SOLO FEMALE TRAVELERS

Kristin Addis from Be My Travel Muse writes our regular column on solo female travel. It’s an important topic I can’t adequately cover, so I brought in an expert to share her advice for other women travelers to help cover the topics important and specific to them! She’s amazing and knowledgable. In this column, Kristin shares some insights from solo female travelers who aren’t millennials!

Every now and then I think about Julie, a 77-year-old woman who stayed at the beach bungalow next to me on the island of Gili Air in Indonesia.

She regaled with me stories about being invited by locals to beach barbecues, her adventures, and the fun she had traveling the world. I felt so empowered during our conversations. She was so laid-back and at peace. This was a woman who had lived a long life and bucked the belief that solo female travel was something for the young. The confident role model in front of me showed me that women of any age can enjoy and benefit from travel.

Over the years while writing this column, I have seen a growing number of women asking, “What about those of us who aren’t twenty-something? Where can I read their stories and connect with narratives that are closer to my own?”

The Internet is awash with young, often Western, women traveling the world. They blog and Instagram and get their stories told in big media. There’s that bias toward youth.

But solo female travelers come in all ages, from all kinds of backgrounds, and from all over the world.

Today, I want to share some of the stories of older women travelers and add their voices to the narratives. So I sat down (virtually at least) with seven women and asked them for their travel advice