Somewhere after 2010, the travel industry saw a shift in demographics and an increased appetite in global travel. Women now make 82% of travel decisions and control roughly $73 billion in annual travel spending in the United States alone. Between 2011 and 2024, searches for "solo female travel" grew by more than eleven times. Women are expected to spend $125 billion on travel this year, consistently outspending male counterparts per trip.
The travel industry noticed. Women's travel, particularly solo travel, became the fastest-growing segment in tourism. And with that much spending power concentrated in a demographic hungry for connection and new experiences, the market responded with the wellness retreat.
The global wellness retreat market was valued at $180 billion in 2022 and is projected to reach $364 billion by 2032. That growth did not happen by accident. The wellness retreat succeeded in part because it was easy to organise and highly marketable: rent a villa, hire a yoga instructor, pay some influencers, book a photographer, post it online. The infrastructure was already there, the margins were excellent, and demand was strong.
We are not against wellness. We have arranged spa weeks in Baden-Baden, retreats in the Scottish Highlands, and have access to thermal baths in Iceland and meditation centres in Bhutan. Wellness has its place. But somewhere in the last decade, it became the alibi women needed to justify travelling together, as though group travel required a yoga mat or a book club to be legitimate.
The problem was not that wellness retreats existed. The problem was that they became the only template for women's group travel — and the template is narrow.
Scroll through Instagram or TikTok and the pattern repeats: women's travel retreats in Bali, Tulum, Morocco, Portugal. Pilates on a terrace at sunrise. Book discussions over breakfast. Journal prompts between spa treatments. Cacao ceremonies. Group meditations. Every one promises community, connection, transformation.
For women who want to travel with other women but have no interest in that framework, the options narrow dramatically. The wellness retreat has become synonymous with women's group travel, which meant women who wanted something else — a trek in Central Asia, wild swimming off the Irish coast, a week in Kazakhstan on horseback — have been left to either go alone or not at all.
A video of a Pilates retreat in Portugal accumulates thousands of likes. Gorgeous villa, beautiful women in linen, sunrise sessions overlooking the ocean. The comments fill with praise.
Then someone posts a video of horseback riding in Kazakhstan. Rugged landscape, no spa in sight, no curated breakfast spread, dimly lit tents. The video gets a fraction of the engagement. But the comments tell a different story. Dozens of women writing the same thing: "I want to do this but I don't have anyone to go with."
That gap between what performs well algorithmically and what women actually want to do is where the opportunity sits. Women want community. The wellness retreat industrial complex heard that cry and responded with: here is a library, here is a yoga studio, here is a journal and a sharing circle. Stay in these spaces. Bond over these prescribed activities. This is where women belong.
We find that assumption both condescending and limiting. Some women want to wild swim in cold water with other women who are not afraid of it. They want to watch the Northern Lights from the Arctic Circle with women who would rather experience them than read about them. They want to explore Kyrgyzstan with kindred spirits who are curious and fearless, without needing a wellness framework to justify the trip.
The wellness retreat succeeded for clear economic reasons. Margins were strong. Infrastructure was available. Destinations were accessible. Marketing was straightforward.
Women's adventure travel requires more work. It requires relationships with guides in regions where English is not widely spoken, vetted transport in places where infrastructure is less predictable, and accommodation that meets high standards in countries where luxury properties are rare. Most operators do not bother. Women who wanted something else are left to either go alone, join mixed-gender tours, or wait.
We have spent years building the relationships that make this kind of travel possible: female-centred guides in Kyrgyzstan who lead multi-day treks and know the best private guesthouses in the mountains. Drivers in Kazakhstan who understand that women travelling without male companions require different safety protocols. Routes in the Arctic, the Balkans, the Irish coast — places that do not have the same infrastructure as Provence or Tuscany but are worth the additional effort.
Women should be able to travel in groups without being directed toward a mat or a library. Adventure travel for women does not need a wellness alibi. It does not need a photoshoot, a journal prompt, or a sharing circle to justify itself. It needs logistics handled by someone who knows the region, transport arranged between locations that are not always easy to reach, and group sizes kept deliberately small so participants travel together rather than herd with tourists.
If you are a solo female traveller interested in adventure travel — from Central Asia, the Arctic Circle, the Balkans, Patagonia — get in touch. We are building the alternative to the retreat model, and we are looking for women who want to get out and see the world.
Tell us what you have in mind. A destination, a date, a feeling. We will take it from there.
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