Strut your stuff

My number one advice to women travelling on their own is always sit at the bar.

First stop at your hotel after plonking your bags and checking out the movie list and the mini bar should be the hotel bar if it has one or a nearby establishment.

Don't let haughty waitresses fling you into a corner, where nobody - particularly eligible men - can see you.

They may think you're a high-class escort as you hold up the bar, but at least somebody will talk to you. And if they don't there's always the barman.

Discussion around women travelling on their own seems to centre on fear of being hassled by men. I'm going to go out on a limb now - but aren't many women travelling because they WANT to meet men?

OK nobody wants to be hassled or have crude comments made towards them as they walk down the street. But a little attention can be a good thing.

Once in New York I was walking past a building site and a workman whistled at me. (This was a few years - well, decades - ago.)

I turned round and said, "Say something nice, don't just whistle."

"Red's your colour," he announced as I was wearing a red shirt.

Well that made my day.

The best thing about travel is meeting people, although monuments like the Taj Mahal, the Pyramids and Angkor Wat surpass most you come across.

So get out there, order a Margarita or a Martini - not some silly cocktail for people who prefer dessert to alcohol - and strut your stuff.

P.S. The photo here is not of me in a bar but squeezing through a cave. It was the best I could find for the time being!