How to Avoid the "Table for One" When Travelling Solo

Ask solo travellers what they dread and it is rarely the flights or the maps — it is dinner. The "table for one", night after night, is the single most-cited reason people put off going alone. The good news: it is also the easiest thing to design out of a holiday.

Why the solo dinner feels hard

Breakfast and lunch are easy alone — a coffee, a book, no fuss. Dinner is the sociable meal, the one we associate with company, so eating it by yourself is where the "I'm on my own" feeling lands hardest. Solve the evenings and you solve most of solo travel.

The ways to avoid it

• Choose catered and communal, not self-catering. A house where everyone eats together at a set time takes the decision — and the dread — away entirely.
• Pick small over large. One table of a few people beats a hotel restaurant of murmuring couples.
• Go where a host does the introductions. It is far easier to join a table someone has warmed up for you.

How it works at Casa Agara

There is one long table, and everyone sits at it. Dinner is home-cooked — often with vegetables from the garden — the house wine and beer are poured, and Rob and María host the evening so conversation starts without you having to. By the second night it is the part of the day you look forward to. The "table for one" simply never happens.

And if I want a quiet night?

That is fine too — nobody is counting heads. But you'll find that the shared dinner, more than anything else, is what turns a solo week into a sociable one.

Never eat alone unless you want to. Tell us your dates and we'll find you a week.