Solo Travel Tech

Where digital meets travel + lifestyle … A collection of can’t-miss news from this week. Sign up to get the TURNER Weekly Download in your inbox every Friday.

Solo Travel Tech

The solo travel trend continues to grow in 2019. Adventurers are finding that exploring destinations alone is a truly transformative experience. With a trend comes tech. Uproxx has the details on how technology isn’t just making solo travel easier – it’s making it safer. Thanks to the Sabre Keychain Alarm, you can have a personal security system on your keychain. You can talk to pretty much anyone, thanks to incredible advances in real-time translation apps. And with the rise of compact power banks, you never have to worry about your smartphone losing power at exactly the wrong time. There are even solar power banks now! Going it alone has never been better.

On The Cheap

What’s better than traveling solo? Traveling cheap! TIME has brought together a panel of experts who know how to stretch a travel budget in all the best ways. Our favorite tip is to make connections with locals, which not only saves money but opens up a whole world of possibilities. “Connecting with locals will make your trip more memorable and exciting because you’ll learn things about the city—and find cheap adventures—that you might not have discovered on your own,” writes Rachel E. Greenspan. It’s the definition of a win-win.

Don’t Quit Your Day Job

The internet is filled with FOMO-inducing tales of people quitting their jobs and traveling the world. But is it all it’s cracked up to be? In Cosmopolitan, Kiera Carter writes that it actually kinda sucks. She and her husband ditched their 9-to-5s “for a life of red wine and Romance languages.” But soon they found themselves longing for home. “Every time I passed people laughing at a bar, I missed my friends,” Carter reports. “It was harder to make new ones than I anticipated, since I spent most of my time writing stories in English on my laptop instead of sharpening my Spanish in the real world. Oh, and that eco-lodge in the desert? Kind of stressful, thanks to unreliable Wi-Fi and spotty service.”

Girlfriend Wellness

Maybe Carter should have gone globetrotting with her girlfriends rather than her husband! After all, science shows that taking a trip with girlfriends is good for your health. Travel and Leisure is fully on board. “Clear your schedule and pack your bags, because you’re going on a girls’ trip,” writes Melissa Locker. “If your boss balks or your family whines or your dog gives you sad little puppy eyes, tell them that you’re doing it for your health—and it won’t even be a lie. Science says an occasional minibreak with your friends is good for you.” You heard it here first: traveling in 2019 is self-care.”

Weekly Moment of Zen

Virgin Galactic just took its first test passenger into space.