Unleashing adventure: How women-only touring holidays are transforming travel experiences

For Worldwide Ladies’s Day, Euronews Journey spoke to female-led journey firms about what girls really need. 

Ladies travellers have been on the rise in the previous few years: 71 per cent of solo travellers are girls – of which 25 per cent are 65 or older, in accordance with Virtuoso’s August 2024 traits report and Skift. 

Altering societal norms and larger monetary independence offers us girls the liberty to discover extra. We get to concentrate on private progress, empowerment, and chase journey. 

What’s extra, girls have a tendency to present journey and cultural experiences equal weight, a 2024 World Rescue Survey revealed. 

Why may that be? As a result of we need to interact extra deeply with native practices and customs, as a part of an try to hunt out genuine connections past typical ‘fly and flop’ tourism. 

This altering development has led extra feminine entrepreneurs with eager perception to enterprise into the journey trade. Euronews Travels speaks to a number of of those journey ‘sheroes’ making waves.

Ladies hunt down extra genuine experiences

Many girls don’t get the chance to journey a lot throughout youthful years, attributable to obligations like marriage, kids, a profession, or socioeconomic and cultural elements.

As such, the primary time girls are likely to take an extended or extra adventurous journey is later in life, which leads some to decide on smaller, usually extra intimate group excursions. 

“There is a rising need to discover smaller, quaint, and charming locations that supply wealthy tradition, native connections, and a way of discovery,” explains Ellen Flowers, journey blogger at The Perennial Fashion. 

“Fairly than the hustle and bustle of main cities, girls travellers are drawn to hidden villages within the French countryside, serene coastal cities in Portugal, or lesser-known gems in Japanese Europe.” 

Gabrielle Clever, founding father of Stroll Speak Eat France, recognises this need and helps older, first-time – and sometimes solo – girls travellers really feel extra relaxed by way of unhurried French meals and wine excursions. 

“I provide a really enjoyable 10 day retreat within the French countryside of the Dordogne area. Right here, we go light: strolling, speaking, consuming. It’s a slower tempo of journey and actions. We’ve gentle workouts every morning overlooking medieval castles and villages,” says Clever. “We go to beautiful prehistoric caves and go to vineyards and purchase native produce from markets to take residence and prepare dinner collectively.” 

In a number of instances, Clever’s friends have discovered shut companions on these journeys that they then select to journey with yr after yr. 

Customized excursions are designed for each energetic and ‘hobbyist’ feminine travellers

Many ladies-only journeys are likely to focus round particular hobbies, comparable to portray, horse-riding, and cooking. Future Market Insights estimates that the particular curiosity tourism market may hit $5.1bn (€4.7bn) by 2025. 

Excursions by Marie, for instance, specialises in gardening journeys to France, Holland, Belgium, Italy, England, and Portugal.  

“My purchasers are backyard golf equipment and teams of passionate gardeners,” says founder Marie-Elisabeth Offierski. “Fingers-on experiences comparable to a cooking class, a flower-arranging workshop or a pictures session are well-liked. Ladies need to study – that’s a part of taking advantage of their time away.”

In different instances, girls need to discover how different girls stay, and get a greater understanding of their tradition and lives, by championing native girls entrepreneurs and spending time with feminine artisans. 

“Our hottest women-only journeys join feminine travellers with girls of their host nation, usually in ways in which wouldn’t be accessible in combined teams,” explains Sarah Religion at Accountable Journey. “These holidays are very a lot about seeing a rustic by way of the eyes of the ladies who stay there.”

Lively holidays, in the meantime, present the sense of accomplishment and social connections that girls get pleasure from – however by way of a extra participating low-impact train, comparable to strolling, biking and climbing. 

UK-based Strolling Ladies, which has been offering strolling holidays solely for ladies since 2021, presents completely different ranges of treks relying on expertise. It additionally sprinkles in native tradition by collaborating with girls winemakers, cheesemakers, and cooks. Demand is clearly there, as the corporate has grown from 300 friends of their first yr to 1,000 right now.

The corporate’s all-female guides go at a gentle tempo to make sure your entire group reaches the summits. “We hear this isn’t at all times the case in combined hikes the place generally girls may be left behind,” says Ginny Lunn, one of many joint homeowners. 

Ladies of all ages actively hunt down journey

Whether or not kayaking, trekking or backpacking, older girls are very happy to problem themselves and discover the unknown. For a lot of, it’s a way of non-public freedom.

“Ladies over 50 are proving that thrill-seeking has no expiration date,”says Kathy McCabe, govt producer of Dream of Italy. 

“From cutting down cliffs to trekking by way of distant landscapes, these fearless explorers are breaking stereotypes and exhibiting that significant, energetic journey is for everybody.”

Even higher-end journey experiences, comparable to a enjoyable cruise, now provide alternatives for ladies to step out of their consolation zone and check out new actions, and McCabe expects to see extra spa-at-sea sanctuaries and unique girls’s excursions within the coming months. 

“We’re beginning to see a variety of cruise traces launching women-only voyages that includes female-led expeditions, immersive actions, and adrenaline-packed actions like scuba diving and polar plunges,” she says. 

This rising development of journey journey isn’t solely restricted to the extra mature girls, as co-founder Erika De Santi of WeRoad, an Italian scaleup specializing in group journey journey for Gen Z and millennial solo travellers, observes:

“Whether or not it is younger professionals taking a break from the workforce, these trying to rediscover themselves after a breakup or main life occasion, or these of their 20s-40s who discover themselves at completely different life levels from their pals and unable to discover a journey accomplice – girls are more and more searching for out journey, and going it alone,” she says.

The stresses and stress of contemporary life, particularly on youthful adults, have precipitated a increase in wellness journey too, additional influenced by social media platforms TikTok and Instagram. 

WeRoad’s group yoga journeys, for instance, have seen a 400 per cent improve in bookings.

“These experiences aren’t nearly rest but in addition private progress and emotional rejuvenation, providing travellers the possibility to disconnect from their on a regular basis lives and join with others,” provides De Santi. 

Ladies fear about security when travelling

A number of of the female-led firms Euronews Journey spoke to advised us they like to accomplice with women-owned lodges and transport companions as a technique to assure consolation and security.

This consists of selecting feminine guides who’ve a novel girls’s perspective into the native tradition and know the best way to cope with harassment and women-focused scams. 

Offering help community in case of points or emergencies can also be paramount.

Byway, a journey firm specialising in flight-free holidays, focuses on offering this help with a WhatsApp chat which its feminine travellers can use all through the vacation, together with a 24/7 emergency telephone quantity. 

“We at all times e-book personal sleeper cabins and personal lodge rooms, and concentrate on safer neighbourhoods with good nighttime lighting,” explains founder Cat Jones, who provides that as a female-led firm all girls travellers are “nicely catered for by default.”

Megan Vila, innovation supervisor at London-based TourAxis, agrees that girls deserve extra recommendation when navigating new locations and cultural variations: “Understanding native customs, advising which areas or what behaviours to keep away from, and placing a plan in place ought to they really feel unsafe are one of the best methods to do that.”