HAPPENINGS
PRIME – August 2014
AGAWAM
SUMMERFEST CONCERTS
The Agawam Cultural Council will host Ray Guillemette Jr. in...
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Stigma Falls for Single Traveler
PRIME – August 2014
By Debbie Gardner
debbieg@thereminder.com
Seeing the world solo.
There was a time when that phrase might have conjured up images of backpack-toting 20-somethings or the book-reading table for one at a resort cafe.
Oh, how things have changed.
Today's solo traveler is part of a very diverse demographic. He or she might be a single 20 or 30-something looking for an adventure, a married middle-ager pursuing a passion, or a widowed boomer or elder with the time and the means to indulge his or her wanderlust.
In 2012, more than 35 million adults traveled solo, according to statistics cited by Camille Olevere, vice president of sales, Americas, Norwegian Cruise Line, in an article that ran that year on the travel industry website, Travel Age West.
And Norwegian Cruise Line isn't the only company in the travel industry measuring this trend. From cruise ships to booking agents to bloggers, the solo traveler is starting to attract a lot of notice.
So, if you've been considering going it alone on your next vacation, this might just be the time.
It's come a long way
When Janice Waugh, a Toronto-born travel blogger and author of the "Solo Traveler's Handbook, typed "solo travel" into the search engine of her computer on a dreary Saturday afternoon in February of 2008, she said she was dismayed by the results.
What came up were a lot of sites offering to "get singles together, and a lot of ads," she said. "They were not in any way encouraging [and] did...
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