Top Two Cities to Solo Travel

Pippa Kline takes us on a journey through her top two European destinations to be a solo traveller

After covid cancelled my post A-level interrailing trip, last July I decided I wanted to fulfil my planned summer of city sightseeing and nights out all over Europe. In the spur of the moment, I decided to solo travel, since I enjoy intense planning and spending time by myself anyway. One of my favourite aspects of solo travelling is that it is as social as you want. Some days I would be completely in my own company and others I would spend with people I had just met. With that in mind, here are my favourite places I solo travelled.

Prague

My first experience of solo travelling was in Prague. This was the city I was most excited to visit due to its dramatic, gothic architecture, sprawling squares, and riverside walks. My hostel was just outside of the Old Town, so if you do not mind walking, I would definitely recommend Hostel Elf. The plant-covered roof terrace provided long social tables and 90p bottles of beer and is where I met people from all over Europe (I liked that it did not feel like a brits abroad hostel).

I joined a bar crawl one night where we explored underground cave-like bars and this was another nice way to meet people. While my phone service failed a lot of the time in the city, Prague is so easy to navigate that soon enough I could find my way from one side back to my favourite restaurants. Every corner I turned offered a new garden or artistic restaurant I might have overlooked had my google maps been working, making Prague (and cities in general) a great place for solo travelling as you do not need to have much of a plan. I came across sights I wanted to see by wandering around somewhat aimlessly. My days involved walking me about a lake a half an hour's tram ride from the city in the natural park Divoká Šárka where many locals swim. I spent a sunlit day lying on grassy banks reading and having a Lidl picnic, interspersed with dips in the lake. It was a nice change being outside of the city’s tourist bubble, yet being somewhere I still felt safe.

Budapest

along cobblestone streets lined with shops selling glass jewellery and chimney cakes, admiring the statues along Charles Bridge, and strolling to Petrin Gardens where the tower offers views of the terracotta-coloured city roofs. As well as bucket list tourist sights, Prague is full of small-scale galleries where I learnt about Czech culture through artists such as Andy Warhol and Alphonse Mucha. My favourite part of Prague was something I would not have discovered unless I had been travelling by myself and speaking to new people. Swedish girls in my hostel told

Whilst different to Prague, Budapest provided another enjoyable solo travelling experience. As it was the last stop on my trip, I was late booking accommodation and consequently ended up at a party hostel. This became perhaps my favourite stop. I had booked a female dorm as it was the cheapest at the time, and this was the easiest way I had made friends on my trip previously. The Hive Party Hostel lived up to its reputation, with a clublike bar that stayed open until 6 am in a courtyard in the centre of all the rooms. There were lots to do directly surrounding the hostel; a nearby alleyway was lined with little restaurants and lively bars decked with fairy lights, then turned into a daytime market where I bought jewellery and vintage Hungarian stamps. Staying in a party hostel meant more organised events, with the highlight being a nighttime river cruise with drinks alongside the beautiful parliament building lit up in golden-yellow tones. The Ruin Bar or Simple Kert is also unmissable in Budapest. A former factory turned nightlife spot, the club simultaneously feels like a crumbling Italian villa and graffitied skate park. Its two stories are filled with disco balls, plants, and bathtubs to lounge in. Szechenyi, the thermal bath was another highlight. I visited the attraction with friends from my hostel and we spent the day resting on sunloungers and soaking in the steaming blue water. I was sad to leave Budapest, feeling I had only just begun to explore it. It is somewhere I am eager to visit again.

Europe is a great place to start

Since European cities offer so much and are so pedestrianised, they are the ideal start to solo travelling, offering a balance of cultured daytime trekking and post-sunset liveliness. I never found myself short of things to do in Prague and Budapest, and enjoyed the freedom that solo travelling offered.

Life&Style's Serena Murphy discusses the rise of 'balletcore' fashion and its implications on femininity

Serena Murphy Life&Style Writer

Balletcore takes inspiration from the feminine silhouettes and muted colour palettes commonly associated with the style of activewear worn by ‘off-duty’ ballet dancers. It uses soft fabrics, such as silk and tulle, to create silhouettes distinguishable for their tight fitting, leotard-like corset tops, and delicate tutu-esque skirts. These looks are often finished with a pair of white tights and pastel pink leg warmers. The look is characterised by its layering of different colours and fabrics to create a delicate, but maximalist, effect. The aesthetic has taken social media by storm, and ‘#Balletcore’ currently has over 400 million views on TikTok.

Designers have always taken inspiration from the delicate silhouettes and sweet pastel colours of ballet. The balletcore aesthetic danced the high fashion runway in recent years, with Miu Miu’s signature ballet flats, and Molly Goddard’s tutu-esque tulle dresses. Recently, brands such as Skims, which blurs the line between activewear and casualwear, have brought this aesthetic to a wider audience.

Urban Outfitters have recently further broadened the audience with the release of their ‘Balletcore’ line, new for 2023, which takes direct inspiration from the social media trend. It is no surprise that more attention is being paid to the aesthetic quality of activewear, given that two years in a pandemic wearing pyjamas every day raised our standards on comfort. When it comes to clothing, it seems that, now more than ever, we are demanding both comfort and style, and are less willing to compromise one for the other. Balletcore enables us to achieve both.

Hyper-feminine fashion trends have always been present in some iteration. Doll-like, delicate frills and pastel colours were popularised by celebrities like Courtney Love in the 1990s, mixed with a grunge aesthetic.

Problematic ‘Lolita’ fashion trends emerged on social media platforms such as Tumblr in the 2010s, which often linked the aesthetic to a certain type of body: white, and thin. Recently, however, hyper-feminine fashion has become more inclusive, and a way for many people to actively reclaim their femininity. Recent reclamation of the ‘bimbo’ aesthetic has been popularised on TikTok by the likes of self-identifying ‘bimbo’ Chrissy Chlapecka, who wears loud, colourful prints and statement pieces, such as 90s inspired Juicy Couture tracksuit sets. ‘Bimbo’ was a term previously popularised in the Incel community, which presented conventionally attractive, hyper-feminine women as unintelligent, but has since been reclaimed by many people desiring to embrace their femininity and challenge its association with unintelligence. Perhaps Balletcore can be seen as an offshoot of this desire to reclaim hyper-femininity that has been prevalent on social media in recent years. This time, however, it ditches the hot pink velour for pastel pink silk.

Picture this: It’s a Saturday morning in the noughties. You are dressed in pink- pink leotard, pink tights, pink leg warmers, pint tutu- frolicking around a youth centre or church hall dreaming of being a professional ballet dancer when you grow up. Now you’re grown up. And maybe you’re not a professional ballet dancer, but, thanks to the new ‘balletcore’ trend, which aims to capture an ‘off-duty’ ballet dancer look, you can still enjoy on TikTok and is heavily linked to #Nostalgiacore. Videos under these hashtags often take the form of a series of grainy images of fields and 2000s style children’s play areas, to the sound of birds chirping. The comment sections are filled with young adults reminiscing about growing up in the 2000s. The release of live action adaptations of both ‘Barbie’ and ‘The Little Mermaid’, set to premier this year, reflect the demand for nostalgic media. Given the context of 2020 as the first pandemic year, and the cost-of-living crisis in 2023, the rise in nostalgic fashion trends is not surprising, and is perhaps a welcome form of escape for many. the delicate pastel aesthetic. However, what is distinct about Balletcore is its nostalgic element. For many, it provides a way to heal their inner child, who was perhaps mocked for their feminine outfits as they entered their teen years. Recent years have seen a rise in nostalgic fashion trends, one of the most popular being the 2020 ‘Kidcore’ aesthetic, characterised by bright colours and the iconic 90s style graphic t-shirtand-baggy-jeans combo. #Kidcore has 1.7 billion views

Ultimately, whether balletcore has emerged as a way to feminise activewear, a way to embrace femininity, or whether it is a welcome escape into childhood in difficult times, its comfort, uniqueness, and inclusivity certainly make it a trend that, hopefully, will stay a while.