Some people think that traveling with friends will bring more pleasure for travelers as travelers often have someone to talk with. Other people support the claim that traveling alone is a better choice. The issue is a controversial one but a closer examination reveals that traveling alone can be of a more considerable value for people.
One reason is that people can arrange their trips easily without others. Tasks, such as schedule, means of transportation or food, become much more straightforward for the planner since he does not have to ask opinion from others. All he has to do is to choose the most appropriate and favorite time and things he wants and goes. As a consequence, the traveler will save a lot of time and effort toward preparing for the trip.
Another reason is that traveler can make many friends if he or she travels alone. For instance, when a person tours with his team, he always talks and has fun with his friend and has no time to be aware of people in the new place. Hence, he loses chances to get to know more local people. On the contrary, when he takes a trip by himself, it is likely that he attempts to establish relationship with new people around him. As a result, traveling alone will be opportunities of significant importance for traveler to build up a broader network.
Perhaps the best reason is that by journeying alone, people learn how to react to bad situation. To illustrate this point, let us take my trip as one example. I went to China 2 years ago. As soon as I landed on the country, I felt very hungry and really wanted to buy food while my Chinese was so limited at that time. It was really a major problem for me. However, I learned how to use body language and gesture to make the owner of the restaurant know what I wanted to purchase. If I had gone with my friends, some of them would have helped me to do this with ease. But that time, I had experience to react to unexpected situation in my own way and I really loved my solving problem!
In summary, while there are arguments to be made for both sides of the issue, it is clear that there are much greater advantages for traveling alone. People can easily make arrangement, get to know new people as well as learn to cope with unexpected problem. As a result, people will enjoy their trip in a much more intense feeling.
TOEFL listening discussions: Why may Martha need money?