Solo-Traveling

[Volcanbaru]

I'm curious if it's a bad idea for 20 years old deaf guy with cochlear implant to travel alone in Europe? One always can travel in their home country without any problems. I'm just more concerns about that it might be hard for deaf person to have fun when traveling alone.

I'm looking forward to meet people and gain life-experiences, but I don't know how Europeans feel about deaf people who are from US. To be more specific, I want to travel to Amsterdam, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Poland, Germany and Czech Republic.

So are the people more friendly or....?

 

[JClarke]

I am not sure but I am a soon-to-be 23 year old deaf guy from Australia, and I have recently travelled to America on my own for the first time, and I have had no trouble based on the experience, and it is worth the experience. Safety and lots of planning is important, you may have to keep in touch with family and friends on how you are going if you plan to travel on your own. However on the european side, I am not sure, it is more appropiate to go with a friend nonetheless, there should be someone on AD that can help you with this.

 

[vagabond]

I travelled Europe when I was 20, I did have a friend but I'm sure it wouldn't be a big change and you have a CI while we didn't which should help out. We travelled when Bush was still President and found out that Europeans might not like our country/president but they wouldn't automatically hate all Americans for that. Just don't act like an idiot American tourist and be respectful of their culture.

Europeans were really nice to us (out of the countries you mentioned, I've only been to Amsterdam and Germany but I'm sure it wouldn't be much different). We had a lot of fun and managed to get lower prices for some stuff because we were deaf (bring some sort of metro discount card or whatever as proof of deafness).

We also met a lot of deaf people and they were awesome to hang out and often they'd have a friend or something in the next country we were going to so their friends would show us around or let us crash at their place and such then they'll have friends too so it goes on :p Or you could meet some deaf ppl by chance like we did when we stepped off the train in Munich and there was a group signing away waiting for a friend so we chatted with them. We snuck into a tour group in Amsterdam because there were a group of British deaf girls and one of their friends were interpreting for the others.

Go have the time of your life!! Don't be shy, talk to people (either on street or your hostel). One of my more memorable moments in Europe when a French crepe seller was interested in my phone (a sidekick) and how it was to be deaf and travelling in a foreign country. He didn't know much English and I didn't really know French so we gestured a lot. It's all about moments like that which will make your trip truly memorable. It's not all about visiting sites like Eiffel Tower (it was great too but I treasure my memories of interacting with the locals more)

Just go with the flow and be chill and you'll have lots of fun!!