Hotel Buffet Communion.

In the morning, when I dress and make my way to the hotel breakfast buffet with the other guests, I notice we are all alike. I study their faces, eyes puffy, faces creased from sleeping too hard or not enough, hair damp and tousled. We don't speak, we don't even speak the same language. We don't try to impress one another.

Some of us behave well, some of us don't, elbowing in to take the last sticky bun or taking too much cheese, surreptitiously building a sandwich for lunch.

I never quite know how to use the coffee machines so prevalent in Europe so I stand too long, hesitating before pushing the buttons, annoying the coffee-starved queue behind me.

No one in the hotel dining room realizes it, but on these mornings when I am far from home, I consider them my traveling family. We are strangers,  but our need is the same and it brings us together: We are hungry. We need caffeine. We are far from home.

Rediscovering the Pleasures of Solo Travel

When I was younger I thought nothing of getting on a plane or train or hopping in my car and heading off to somewhere I'd never been before. And I never minded going alone. But after I married, and then started a family, those solo trips were few and far between. Oh, I got away occasionally, but for the most part, we traveled as a family.

It wasn't until my children grew up and started leaving the nest, and my time was once again my own, that I felt comfortable taking off on my solitary adventures again. And I've discovered I'm in good company.

Maybe it was the influence of Eat, Pray, Love or simply a reflection of some other social marker, but it seems  the number of women who are choosing to travel alone is increasing. And I don't mean college students or gap-year wanderers.

I keep meeting and hearing from women who, like me, have worked hard and raised a family and are now enjoying the freedom of an empty nest.

Travel is a gift we can give ourselves, and solo travel is especially rewarding. It gives me time to think and time to write. In fact, I've written about the unique guilt and rewards of being a  traveling mother.

I like to think by not being afraid to strike out and go somewhere on my own, I'm an example of independence to my daughters. In this week's Home Planet column at The Spokesman-Review, I wrote about being a woman who sometimes goes it alone and I shared a list of a few of the things I've learned along the way.

Read Tips for Women Who Travel Alone and tell me what you would add to the list.