'Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter," wrote Izaak Walton, author of The Compleat Angler, after what was presumably a very sociable fishing expedition.
Other well-known travellers would no doubt agree: Samuel Johnson and David Livingstone both famously enjoyed the benefits of companionship on the road.
Today, Britain has 15.4 million single travellers - up from 9.6 million a decade ago - and while some happily embark on trips by themselves, most still prefer the security, companionship and economy of travelling with someone else.
Until recently, if friends or family didn't share your interests, it meant signing up to a singles' holiday, joining an agency or cruise, or posting an advertisement in a newspaper or magazine such as The Spectator.
But as people began to book their holidays at the last minute, this process became outdated. Something quicker and more efficient was needed, and it was only a matter of time before the internet came to the rescue. Travel networking was born.
Social networking sites such as MySpace, which allow like-minded people to meet and chat over the web, have been big news for a couple of years. What's new is that travellers have joined the party.
In the past year, about 25 internet-based clubs have been set up with the sole aim of introducing holidaymakers to each other and helping them meet people local to an area they want to visit.
The advantage is that instead of being confined to a four-line advertisement or an agency's questionnaire, travellers have entire pages to themselves - a kind of cyber CV - on which to post photographs, list their favourite destinations, their likes and dislikes and describe the kind of companion they are looking for.
On some sites, such as MySpace's travel arm (www.myspace.com/roaminggnome), launched in April, you can even post your home videos. People simply contact those who share their interests and weed out the rest.
If you are a single traveller, the chances are there's something for you. High society? Asmallworld.net is an exclusive, invitation-only club whose members are rumoured to include Naomi Campbell, Paris Hilton and Quentin Tarantino. Pensioner? Retiredbackpackers.com hooks up adventurous oldies. If you're looking for love, Travelhotties.com cuts to the chase, matching people looking for romance, while Welcometraveller.com connects people with local hosts.
There's no need to worry about your street cred, either. "A few years ago there was a stigma attached to meeting someone on the web, but now it's normal to be looking for a travel companion online," says Tom Hall of Lonely Planet, whose Thorn Tree website was one of the first to connect travellers.
How much time you spend with your fellow traveller is up to you: you can search for someone to join you on a gap year, or for a local to meet for a drink and a dose of insider knowledge. You don't even have to meet. Many people just exchange tips by email.
There are, or course, risks associated with meeting people over the web. Information is rarely checked, and the person in the flesh can vary wildly from a persona that has been crafted over a keyboard. But for the most part, communication is friendly and horror stories tend to be more of the "we didn't get on" variety rather than anything sinister.
According to Christine Davies, a former producer of the BBC's Holiday programme who set up a travel-networking site, the Thelma and Louise Club, after searching for a companion herself, the chances of getting on with someone you meet in cyberspace are about 60 per cent.
"It's a spin of the roulette wheel, but when it works, it really works," she says.
Her company boasts dozens of success stories, including that of Chris Baker, a recently retired pharmaceuticals manager from Perth, Scotland, who went on a two-and-a-half week holiday to South Africa earlier this year with a woman she met on the site.
"I love travelling and have reasonable funds to do it in luxury, so I was looking for someone in a similar position,'' she said.
''Jill and I both had a burning desire to go to South Africa, so we did, and had a super time. We went diamond shopping, ate in lovely restaurants and went to wildlife reserves. We got on really well, with no cross words, and spent 90 per cent of the time together. We'd both be happy to travel together again."
Travelchums.com, one of America's biggest travel networking clubs, has had its share of successes too, and its first marriage. Its home page is crammed with endorsements from customers, including a pair who got on so well they wrote: "We are twins separated at birth." So, is travel networking really a land of limitless potential? What would happen if a thirtysomething like me tried to find a companion? Armed with my dream holiday itinerary, I log on to find out.
I choose Davies's Thelma and Louise Club, set up for women looking for companionship. Named after the 1991 film starring Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis, it's aimed at adventurous women of all ages, although most members are between 40 and 65. Britons make up the majority, but Americans, Europeans and Asians are there too.
As well as connecting single travellers, the club, which is free to join, organises regular group holidays, from trekking in Nepal and cruises round the Caribbean to shopping excursions and city breaks. Road trips are on the itinerary, but the Grand Canyon, scene of Thelma and Louise's famous cliff exit, is not. "It would be tempting fate," says Christine.
I plug my details into the four-page questionnaire and upload my photograph. Application approved and profile page set up, I am free to start searching. They are a mixed bunch: intrepid backpackers seeking like-minded companions, young career women, housewives with busy husbands, and young-at-heart pensioners. Scrolling through them is like browsing through a mail-order catalogue, only instead of buying some CDs I'm shopping for a travel buddy.
To refine my search - the club has 4,000 members - I use the automatic matching service, which links people with similar requirements. It throws up 24 potential travel companions. I decide to poke six of them - not a literal poke, of course, but a virtual one, the cyber equivalent of a friendly hello. Of the three who reply, one can make the same dates as me.
Her login name is Flying Solo. She looks nice. From her profile page, I learn that she is a university educated, 31-year-old living in north London, a social drinker and non-smoker. She lists her hobbies as sightseeing, clubbing, food and outdoor sports.
New to the UK, she has written in her "further information" box: "Looking to meet interesting, fun, adventurous types." Ditto.
After exchanging a few emails, Flying Solo and I agree to meet in IRL - cyber speak for "in real life". It's awkward at first, and feels peculiarly seedy. Why am I meeting a strange woman in a Soho bar on a Friday night?
But I soon get over it. She is a high-profile entrepreneur, articulate, cultured and well-travelled. We talk about our holiday successes and disasters, our likes and dislikes. She has a self-confident air and our discussions are frank and open. "I think we are reading from the same page," she tells me at the end of the evening, and we agree to give travelling together a go.
Back home, a Google search reveals she was recently ranked one of the world's most powerful young businesswomen.
Read more
No comments:
Post a Comment