The rise of solo adventures among Singapore's Gen Z and millennials

More Generation Z and young millennials in Singapore are diving headlong into solo adventures – the more uncharted the territory, the better. Many are also posting about it to pay their way.

Spontaneous travel, defined as setting off on a trip without a fixed plan, has taken off alongside revenge travel, post pandemic.

Nomadic in nature, these spontaneous travellers subvert the leisurely rulebook of shopping, feasting and lush hotel resorts with niche, adrenaline-fuelled experiences.

The trend is largely subscribed to by backpackers, who prefer to wander the outdoors without a guidebook, keeping to lightweight baggage and tight budgets.

They tend to be of university age to youth under 30, who take flight whenever and to wherever they want, even if it means having to hustle for extra income on the side as content creators and micro-influencers to fund the travel.

In 2023, South-east Asia-based travel website Klook found in a study that 83 per cent of Singaporean Gen Z and millennial travellers were willing to invest in experiences – 63 per cent on nature and outdoor activities, 51 per cent on theme parks, and 56 per cent on  massages and hot springs.

Studying 2023 data, travel metasearch platform Skyscanner found that up to a third of Singaporeans – 31 per cent –booked trips a mere week before flying off.

 In a survey of 1,000 Singaporeans aged 18 to 34 the same year, Skyscanner also found that when it comes to spending priorities, Gen Zs and young millennials favoured experiences over comfort, allocating 39 per cent of their budget to food, 36 per cent to experiences, more than 15 per cent to accommodation and 10 per cent to flight tickets. 

At 27, Singaporean Basanth Sadasivan has visited 195 countries.

He compares travel to an addiction: Once is never enough.

He continues to fly up to twice a month, usually on weekends.

His trips have taken him to observe emperor penguins in Patagonia, ride a dog sled in Norway and see the Amazon rainforests. One of the last nooks of the globe he has yet to visit is the blistery wilderness of Antarctica.

“I have not been to the South Pole yet because cruises there take two weeks. I get seasick and have to stock up on medication,” says the civil servant, who is a brand ambassador for Skyscanner.

His first unaccompanied plane ride, at age 13, to visit his aunt in Australia, developed into a penchant for “off-the-beaten-track” travelling. His next solo adventure, at 17, was to North Korea.

In recent years, an interest in anthropology pertaining to Africa’s tribal ecosystems took him to meet the Bantu and Bedouin tribes in the south-eastern and northern regions of the continent. 

But pursuing the dream, he says, is made possible only with extensive planning, as the globetrotter, who speaks Mandarin, French and Spanish with varied fluency, often books accommodation, as well as tour guides or translators, up to months in advance.

He says: “Know what you want to see before going to the place so you can be protected from unforeseen nuisances, such as being unable to secure a room at the last minute.” 

He advises “getting out of one’s bubble” to engage as much as possible in local life, be it through eating local cuisine or participating in local rituals, such as festivals.

One of his key discoveries abroad was the concept of Island Time in the Pacific Islands, where a relaxed pace of life meant people were not always punctual for events.

He cites Tonga, Tuvalu, an island in the Pacific Ocean, as an example. Although ranked low in economic output, its society is communally harmonious and one of the “happiest in the world” due to work-life balance.

He encourages solo travel as a way to “detox” and open oneself up to alternative ways of life that may not necessarily be documented on the Internet.

“I tend to see even the most seasoned travellers looking at natives through a sterile, outsiders’ perspective. But with an open mind, even the most remote tribe can impart values and practices which can be inculcated into our lives,” he says.

Visiting 15 countries while studying full time

In 2023, Ms Sharlyn Seet, 22, travelled to 15 countries and 45 cities across Europe, the United States, Australia and Asia, all while being a full-time university student.

The third-year business student at Nanyang Technological University posts about her travels on TikTok under the handle @sharsharcheers. She is a micro-influencer with a following of 66,300.

The comedy skits she posted on her account took off during the Covid-19 circuit breaker. “One of my random videos recreating a viral TikTok audio garnered over one million views. I decided to take social media more seriously,” she says.

In 2022, she did her first solo trip to Penang and Langkawi in Malaysia to find herself again after a break-up and has never looked back.

“What I love about solo travelling is the sense of empowerment I feel navigating places alone, learning to trust yourself and being comfortable with your space,” she says.

Since then, she has ventured to 25 cities – some solo trips and others with fellow travellers – from scuba diving in Honolulu, Hawaii, to frolicking on the beaches of Krabi in Thailand.

How does she juggle travel, side gigs and school?

She says strategic scheduling helps. She has travelled to three countries back to back during her exam season. A getaway with friends to Vietnam during her school’s recess week was followed by media trips to China and Malaysia to promote a bank’s debit card.

She burned the midnight oil, crunched a six-day itinerary into four days, worked on her assignments in between events and opted for an eight-hour layover flight, in order to return to Singapore in time for her exams.

But she has no regrets, saying: “This was my childhood ambition, and I feel privileged to be able to live this lifestyle.”

Some of the advertisers on her social media platforms include UOB’s Mighty FX multi-currency account, sports giant Adidas and online travel platform Trip.com. She declines to say how much she makes from these sponsors.

On the side, she also runs a digital marketing agency, Shark Digital Media, and is a part-time spin cycle instructor at fitness chain Revolution SG.

She is working on building several income streams to create a lifestyle where she is less dependent on location or time.

She adds: “This gives me the ability to sustain myself from anywhere and, in turn, the freedom to fly to places whenever I want to.”

Known for her interactive content, she occasionally seeks viewer suggestions for her next destination and turns these into vlogs.

One of her viral videos, titled Visiting The Most Dangerous City In The World, documented her 2023 trip to Mexico’s Tijuana, a city with one of the highest homicide rates in the world. 

Ms Seet has also flown a paraplane – a motorised parachute – in Chiang Mai and camped in the deserts of Monument Valley in Arizona to photograph the Milky Way. Her bucket list is brimming, and she intends to conquer South Asia and Eastern Europe in 2024.

But she is candid about what it is like to hustle for travel.

“Many people have asked me if I plan to become a full-time traveller and content creator, which relies on sponsorships to sustain the lifestyle,” says the business and finance student.

“While it may be a dream for many, it’s quite tiring to travel for a living. You are dealing with deadlines from clients and running around different places to produce content, which may compromise the authenticity of the experience one shares.”

A life of adventure, in the end, hinges on the sums. Last year, she started a travel budget Excel spreadsheet for her followers to help them organise their travel expenditure and be money-savvy.

Ms Seet adds that her path has come with many rewards and sacrifices too.

“With social media, we have seen how an alternative lifestyle compared with a conventional one is possible. However, in order to keep my side gigs running, I am not involved in school and hall activities like I used to be.”

In 2022, the final-year student decided to take a gap year to explore internship opportunities. She ended up doing business internships in financial institutions.

What the travel influencer resolved to do after the year was over was to make self-employment her goal. But she laments: “There is not much of a support system or educational directive in Singapore that teaches you to become self-employed.” 

Yet, she is pragmatic about what her options are.

“Travel and content creation will always be a huge part of my life. But I don’t think it’s wise to put all my eggs into that basket. The job can be sustainable only with adequate sponsorships.”

Doing extremist activities for ‘the plot’

For Ms Nicolette Wee, 23, a graduate trainee in e-commerce at TikTok, travel is compelled by impulse. She has checked off a personal goal to skydive off a plane in Bangkok, as well as parasailed in Penang and surfed in Bali – all on the spur of the moment.

Less thinking, just doing, is her motto, says the single, who books flights a day after deciding on her next quest or destination.

The seasoned backpacker, who has travelled to 18 countries, needs less than an hour to shove a fixed set of essentials – passport, four sets of clothing, adapters and a medical kit – into a 50-litre backpack, before she is out of the door.

She says the lure of spontaneous travelling has been made more palpable with TikTok, where content creators teleport between destinations seamlessly through video edits, showing one can have it all, right now.

It is common to see youth travelling, just for the sake of new backdrops and social media aesthetics, she adds.

On her first solo backpacking trip to Hualien County, a mountainous region in Taiwan, at 19 years old, she downed rice wine, then jumped from a cliff into rocky waters, on a dare. 

Unlike some who carefully curate their travel itinerary months in advance, Ms Wee is game to tag along with strangers she meets on the road and sample their version of adventure.

No photo, no proof, believes the content creator, who says her go-to icebreaker is to ask fellow tourists to snap her picture. She posts about her exploits on TikTok under @nicolettecalliewe and has 32,400 followers.

“I do it for ‘the plot’,” says the globetrotter, when asked how she justifies her extremist activities.

“The plot”, in Gen Z lexicon, is defined as the overall narrative or “script” of one’s life. The term references film and television series, where an individual imagines himself or herself as the protagonist of his or her life story.

Ms Wee’s rationale – to do it for the plot, in the similar vein as the Latin aphorism “carpe diem”  (seize the day) – justifies taking risks for the sake of it. It has seen her ride pillion on strangers’ motorbikes and strike up foreign friendships using Google Translate. 

Her passion for exploring new lands stems from her childhood, when she went on road trips in New Zealand and Australia with her parents, who both work in the tech industry, and her elder brother.

“Growing up, my family and my extended family – around 18 of us – would go on long road trips every year.”

This article was first published in The Straits Times.