If you’re looking for a beach adventure, look past the honeymoon- and family-focused all-inclusive resorts that line the Caribbean coast of the Yucatán Peninsula, aka the Riviera Maya, and make your base the bustling town of Playa del Carmen. It has its own beach and also offers quick trips via ferry to Cozumel to snorkel the Mesoamerican Reef.
By night, Playa, as it is called, offers loads of entertainment, including open-air restaurants, beachfront dance clubs and shops lining the pedestrian-only Quinta Avenida that stay open late.
Accommodations run from thrifty off-the-beach inns to grand beachfront resorts. Travelers bound for the Riviera Maya fly through Cancún, where the average ticket from the United States is down 12 percent over last year, to $310 round-trip, according to the airfare prediction app Hopper.
Dublin
In about the same time it takes to fly from New York to Los Angeles, you could be tipping a Guinness in Ireland instead.
“Dublin is perfect for first-time solo travelers,” said Robert Firpo-Cappiello, editor-in-chief of Budget Travel, a digital magazine, in an email. “It is a quick flight, English is spoken everywhere, the city is easily navigable and the locals are incredibly welcoming and helpful.”
The Irish famously love their pubs, and no one will look sideways at a single traveler at Davy Byrnes, where the fictional Leopold Bloom of James Joyce’s “Ulysses” drank. Tours abound; see the city the sporty way with Sight Jogging Dublin Tours.
Thailand
It’s far and the language is indecipherable to many, but Thailand bundles unique culture, beautiful beaches and great value.
In Southeast Asia in general, Firpo-Cappiello said, “the travel infrastructure is very solid, and many of our readers have reported that they had an easy time getting around, meeting other solo travelers, and that English was spoken widely.”
Bangkok is a natural starting point and the gateway to the beaches to the south or hill country to the north. The nation’s affordability is a big draw.
“It is really inexpensive, so you can stay in luxury hotels for less than $50 a night as well as bungalows on the beach,” said Lisa Imogen Eldridge, who blogs about solo travel at GirlabouttheGlobe, in an email. “Street food is fantastic and is less than $2 for fresh pad thai.”
Vancouver, British Columbia
The favorable exchange — $1 gets you 1.33 Canadian — is a strong argument for visiting Canada. With its relaxed West Coast vibe, diverse population, temperate climate and accessibility to natural attractions, Vancouver might be the country’s most solo-friendly city.
For sporty types, Vancouver has a temperate rain forest within city limits in Stanley Park. Or you can hike the Grouse Grind path up nearby Grouse Mountain.
The city’s food scene draws on the bounty of the Pacific Ocean and the province’s eastern Okanagan wine country. Do a DIY progressive feast at the Granville Island Public Market, or hit trendy Yaletown and emerging Gastown for everything from oyster bars to a First Nations teahouse.
Iceland
For adventure travelers, Iceland offers rugged mountain hikes, thermal pools and whale watching. While Reykjavik can be expensive, getting there is not. Wow Air, an Iceland-based carrier, offers free stopovers on flights between North America and Europe, so you can combine it with a Dublin trip for around $400 from Boston.
“Iceland is one of my favorite countries for solo travelers,” said Matt Kepnes, who blogs about travel at Nomadic Matt, in an email. “The locals are really friendly and welcoming to outsiders” and, he added, “it’s the safest country in the world so you don’t have to worry about crime.”
Bonus Suggestion: Group Tours for Single Adventurers
Some trips — an African safari, for example, or the Inca Trail in Peru — are harder to do on your own. Geckos Adventures is offering guided tours for 18-to-29-year-olds in exotic locales at relatively affordable prices.
A nine-day safari in Zimbabwe and South Africa, for example, starts at $915. The company says most of its guests are solo travelers, and it commonly pairs them with same-sex roommates; if you require a single room, expect to pay a single supplement ($170 in the case of the African safari).