Jules Fenn

Fewer places, and it's not close on that budget. Every move costs you a travel day, a booking fee, an arrival afternoon spent finding the supermarket, and usually a night of bad sleep. Four cities in fourteen nights is realistically eight usable days out of fourteen.

The solo angle makes it stronger, not weaker. Alone, the good part of a trip is the third day in a place — when the café guy recognises you, you know which tram goes where, and you've got a loose plan for the evening. You never get to day three if you're moving every three nights.

Two bases, one week each, day trips from both. That's what I'd book.

Measure both feet properly at the end of a day when they're swollen. Asymmetry of 5-8mm is completely ordinary and nobody checks for it because we buy shoes as a pair.

Book the first night at somewhere near the airport or somewhere with a genuine 24 hour desk, and treat it as part of the flight cost. That is the whole answer, and I have never once regretted it.

If you're set on going into town, the things that actually reduce risk:

• arrange the pickup in advance through the hostel, even if it costs more than a street taxi
• if you use a ride app, wait inside the terminal until the car is two minutes out, and check the plate before the driver checks your name
• have the address written down in the local language and offline maps downloaded before you board
• have small local cash in your pocket, not in your money belt, so you're not opening anything on the street

The scam you're worried about is mostly a money scam, not a safety one. The bigger real risk is being exhausted and disoriented at 1am with a big bag on a quiet street.

Depends entirely on the city and whether it runs at that hour, which is the thing worth checking rather than assuming either way.

Also worth noting that most R ratings you see now use the ASTM standard, so comparing across brands is finally meaningful. Older pads with vague marketing numbers were often generous.

Counter seating is the cheat code. In a lot of places it's actively the better seat and you end up talking to the cook.

Usually four to seven days, and yours sounds right on schedule. There's a real dip somewhere in the first week when the novelty stops carrying you and the trip becomes ordinary life in an unfamiliar place.

The evening gap is the classic shape of it, and it's fixable because it's structural rather than emotional. What worked for me:

• have one thing booked or planned for the evening, even something small like a specific bar or a walk to a viewpoint at sunset
• stay somewhere with a common area, at least for the harder stretches
• call one person at home twice a week on a schedule, rather than reaching for the phone when you're already low

That last one is the big one. Unscheduled homesick phone calls make it worse. Scheduled ones make it better.

Did it freeze at any point? A single night below freezing with water inside will crack the fibres invisibly, and the symptom is usually the opposite — suspiciously fast flow — but a partial freeze can also present as reduced flow. If nights were near freezing, sleep with it in your quilt.

Doing this. Someone at the club offered a tarp and a bivy for next weekend, which is forecast to be thoroughly unpleasant. Perfect test.

Hadn't priced single wall properly because I assumed it was all boutique money. There's more in the 500g range than I thought.

Ask three specific questions before you book anything:

• if no roommate is found, do you waive the supplement or do I pay it
• how often did that happen on this exact departure last year
• do you have any departures with a guaranteed no-supplement policy

Some operators waive it, some cap it, some quietly have one or two departures a season marked solo-friendly. The published price is often not the only price. Also, booking a departure that's already half full improves your odds of a match enormously — ask how many are booked.