Women are increasingly booking overseas holidays to take a break not only from work and home – but from their family, too.
UK travel companies have reported an increase in bookings for solo travellers, primarily older women, often leaving partners behind to “explore on their own terms”.
Operators specialising in group travel and “soft adventure” – typically low-risk outdoor activities such as hiking and canoeing – said that solo – but not single – customers were an ever-higher proportion of their clientele.
The tour operator Jules Verne said solo travellers accounted for 46% of bookings for its trips departing next year, up from 40% in 2023. Just under 70% of its current solo bookings are by women.
Explore Worldwide and Intrepid Travel both said solo bookings among UK customers had grown by more than 20% in the past two years.
With the UK travel industry organisation Abta gathering for its annual convention this week in the Balearic resort of Magaluf, on Mallorca, Spain, operators said female travellers were increasingly heading out unshackled to more exotic climes.
Jules Verne’s managing director, Debbie O’Neill, said consumers booking their own solo holidays was about “choosing how you want to experience the world”.
She said: “Many of our travellers have families, partners and full social lives, but they also value the freedom to explore on their own terms. Joining a small group tour gives them the best of both worlds: the joy of shared moments and the space to follow their own curiosity.”
Joanna Reeve, the UK director at Intrepid Travel, said 62% of its solo bookings were women, most of whom were in the 45-60 age range. She said: “These customers tell us they’ve spent years focusing on their career or raising a family and now want to take time for themselves.”
It also means their desire to go away is unhindered by the differing tastes of schedules of their friends or family, she said.
“They tend to opt for destinations where they can soak up different cultures like Morocco, India and Peru, but they also enjoy active walking or cycling trips in Europe.”
The cost of travelling solo generally remains higher – although adults without children can also choose to go outside school holidays. September and October are peak months for solo trips, according to Explore Worldwide. Its managing director, Michael Edwards, said: “Solo travel is a definite, growing trend. Two-thirds of people in an average group are travelling solo.”
Advantage Travel Partnership, a network of independent travel agents, said its members have recorded a “double-digit” increase in solo bookings this year. Its chief executive, Julia Lo Bue-Said, told the PA news agency: “We are seeing more and more people who are comfortable in the decision to travel in a group but on their own, not with families. There are more products coming out for that market.”
