One of the joys of solo travel, says Rosenbloom, is the chance to be a flâneur, idly strolling around taking in the scenes around you. Rosenbloom makes a good case for going solo, though ultimately it’s down to us all as individuals on how comfortable we feel by ourselves. However, society is often geared to people doing things in groups. As someone who has never had any problem spending time alone, this was not personally much of a revelation. If you’re the kind of person who worries about what others might think if you’re by yourself, then this book will definitely help. If it was good for Michelangelo or Balzac, then surely it’s good for us too? The narrative is very much driven to counter the popular notion that it’s better to do things with other people, not alone. And then there are the references to great artists from each city visited who valued alone time. It’s clear that Rosenbloom did a lot of research for the book, citing various psychological studies on solitude and time alone. Instead, Alone Time is part travelogue, part self-discovery and part discourse on spending time by yourself. So what’s going on? I have to admit I was taken in by the blurb, as the story of a year-long solo trip was something I was keen to read. The fourth city is actually the author’s hometown, and a few short explorations rather than a week exploring it. For starters, rather than a whole year travelling solo, what we have is actually the story of four (well, actually three) one-week trips to different cities in different seasons. However, Alone Time is something altogether different. The story of the author’s year spent travelling solo getting to know the four cities she stayed in well was a compelling proposition. The subtitle, “Four Cities, Four Seasons and the Pleasures of Solitude” beckoned me. With Stephanie Rosenbloom’s Alone Time, I was anticipating a book that would be the second type of travel book. And then, there is the fourth type of travel book, which is the writer’s journey of self-discovery, popularised by the success of Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love. Occasionally, some travel books are a combination of the second and third kinds. The third type is the travel book that gives a lot of insight into the culture and history of a country or region. Then there are the literary travel books that relate the story of an epic journey undertaken by the author. Firstly there are the books that are guides to a particular place, or a ‘how to’ on different aspects of travel. There are typically four types of travel book (and I’m talking books here rather than other types of travel writing).

Alone Time by Stephanie Rosenbloom