On International Women’s Day, I keep thinking about this: women travelling solo are not running away from life. We are running straight into it.
Into the train rides with our headphones in and our hearts wide open. Into the beach mornings, the alleyway dinners, the museum afternoons, the mountain air, the wrong turns that become favourite stories, and the tiny delicious thrill of realising we can build a beautiful day entirely by ourselves.
That, to me, is the magic of solo travel. Not just the stamps in the passport. Not just the photos. The deeper thing. The life-giving thing. The moment you realise your own company is not a consolation prize. It is a joy.
And honestly? What better thing to celebrate on International Women’s Day than women who are enjoying their lives without apology.
Solo travel is not a waiting room
For a long time, women were sold a very narrow script. Go later. Wait until someone can come with you. Wait until you have a partner. Wait until your friends are free. Wait until the timing is perfect, your budget is bigger, your body is smaller, your confidence is higher, your life is somehow more “ready”.
Solo travel laughs in the face of all that.
It says: book the ticket. Take the class. Sit at the café table for one. Wander the market. Order dessert. Catch the ferry. Be the main character in your own actual life, not just the supporting role in everybody else’s.
And that is why solo travel feels so powerful. It is not only about movement across a map. It is about movement inside yourself. A woman leaves home thinking she is going on a trip. Somewhere along the way, she also finds a steadier voice, a softer nervous system, a bigger appetite for the world, or simply proof that she can trust herself more than she thought.
The joy is in the ordinary bits too
When people talk about solo travel, they often focus on the big stuff. The epic hike. The dream destination. The brave leap. But some of the sweetest parts are gloriously ordinary.
Choosing the exact bakery you want because no one else gets a vote. Lingering in a bookshop for an hour. Napping in the hotel with the curtains half open because you feel like it. Walking slower. Eating later. Changing your mind. Spending an entire day doing something small and lovely just because it suits you.
This is the underrated romance of travelling alone: you get to hear yourself think.
You remember what you like before compromise rushes in. You notice what delights you. You stop performing “easygoing” or “up for anything” and start making choices that actually fit. Sometimes that means a sunrise hike. Sometimes it means a long lunch and an early night. Both count. Both are a life.
Women are not shrinking themselves anymore
Travel writing and tourism research continue to note the strength of solo travel, especially among women, while official International Women’s Day campaigns still centre women’s rights, visibility and agency.
You can feel that shift on the road.
Women are not just taking “healing girl” weekends or once-in-a-lifetime bucket-list trips. We are building whole lifestyles around curiosity, pleasure, ambition, learning, rest, reinvention and fun. We are taking ourselves seriously enough to invest in our own happiness. We are also, crucially, allowing ourselves to be delighted.
That matters.
Because there is something radical in a woman enjoying herself. Deeply. Publicly. Without turning the joy into a lesson, a productivity hack, or a reward she had to over-earn first.
Solo doesn’t mean lonely
One of the biggest myths about solo travel is that it must be isolating. Sometimes it is quiet, yes. But quiet is not the same as lonely.
Very often, travelling alone makes you more open to connection. You chat to the woman next to you on the train. You swap recommendations in a hostel kitchen. You end up on a walking tour with people from four different countries and somehow all go for noodles after. You make a friend for one evening or one year or one beautiful stretch of the internet.
That is part of why I love this piece on the people we meet on vacation. It understands something true: solo travel can make the world feel bigger, but it can also make it feel warmer.
There is no one right way to do this
Some women want hostels, night buses and a backpack that has seen things. Some want boutique hotels, great linen and a very good facial. Some want a women-only trip with built-in company and none of the group-chat admin. Some want to disappear into a city for three days with a notebook and a pair of walkable shoes.
All of it counts.
You do not have to be a certain age, income level, personality type or aesthetic to be “the kind of woman who travels solo”. That woman can be 23 and broke, 48 and freshly divorced, 67 and gloriously over asking permission. She can be high-energy, shy, glamorous, practical, outdoorsy, spiritual, neurospicy, deeply organised or delightfully chaotic.
She can look like a backpacker chasing her next big view, someone planning a women-only group trip, or a woman discovering that travel after 60 can be wildly adventurous. She might even be sketching out her next dream from a list of smarter solo destinations.
The point is not fitting the fantasy. The point is claiming the freedom.
This International Women’s Day, let women want more
Let women want the window seat and the walking tour and the long train ride through a country they have never seen before.
Let women want beauty. Let women want quiet. Let women want adventure. Let women want ease. Let women want to leave for a weekend and come home different. Let women want to spend money on memories. Let women want more than survival. Let women want aliveness.
That is what I see when I look at women travelling solo now. Not a trend to be explained away. Not a phase. Not a niche.
I see women enjoying their one wild and precious life.
I see women proving, every day, that freedom does not have to be loud to be life-changing. Sometimes it looks like a boarding pass. Sometimes it looks like a museum ticket. Sometimes it looks like a plate of pasta at a table for one, eaten slowly, with absolutely no rush to be anywhere else.
And if that is where you are this International Women’s Day, whether you are already on the road or just opening ten tabs and dreaming, here is your reminder:
You do not need a special occasion to live fully. But if there ever were a good day to begin, this would be it.
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