How Does the Psychology of Loneliness Affect the Desire to Travel Alone?

Do feelings of loneliness affect an individual’s desire to participate in solo travel? There has been extensive research done on the psychology of loneliness: how it is defined, its effects on a person’s mental health, possible explanations for its causes, and what can be done to resolve the emotion. Regarding solo travel, the act of traveling alone has experienced an immense growth in the past decade. However, there has been little to no research completed regarding an explanation as to why many people still have no desire to travel alone. Do these people typically have a greater sense of loneliness and do the individuals who participate in solo travel typically have a lesser sense of the emotion? In this thesis, I will be discussing the psychology of loneliness, the market for solo travelers, the research that I conducted, and my own personal experience of traveling alone. To conduct my own research, I administered a survey to 106 individuals which questions their degree of loneliness, as measured by the UCLA Loneliness Assessment, their willingness and desire to participate in solo travel, and their personal reasons as to why or why not they would consider traveling alone. As a result of my survey, I found that there is no definite correlation between loneliness and one’s desire to travel alone. However, I was able to make conclusions based on other aspects of the survey which will be discussed within the thesis