Solo Female Travel Is Surging — These Destinations Lead the Way
Searches for “solo travel for women” have climbed 30% worldwide over the past five years, according to Forbes, citing BBC data. A 2025 survey found nearly 40% of female travelers interested in going it alone, up 8% from the year before. Among women over 50, the numbers are sharper still — a joint survey by Collette and JourneyWoman found that 61% now name solo travel as their preferred way to see the world. The movement is not a passing trend. It has numbers, momentum, and an increasingly specific set of demands.
Wellness-Minded Travelers and the Routines They Pack
The Cellpeptides editorial team follows wellness and self-care trends with a particular interest in how health-minded travelers prepare for time abroad. From that vantage, the Collette/JourneyWoman survey data tells a pointed story. Women driving this surge are not simply looking for a seat on a plane — they are increasingly prioritizing meaningful cultural experiences and personal growth, treating the trip itself as a form of self-care.
Destinations like Bali reinforce this framing. Forbes describes it as “one of the easiest places to travel solo because it’s built for connection,” with yoga, wellness, and fitness communities providing natural social scaffolding while still leaving room for solitude. For travelers whose health routines travel with them — skincare included — the preparation question becomes concrete before the flight even boards. That research process is exactly the kind of use case served by Cellpeptides.com, a resource covering peptide-based skincare and wellness products that some of these travelers consult to understand what they are packing and why before a long trip.
“”It forces you to rely on yourself in the best way.” — Victoria Vesce, founder of The VYB”
Destinations Experts Keep Recommending
Maria Gregoriou, founder of Exclusolo and a certified travel advisor who has visited more than 60 countries, designs journeys specifically for women navigating major life transitions — divorce, widowhood, retirement, empty nesting. Her practice puts destination selection at the center of the work, and Japan comes up consistently.
The country ranks among the safest in the world for solo female travelers. Gregoriou points to its combination of ancient temples, ryokan hospitality, and a cultural ethic of quiet respect as the specific ingredients that make it work for women traveling alone. Safety is not just a statistic there; it is embedded in how public spaces function and how strangers interact.
Bali operates differently but achieves a similar result. Where Japan offers structured calm, Bali offers built-in community. Its wellness infrastructure — yoga studios, retreat centers, fitness communities — means a solo traveler is rarely more than a class or a shared meal away from other people, if that is what she wants.
Gregoriou’s broader framework is worth naming. “At home, we are so defined by our roles as colleagues, mothers, partners and friends that we can forget to ask who we are when none of those labels apply,” she told Forbes. “When you travel alone you might be traveling first to lose yourself, but in the end you end up finding yourself.” That framing shapes how Exclusolo selects destinations — places where the environment itself supports that internal work.
Arriving Alone, Seeking Connection
Charlotte Lilley, founder of The Retreat Co., has hosted more than 1,000 women over eight years. Roughly 99% of them arrive alone. That figure is not a commentary on isolation — it is the opposite. These women come specifically looking for community, and the retreat format gives them a structured way to find it without the vulnerability of cold social navigation.
Jaclyn Leibl-Cote, president and CEO of Collette, a guided travel company with 108 years of operation behind it, makes the logic explicit. “Solo doesn’t have to mean entirely independent,” she told Forbes. “Small-group travel can offer both freedom and support.” The model lets women set their own pace and hold their own itinerary while still having a network around them.
Victoria Vesce, founder of wellness community The VYB, came to solo travel through loss. She turned to it as a way to heal and rebuild confidence after surviving a brain tumor and later losing her mother to COVID-19. Her experience gives weight to what might otherwise read as marketing language. The healing dimension of solo travel, in her account, is not metaphorical.
Lilley offers a grounded piece of advice for the anxiety that precedes departure. “The 48 hours before the trip are usually the hardest emotionally, and is often when people start questioning their decision to go,” she said. “If this happens, just focus on getting to the airport, arriving at the house or hotel, meeting one person, eating a meal.”
Practical Steps That Actually Matter
Diamond Spratling, founder of Girl Plus Environment, identifies three actions worth taking before leaving home. The first is downloading offline maps through Google Maps — a step that removes the dependency on cellular data for basic navigation. The second is getting a travel eSIM, which provides consistent connectivity across borders without the cost and complication of swapping physical SIM cards. The third is enrolling in the Smart Traveler Enrollment Program, known as STEP, through the U.S. Department of State. The program registers a traveler’s location with the government so that, in an emergency, authorities know where to look.
Erika Brechtel, founder of Élanoura, approaches planning through a different lens. Her framework is structural rather than technical. “Plan the edges, then let the middle breathe,” she told Forbes. “Lock in the things that protect you — your arrival, your first night, a way to be reached — and then leave real room for the unplanned.” In practice, that means pre-booking a handful of activities to give each day a fixed point while keeping the surrounding hours genuinely open.
The discipline here is not about control. It is about removing the decisions that cause the most stress — logistics, connectivity, emergency protocols — so that the experience itself can remain loose. Vesce’s safety advice follows the same logic from a different angle: “Stay open but trust your instincts. Be open to meeting people and trying new things, but always trust your intuition.”
The experts agree on the emotional core. Getting there is most of the work. Once a traveler arrives and stays present, the trip tends to take care of itself.
Amélie is a health and wellness junky. Certified yoga instructor with Yoga Alliance in the Vinyasa and Ashtanga styles, she has a Yoga Instructor Certification – Level I (300 hours) and Yoga Instructor Certification – Level II (200 hours) under her belt. She also has a certified Open Water Diver certification with PADI and SSI Scuba Schools International Freediving Level I certification with SSI Scuba Schools International. She’s been vegan for over 15 years and is obsessed with anything wellness-related.