How to Budget for a Women’s Group Tour: What’s Included and What Isn’t

A women’s group tour with Women Travel Abroad typically costs between $4,500 and $8,500 per person, depending on the destination, trip length, and season. That price covers your guaranteed single-occupancy boutique room, all guided experiences and entrance fees, ground transportation during the trip, daily breakfast plus most lunches and dinners, your Travel Host for the duration, and our signature 90, 60, and 30-day pre-trip preparation and community-building call system. It does not cover international flights, travel insurance, visa fees, optional free-time activities, alcohol at most meals, gratuities for local guides and drivers, or your personal spending money for souvenirs and shopping.

The honest math: when you compare the total cost of a Women Travel Abroad journey to booking the same experience independently as a solo woman, the group tour comes out within $300 to $700 of the independent cost. The difference is what you do not pay for in time, stress, and the single supplement, which on most independent boutique hotel bookings runs 60% to 100% of the double-occupancy rate. Below is the full breakdown.

What Is Actually Included in Your Trip Price

Travel companies are notorious for vague inclusion language. Phrases like “select meals” and “premium accommodations” tell you nothing. Here is what each line item actually means on a Women Travel Abroad trip.

Accommodations: Boutique Single-Occupancy Rooms

Every traveler gets her own room in a hand-selected boutique property. No shared rooms. No roommate matching. No upcharge for sleeping alone. This is the line item where independent solo bookings get difficult, so it deserves a specific example.

A 7-night stay at La Maison Arabe in Marrakech, the riad many of our Morocco travelers love, runs roughly $380 to $480 per night for a single traveler in shoulder season. That is $2,660 to $3,360 for one week of accommodations alone, before any meals, transportation, or activities. The single supplement at most riads of this caliber is 70% to 100% of the double rate, meaning a solo woman pays nearly what two people would pay together. With Women Travel Abroad, the equivalent property is built into your trip price with no supplement applied. Ever. 95% of our travelers book solo, and we built the pricing model around that reality.

Guided Experiences and Entrance Fees

Every cultural site, museum entry, cooking class, wine tasting, and curated activity on your itinerary is paid for. In Granada, that means your Alhambra and Generalife tickets, including the Nasrid Palaces timed entry that sells out months in advance. In Bali, it means your Ubud rice terrace walk with a local farmer, your traditional Balinese cooking class, and your sunrise temple visit. In Egypt, it means private Egyptologist access to the pyramids and your felucca sail on the Nile.

The independent equivalent of these experiences, booked piecemeal through Viator or GetYourGuide, typically runs $800 to $1,400 per traveler depending on the destination. And that assumes you find the same caliber of experience, which usually requires hours of research and review-reading per activity.

Ground Transportation

Airport pickup on arrival, all transfers between cities, day-trip transport, and your return airport drop-off are included. We work with welcome pickups for airport transfers in destinations where they operate, and with vetted private drivers elsewhere. You will never be standing outside a foreign airport at 11 pm trying to figure out whether the taxi line is real.

For context, a one-way airport transfer in Marrakech runs $30 to $50 if you negotiate well and $80 to $120 if you do not. A private driver between Marrakech and Fes is $200 to $300 one way. Stack these up across a 10-day trip and ground transportation alone is a $600 to $1,200 line item.

Meals

Daily breakfast is always included. Most lunches and most dinners are included, with a few free evenings built in so you can wander, rest, or join a small group that wants to try a specific restaurant. We are specific about this in your itinerary so you know exactly which meals to budget for separately.

The meals we host are not hotel buffets. In Andalusia, that means a long lunch of slow-cooked rabo de toro at a family-run venta outside Ronda. In Japan, it means kaiseki at a ryokan in Kyoto. In Costa Rica, it means casado with a soda the cooking-class teacher recommended.

WTA travelers in Japan

Your Travel Host

A dedicated Travel Host travels with your group from arrival to departure. Note this important distinction that your Travel Host is not your local guide. She is your community facilitator, logistics coordinator, and the woman who handles the inevitable curveballs. A vetted local expert handles the destination knowledge in each city or region, because nobody who lives in Kansas City or Brooklyn or Lisbon can credibly claim to be a destination expert in Fez or Hanoi or Cusco.

The 90, 60, and 30-Day Pre-Trip Call System

This is included in your price and it is the part most travelers tell us they did not know they needed until they experienced it. 90 days before departure, you meet your travel group and your Travel Host on a call to get acquainted, cover flights, visas, and important logistics. At 60 days, you get the detailed packing list and the carry-on-only packing tutorial video. At 35 days, you are invited into the private WhatsApp chat with your group, where women start making plans for the free-time evenings. At 30 days, you get the hour-by-hour itinerary walkthrough call. By the time you land at your destination, you already know the women in your group and you already know what is happening on day three at 2:30 pm.

This system does not have an independent equivalent. You cannot buy this kind of experience on Expedia.

What You Budget Separately

Here is the honest part. The trip price does not cover everything, and we are transparent about exactly what you still need to plan for.

International Flights

Flights are excluded because women travel from different cities and want different routings. A New Yorker flying to Lisbon does not want to pay the same flight cost as a Seattleite who needs two connections. We do not mark up flights and we do not lock you into a route that does not work for your schedule.

You’ll want to budget economy international flights from the US to most Women Travel Abroad destinations range from $700 to $1,400 round-trip if you book three to six months out and shop carefully. Premium economy is $1,800 to $2,800. We recommend Going (formerly Scott’s Cheap Flights) for deal alerts, and we recommend booking flights only after your trip is confirmed.

Pro tip: build one buffer day on either end of the trip. It costs you a single hotel night and it saves you from the cascading nightmare of a missed connection on your arrival day.

Travel Insurance

We strongly recommend it. We do not include it because policies need to match your specific health situation, age, and risk tolerance.

For a healthy traveler under 65, a standard policy with medical, evacuation, and trip cancellation coverage runs roughly 4% to 8% of your insured trip cost. For travelers over 70 or with pre-existing conditions, expect 8% to 12%.

On Cancel For Any Reason (CFAR) coverage: it is not the right choice for most travelers. It typically adds 40% to the policy cost, reimburses only 50% to 75% of your trip, and requires cancellation more than 48 hours before departure. CFAR makes sense if you are traveling somewhere that genuinely makes you nervous, or if you are managing unpredictable family or health circumstances. For most women on most trips, a standard comprehensive policy is enough.

See our guide on travel insurance to get more in-depth information on what is best for solo women travelers.

WTA travelers taking a Moroccan cooking class.

Visa Fees and Entry Requirements

These vary by destination and passport. Egypt is currently $25 on arrival. In India it is roughly $40 for an e-visa. Morocco, Costa Rica, and most European destinations are free for US passport holders. We send you the current requirements for your specific destination in your 90-day pre-trip materials.

Optional Free-Time Activities

We build free time into every itinerary on purpose. Some women want to nap. Some want to shop. Some want to book a hammam or a wine tour or a horseback ride. Budget $100 to $400 for optional activities depending on the destination and your interests.

Alcohol Beyond Welcome Drinks and Specific Tastings

Wine tastings, the welcome dinner toast, and pairing meals are included. Your nightly glass of Tempranillo with dinner is not. Budget $15 to $50 per day if you drink with most meals, depending on the destination.

Gratuities

We are direct about this because vagueness around tipping is a recurring traveler complaint. Plan for $15 to $25 per day for your Travel Host, $10 to $20 per day for local guides on days they work with the group, and $5 to $10 per day for drivers. For a ten day trip, that is roughly $250 to $450 total.

Personal Spending

Souvenirs, that linen kaftan in the Marrakech souk, the ceramic from a Granada workshop, the leather bag in Florence. All these are genuinely up to you and your shopping appetite. Travelers report spending anywhere from $50 to $1,500. The honest median is around $300 to $500.

The Real Comparison: WTA vs. Booking the Same Trip Independently

This is the calculation most articles dodge. Here is a specific ten day Morocco itinerary, comparable boutique accommodations and experiences, priced both ways for a solo woman traveler.

Here is the simple answer, trips cost within a few hundred dollars of each other. What you actually pay for with Women Travel Abroad is the elimination of single supplements, the 25 to 50 hours of research, and the loneliness of doing it all alone.

WTA travelers discovering the famous pyramids of Egypt

Small Group vs. Large Group Travel: The Cost Question

Large bus tours often advertise lower prices, sometimes $2,500 to $3,800 for similar destinations. The cost difference is real and so are the trade-offs. Here is the comparison:

If your priority is the lowest possible sticker price and you do not mind a bus full of strangers, a large tour will be cheaper. If your priority is sleeping in your own room, eating where locals eat, and arriving knowing the women you are traveling with, the math changes. See also our blog post on solo travel versus group travel for more information. 

Honest Answers to the Money Questions Women Actually Ask

Do women-only travel companies charge single supplements?

Most do. Women Travel Abroad does not, and that is one of the things that makes us unusual in the industry. A 2024 JourneyWoman survey found that 78% of women cite single supplements as the top obstacle to solo travel, which is why we built our pricing model around guaranteed single-occupancy rooms with no supplement charged.

What is the best travel group for single women over 50?

The right group is one that takes a hard cap on group size, charges no single supplement, and does meaningful pre-trip community-building. Based on feedback from the hundreds of women we have guided, the combination of a maximum of 10 travelers, private boutique rooms, and the 90, 60, and 30-day call system is what makes the experience feel intimate rather than transactional. Over 60% of our travelers book a second trip with us within 12 months.

How much should I save for a women’s group tour?

For most destinations, plan for the trip price plus an additional $1,800 to $3,200 to cover flights, insurance, gratuities, optional activities, alcohol, and personal spending. That puts most travelers’ all-in budget between $6,500 and $11,000 for a 10-day international trip. Closer-to-home destinations like Costa Rica come in lower; longer trips to Japan or India come in higher.

Are there ways to bring the cost down?

Yes. Book early (most of our trips offer early-bird pricing roughly 12 months out). Travel in shoulder season, which on most itineraries also means fewer crowds and better weather. Use a travel rewards credit card for your flights. And consider trips closer to home in your first year, then build up to the longer-haul journeys once you have one Women Travel Abroad experience under your belt.

What if I need to cancel?

Standard cancellation terms and timelines are in your booking documents. If you have specific concerns about cancellation flexibility, that is the conversation to have on your 90-day pre-trip call. We are direct about what is and is not refundable, and we will not pretend otherwise.

A Final Thought on Value

Price and value are not the same thing. The cheapest trip is not always the best trip, and the most expensive trip is not always the most luxurious. What we built at Women Travel Abroad is a model where a woman traveling on her own gets her own room, her own pace, her own group of 6 to 10 like-minded women, and a real community on either end of the experience. The price tells you what it costs. The pre-trip calls, the single-occupancy guarantee, and the small group cap tell you what you are actually getting.

If you want to see how this translates across specific destinations, browse our upcoming 2026 and 2027 itineraries to find your next journey with a community of like-minded women.