Published by Viking, 2018, 288 pages

Slow down and take the time to look around you: that is the message of this book, an antidote to our busy and always-on culture. It is, as its title suggests, a paean to traveling alone.

Stephanie Rosenbloom spends two weeks by herself in four cities: spring in Paris, summer in Istanbul, fall in Florence, and winter in her hometown, New York.

Alone time is when you can do exactly what you want (which does not mean spending hours staring at your phone)—time to really savour life without having to fit into someone else’s needs or expectations. Savouring is a quality that Rosenbloom emphasizes throughout the book: the ability to notice details, to enjoy the small things, and most importantly, to get the most out of anticipation. If whatever you were looking forward to turns out to be disappointing, you still have the months of the joy of anticipating it “in the bank”, as she puts it.

And she practices what she preaches. Before she gets to Florence, she spends $75 dollars on a ticket to walk through a passage built in the 1500s that leads from the Uffizi to the Pitti Palace, over the Ponte Vecchio. But when she finally manages to get in, the guard hurries the group along through the art-filled corridor. Rosenbloom was disappointed but decided that the months of anticipation were worth it.

In Istanbul, she visits the Sakirin mosque whose interior was designed by a woman, Zeynep Fadillioglu. In Florence, she discovers that some people had been converting street signs into art: arrows on directional signs dissolved into daisies or turned into an angel, or the stick figure of a construction worker was now shackled with a ball and chain. In New York, she discovers the lobby of the Marlton Hotel in Greenwich with “patterned rugs and wood-paneled walls” where people sat working on their laptops in companionable silence. In Paris, she eats a meal on the sidewalk of a café, watching people and enjoying her food (rather than photographing it for Instagram).

Eating alone can be a joy—some restaurants appreciate a sole diner because they know the person will focus on the food rather than the conversation. Rosenbloom is shy and was self-conscious about eating alone. “I was more concerned about what I might think of me if I didn’t try. I didn’t want to be someone who experienced less of a city, less of life, because I was afraid. So I went.” And did not regret it.

She writes beautifully, with an eye for detail. For example, on a street in Istanbul, there are “cats sleeping on windowsills. A woman leaned out her apartment window and pulled up a string attached to a bucket with a loaf of bread inside. Damp laundry hung from awning poles, reminiscent of long-ago family afternoons in Brooklyn. I passed a small mosque made of wood, like the delicate pastel yalis along the Bosphorus.”

There is such a wealth of information here: references to studies on solitude, historical details, and a long list of resources, tips, and tools at the end for the solo traveler. If you had any hesitation about taking off on your own, this is the book that will inspire you.

This review first appeared on Women on the Road.