People who travel like I do and do not want to be rushing around everyday seeing sites and then carting off to the next city (Exception: Europe) need things to fill their time. I find it is good to have hobbies and or projects that you do while traveling.
Reading is usually high on everyone’s list. Travelers have been trading books for years now. I also watch movies on my laptop or HBO if I have it available. I also like to people with with a coffee or beer from a cafe each day to get some human interaction.
Some of my “projects” include this website, photography, trading foreign currency online a bit, Keeping up the blog/journal. Travel planning is a constant project of when and where to go next. I also like to find ways to reduce my load and replace items with more versatile or useful ones.
I also pursue money-making projects such as burning photos to disc for other travelers, any sort of side job I can find, and I like to learn a bit of history of the place I am visiting so it has more meaning.
There is always going out at night and meeting other people. Traveling alone forces you to do this and you can find out a lot this way. You can hear about good places not in the Lonely Planet, learn a few words in another language, or simply enjoy some time NOT alone.
It is easy to get lazy and just sit in your room all day. When this happens it is time to move rooms (at least) or even change cities to get your mind working again.