You can stay at the two-star up the road and spend your evening with a glass of wine in the lobby of one of the most beautiful hotels in the city. Nobody is going to ask you for a room number. Nobody minds.

A great hotel lobby is one of the best places in the world to eat or drink alone. Here's why.

Lobbies are designed for movement.

People arriving with luggage.

People meeting each other for drinks.

Couples planning their evening.

Business travellers tapping away on laptops.

Other solos doing exactly what you're doing — just being part of the world.

You're never the only person sitting there on your own.

Most lobbies have a light snack menu.

A few small plates.

A cocktail list.

Wine by the glass.

Non-alcoholic options that are actually good now, finally.

You find a tucked-away armchair. You order one drink. And you watch the city move through the room.

For people who like a bit of anonymity with their connection — that mix of being in the world without being on display — this is the sweet spot.

Sometimes I'll strike up a conversation. Sometimes I won't.

That's the magic of a hotel lobby. You connect by choice.

I'm always happy to be a barfly.

Pick a city, find a hotel you've always liked the look of, walk in like you belong there.

Because you do.

A book, a Kindle, or just your thoughts

I usually take a journal when I dine alone.

Not as a shield. As something to do with my hands while I think.

I'll jot down what I see.

What I smelt walking in.

What the woman at the next table is wearing.

The thing the waiter said that made me laugh.

The way the light was hitting the wine glass.

These are the things I want to remember about a trip.

Not the postcard-version bits. The ordinary, sensory ones.

Sometimes I'll read on my Kindle instead. It's lighter to carry. Although I still love the weight of a real book — there's something about a paperback at a café table that a Kindle hasn't quite cracked.

In our research, women told us over and over that reading or writing while eating alone wasn't them hiding.

It was them enjoying it.

One woman said:

"I love sitting by myself with a meal and my thoughts. It's where I realise how far I've come."

That line gets me every time.

For some women, the moment everything shifts happens at the top of a mountain trail.

For a lot of others, it happens over a bowl of risotto and a glass of red.

A table to yourself, in a city you didn't know a week ago, with food you didn't have to negotiate over — it's a small thing that turns into a big thing.

It's how you reconnect. Not with other people.

With the version of yourself you've spent years looking after everyone else for.

The community table (only if you want it)

A lot of restaurants now have community tables. Long shared setups where strangers end up next to each other.

If you're in the mood for a chat, they're great.

If you're not, sit at one anyway.

Nobody is going to force you into a conversation.

A woman in our research summed it up:

"I love meeting new people. I just don't want to be forced into it."

A smile is enough.

If something happens, it happens.

A comment about the wine.

A "what did you order?" Some of the best dinners I've had on the road have started this way.

But here's the thing.

Belonging doesn't require a conversation.

It comes from being comfortable in your own skin while life moves around you.

Tips for dining solo (the actually useful ones)

• Start with breakfast or a café. Easier than dinner. Less expectation. More movement.

• Walk past until you find a window bench, a bar seat, or a corner. Don't sit in the middle of the room if you don't have to.

• Walk in. You don't always need to book. Tell the maître d' you're solo and ask what they recommend — half the time they'll offer something better than you would have ordered.

• For the restaurants you really want to try, ask if they'll do their shared plates as half-serves or "for one" portions. Most will, happily.

• Look at the hotel club lounge option when you book. Do the maths. They're often better value than they look — and they give you somewhere to go all day.

  
  

• Use hotel lobbies as your "safe room" in any new city. Even ones you're not staying at.

• Bring a journal or a Kindle if you want to. Not as a shield. As company.

• Order the wine you want. Not the cheapest one. You're the only person you have to please.

• Treat yourself to fine dining for one at least once on a trip. Tell the chef you're solo. Watch what happens.

• And one more — give it a couple of tries. The first meal alone is the awkward one. The second is fine. By the third, you're hooked.

Each meal is a small act of self-trust.

A table for one is never empty

Here's what I've learned after years of eating alone in cities all over the world.

A table for one is never actually empty.

You've got the food.

The place.

The people moving past.

The waiter who ends up telling you the restaurant's story and possibly her life.

The woman at the next table reading a novel you've now added to your list.

The barman who tops you up before you ask.

And you've got yourself.

The version of yourself who showed up.

Who got on the plane.

Who walked in alone.

Who ordered the good wine.

That's not nobody.

That's everybody you need.

"I went alone — and I came home stronger."

That's what one of our travellers said to me, and I think about it all the time. Because it's not just about the meal. It's about what the meal represents.

You don't need company to belong somewhere.

You just need to show up.

So if you're travelling solo, book the table.

Sit by the window.

Order something you'd never order at home.

Watch the city wake up, or wind down, around you.

And know that you're part of all of it.

That's not aloneness.

That's the muscle of solo travel — the one that grows every single time you use it.

That's the joy.

FAQs: Dining alone when you travel

1. How do I get over feeling self-conscious about dining alone?

Start with breakfast or a café, not a fancy dinner. Choose a window bench, a bar seat, or a corner — somewhere you're not parked in the middle of a busy room. Bring something to do with your hands if you want to (a journal, a Kindle, a notebook). And remember: nobody is looking at you. Everyone in there is focused on their own meal, their own conversation, their own phone. Give it three meals. By the third, you'll wonder what you were ever worried about.

2. Is it safe to eat out alone at night when I'm travelling?

Yes — with the same common sense you'd use anywhere. Stick to well-lit, busy venues near where you're staying. Hotel restaurants and hotel lobby bars are excellent if you want to feel completely at ease. If you're not sure about an area, ask the front desk where they'd send their mum. (They'll tell you the truth.)

3. What should I bring with me when I dine alone?

A journal or a Kindle, if you like having something on the table. Some women I've interviewed don't bring anything and prefer to just watch and think. Both are fine. The point isn't to look busy — it's to enjoy yourself. Do whatever feels good.

4. Can I really go to fine dining restaurants alone?

Yes, and they often look after solo diners better than couples. Ring ahead. Tell them you're solo. Ask about half-portions of shared plates, tasting flights, or smaller versions of multi-course menus. A good restaurant will say yes happily — and often seat you somewhere with a view as a thank-you for the booking.

5. Are hotel club lounges actually worth it for solo travellers?

In my experience, yes — and they're often the best-value upgrade you can make. You get breakfast, all-day snacks and drinks, and an evening canapés and drinks hour. Add up what you'd otherwise spend on those things outside the hotel and you're often even or ahead. The bigger benefit is that you have a comfortable, familiar space to come back to all day, where the staff know you. For solo travellers, that matters more than people realise.

6. What's the easiest way to meet people while dining alone?

Sit at a community table or a bar seat. Make eye contact with the staff — bartenders especially. Order something a bit unusual and someone will ask about it. But don't force it. The best connections on the road happen when you're not chasing them.

7. Why do experienced solo travellers actually love dining alone?

Because once you've done it a few times, you realise it gives you something you don't get any other way. Time. Space. No compromise on what you order or how long you take. A direct line to the place you're in. And a chance to sit with yourself — the version of yourself who got on the plane in the first place. That's a luxury most people in their everyday life don't get. Travelling solo gives it back to you.

If this is something you've been wanting to do — solo travel, or just having the confidence to walk into a restaurant on your own — I'd love to know where you are in the journey.

Reply and tell me. I read every email. bron@solotravelcollective.com

Happy travels,

Bron

P.S. The next time you book a hotel, take five minutes and look at the club lounge option. I'm telling you. It changes the whole trip. And if you bump into Alice Cooper at the egg station — try to come up with something better to say than I did.