Travelling alone

I'm finding myself travelling alone more and more since I started at Mozilla. I'm absolutely loving the experience and opportunity but there are still a few things about travelling on your own that bug me, like eating alone. I'd love to hear from you about how you deal with these things as well as hearing any other travel-related tips.

Since I started at Mozilla last June I've done a ridiculous amount of travel, something like 70,000 miles to 8 different countries and 11 different cities. That's more countries and more miles than I've ever done in my life, and that isn't including the travel I do around the UK!

All this travel is great, and I get to do some amazing things while meeting some inspiring people. I love it, I really do. The only problem is that I'm absolutely crap at the practical aspects of travelling alone, namely eating on my own and generally doing other things alone. I think it's partly about eating alone being socially awkward, but I think another part is that I'm poor at languages (other than code) so that barrier often prevents itself as an issue.

There's only so many times that I can skip dinner because the thought of eating alone scares the crap of out me, although I'm mainly joking but that has honestly happened once or twice. I'm very fortunate to have these opportunities so I'd love to conquer the "being alone" aspects of travel so I can truly enjoy them.

So how do you handle travelling alone? More specifically, how do you approach eating alone?

I'm looking forward to hearing your opinions and tips. My travel is just a drop in the ocean compared to some people that I know!