A market town can be one of the easiest places in Britain to spend a weekend on your own. Everything is close together, the pace is gentle and there is usually a proper reason for being there: a market square that has been in use for centuries, a cluster of independent shops, a small museum with a knowledgeable volunteer on the desk. You do not need an itinerary, but a loose plan certainly helps you settle in.

Choose a town with a Saturday market

Start by checking when the market trades before you book anything. Many towns hold their main market on a Tuesday or Thursday and a smaller one on Saturday, while others still run a full Saturday charter market. A few useful things to know before you go:

• Check the market day and hours on a local noticeboard or tourist information point — most pack up by mid-afternoon, and some run only until one o'clock.
• Look for a farmers' market on a separate weekend date; these are often monthly and worth timing your trip around.
• Book accommodation within walking distance of the square. Being able to leave the car behind is the single biggest pleasure of a solo market town break.
• Ask about single occupancy when you ring or book online. Smaller hotels and guesthouses often have one or two rooms priced for one person rather than a full double rate.

Where to stay, and what to ask for

A coaching inn or a small independent hotel usually beats a chain for atmosphere, and the person on reception is often the best source of local advice you will find all weekend. When you book, mention that you are travelling alone. It sounds like a small thing, but it often means you get a quieter room rather than one above the bar, and staff will remember you at breakfast.

If you are nervous about eating alone, a pub with rooms is a good compromise: you can eat downstairs, then walk upstairs. Ask whether they serve food on both Friday and Saturday evenings, as some kitchens close on one of them, and whether breakfast is included or charged separately. A guaranteed cooked breakfast makes a solo start to the day much more pleasant than hunting for a café before nine.

Saturday morning: shops, stalls and a proper coffee

Arrive on the market square early, while the traders are still arranging crates and the queue at the bakery is short. Independent shops repay slow browsing: a hardware shop that sells everything, a bookshop with a second-hand room at the back, a deli where you can buy a pasty or a pork pie for lunch and eat it on a bench. Buy something small from a stallholder and you will usually get a conversation and a recommendation for the afternoon.

Keep an eye out for the details that make a market town worth visiting: the covered buttercross, the old corn exchange now used as a hall, the plaque on a wall explaining that a building used to be a gaol. These are free, they fill an hour pleasantly, and they give you something to think about over lunch.

An afternoon in a local museum

Small museums are ideal for solo visitors. There is no pressure to keep anyone else entertained, and you can read every label if you want to. Go in the early afternoon when it is quiet, and take your time in the room that interests you most. Volunteer stewards are almost always glad of a chat and often know stories that never made it onto the panels — the shop that burned down, the railway that never arrived, the family that gave the town its most awkward street name.

If the museum is closed, a parish church usually is not. Look for the guide to the brasses and monuments by the door, and check whether there is a tower you can climb for a view over the rooftops. Both are dependable ways to spend an hour for very little money.

Booking a table for one

Eating alone is the part of a solo break that worries people most, and it is genuinely easy once you have done it once. Ring ahead and say plainly that you would like a table for one. Good places will not blink.

• Ask for a table rather than the bar if you want to read; ask for the bar if you would rather chat.
• Book an early sitting, around six or half past. Staff have time for you, the room is calm and you are not holding a table when the rush starts.
• Take a book or a newspaper. It gives you something to do between courses and signals that you are perfectly happy.
• Try a café for dinner instead if a pub menu feels heavy — many now serve small plates and a glass of something local in the evening.

Order a starter and a main rather than rushing through three courses, and ask what the kitchen does well. Pubs with a short, changing menu usually cook it better than ones offering a long laminated list.

Sunday, and the journey home

Leave the morning unhurried. A walk along the river, a canal towpath or a marked footpath out of town takes an hour or two and gives you a proper look at the place from the edge rather than the middle. Buy a paper, have a second coffee and let the market square fill up around you.

Before you leave, settle the bill the night before if you can, and ask about check-out times — many small hotels are flexible on a quiet Sunday. Then take one last wander past the shops you liked, and make a note of the ones you would return for. That is the real test of a good solo weekend: not whether you filled every hour, but whether you would happily come back and do it again.