Coming together
for solo travel

One is hardly the loneliest number when it comes to solo travel these days.

Now more than ever, solo travelers are likely to find themselves among many like-minded lone travelers, increasingly seeking out trips curated with their needs in mind and in farther-flung corners of the world.

And this new wave of solo travel is being driven by what suppliers and travel advisors say is a commonly shared sentiment: They’re out of patience and full of wanderlust. 

“There’s this mentality — and it was especially fresh right after the pandemic — that people just don’t care anymore; they are tired of waiting to travel,” said Gabriella Ribeiro, founder of Divorce Journeys, a tour company that organizes trips for women going through divorce.

Once travel restarted, several tour operators began seeing a surge in the solo traveler segment. EF Go Ahead Tours has seen a 200% increase in solo travel bookings since the beginning of 2023, compared with the same time last year, while Intrepid Travel has 2,300 more solo travelers booked on North America trips this year than last year, along with 9,000 more solo travelers globally.

Bookings show that many of these solo travelers are venturing out on their own for the first time. The new breed is also looking to roam farther away from home and seek out destinations that may be challenging for them to navigate on their own or get to without guided support.

“For instance, solo travelers first wanted to explore bucket-list destinations in more familiar countries across Europe,” said Lael Kassis, vice president of market innovation and development at EF Go Ahead. “Over time, solo travelers told us they wanted EF Go Ahead to organize tours in destinations that they felt would be harder for them to do on their own, like our popular solo-only tours in Thailand, Kenya or Egypt.”

Likewise, Intrepid says 61% of its solo travelers are first-timers and that those from North America are most interested in visiting destinations in Southeast Asia, Turkey, India and Nepal.

“Traveling solo is one of the bigger travel trends to take off after the pandemic, and it is only going to continue to grow,” said Matt Berna, Intrepid Travel’s president and managing director of the Americas. “Many people are not waiting around for friends and family to be ready to hit the road and are choosing to go on their own.” 

EF Go Ahead is among several operators that has embraced the mantra “travel solo, not alone.” Kassis said this is the principle used to design group tours that cater to solo travelers, and it means creating tours that address the most important attributes those travelers say they want from a trip: safety, expertise and community.

Advisors are also seeing a jump in this market and say travelers are getting more adventurous. Toni Lanotte-Day, owner of Toni Travels in Levittown, N.Y., said she’s been sending solo travelers to Antarctica recently and has seen her solo bookings jump 25% since the pandemic.

Women lead the way

Perhaps most significantly, operators say that within the solo travel segment, it is women that are by far the ones most often deciding to travel on their own, especially in the wake of the pandemic. 

“We’ve seen real growth in solo travelers, and that’s primarily driven by single women, whether they’re married (or not) and just choose to travel solo,” said Steve Born, chief marketing officer of the Globus family of brands. 

Intrepid and EF Go Ahead also noted that women are leading the solo surge. Small-group tour operator Overseas Adventure Travel, which primarily serves travelers over the age of 50, said more than half (53%) of its clients are solo travelers, 80% of whom are women. And luxury tour operator Red Savannah said that about 60% of its solo travelers are female.

Wildland Trekking tour guide Jennie Dufour, an avid solo traveler for more than 20 years, said much has changed about the world and the solo travel landscape since she started traveling by herself.

“It was just a little more hesitant back then. Especially for females traveling to countries where women weren’t respected,” Dufour said. “A lot of women weren’t comfortable.”

What’s helped tip the scales for women to outpace men in solo travel, Dufour said, has been technology improving connectivity, especially through social media, which she said has helped show women how to solo travel by connecting them to those who already do.

“When I started traveling solo, we didn’t have cellphones. We didn’t have social media. We barely had the Internet or email. People would go to a pay phone and collect call their parents [so they would] know that their child was alive,” Dufour said, adding that her only mobile travel resource when she started traveling solo was carrying around a Lonely Planet guidebook.

“Social media has changed all that,” Dufour said. “Now, you have all these Facebook and Instagram groups that really empower women to make it OK to travel on your own and give you tips and tricks and safety nets.” 

Divorce Journeys’ Ribeiro said the pandemic also helped shift the solo travel demographic. After self-isolating, social distancing and being on lockdown, women had spent a lot of time alone and were ready for solo travel — and didn’t want to miss a thing. 

“I find solo travelers tend to want to be more immersive,” she said. “They come to us saying, ‘I want to do it all. I don’t want to be resting. I want to meet people and cook and taste food. I want to walk the streets at night with a local, and I want to know where all the hidden haunts are.’ I don’t hear people saying, ‘I need a week on a beach by myself’ too much anymore.”

Connecting with solo travelers

There are more ways than ever to “travel solo, not alone,” with suppliers creating more solo-only itineraries, offering more women-only trips and making group trips more welcoming to solo travelers. 

Next year, EF Go Ahead is launching a slew of solo-only trips in Spain, Japan and London as well as a wildlife safari in Kenya. The company also recently launched solo trips to Egypt and Thailand and will start offering solo trips in Costa Rica, Australia and Morocco beginning in September.

Intrepid introduced two itineraries to its Women’s Expeditions lineup in Pakistan and Nepal, each of which will help female travelers see life in those destinations through the eyes of local women leading the trips. 

Red Savannah has a number of high-end itineraries for solo travelers seeking upscale experiences while also connecting with others. 

“A safari is a great choice for solo travelers who wish to enjoy some time with other people,” said Sarah-Leigh Shenton, director of marketing at Red Savannah, adding that the company also puts together a number of wellness retreats for solo travelers who are looking for peace and quiet to rebalance, disconnect and focus on their health. “Riding holidays are also often made up of solo travelers and are an excellent opportunity to meet new people with a shared equestrian interest.”

And while suppliers work to offer more opportunities for solo travelers to explore the world with like-minded travelers, Ribeiro said it’s important to continue listening to the needs of this market as travel experiences are crafted. 

“I think that it’s a really good idea to always take a solo traveler into consideration,” Ribeiro said, adding that first-time solo travelers might be feel awkward or even embarrassed to say that they’re traveling alone; suppliers, he said, can help put them at ease by engaging them from the beginning. 

“It’s a hard thing for some people to admit they don’t have anyone to go with — and that’s OK,” Ribeiro said. “So I think making things a little bit more upfront, like having pricing readily available, so that it takes away the trepidation of people needing to ask and feeling judged. 

“Ask them more questions, get to know them, so that you can match the guides exactly to that person’s needs,” he said.

Company offers divorced women strength in numbers

Earlier this year, Gabriella Ribeiro founded Divorce Journeys, a company that organizes trips for women going through divorce, after noticing an “explosive growth” in women around 50 undergoing major life changes, such as divorce, and looking to travel. 

“I’m finding that a lot of women, especially divorced women, need other divorced women to hang out and travel with,” she said.

She found that many of those older divorced women are empty nesters who had perhaps been in marriages where they didn’t have much in common with their spouses or had differing opinions on travel and were now making up for lost time. 

“The destinations we pick are a little complex, and they’re not necessarily places that you’re going to go on a solo basis,” Ribeiro said. “We try to pick destinations that are a little bit more difficult to navigate on your own, and then that ties into the ‘strength in numbers’ idea of being with a group.”

Divorce Journeys’ first group trip for solo travelers will depart in November, on an eight-day journey in Morocco, followed by a nine-day trip in Egypt in January. Both destinations were picked following a survey of clients who said these places were on their bucket lists — but that these destinations also stood to serve a greater purpose for them.

“A lot of people who responded said, ‘I need places where I can be reminded that the world is a lot bigger than me and my problems,’” Ribeiro said. “And I thought that was telling.”

—N.E.