Yes it’s true! A woman traveling on her own at 63 can in fact join a small-group safari, sleep in her own room every night, and never see a single supplement on the invoice. Women Travel Abroad runs an incredible safar adventure to South Africa: Cape Town to the Wild, August 19 to 28, 2027. The price is $7,495 and that number is for one woman in one room, and it does not move or change.
If you have spent the last year pricing safaris and watching the total jump 30, 50 or 100% the moment you tick “traveling alone” on a checklist, then this is for you. Here at Women Travel Abroad, this and all our itineraries are a single-occupancy rate and that is the only rate.
What the ten days look like
The trip splits into two halves. Four nights in Cape Town, four nights on safari, then a final night near the airport.
Cape Town first. You land, a private transfer takes you to a boutique hotel, and the group meets over a welcome dinner. Day two is a guided walk through Bo-Kaap, the Company’s Garden and the V&A Waterfront, with the afternoon free. Day three is the Cape Winelands. Day four is the coastal drive to Boulders Beach and its penguin colony, then the Cape Peninsula.
On day five you fly north to KwaZulu-Natal and check into a tented camp at Thanda Private Game Reserve. Your first game drive is that evening. Over the next three days you do five game drives in total, a bush dinner under the stars, and a boat cruise on the St. Lucia Estuary in iSimangaliso Wetland Park to see hippos and crocodiles. On day nine you take a sunrise drive, fly back to Cape Town and have a farewell dinner. Day ten you go home.
Five drives is the right number. Two-night safari add-ons, the kind bolted onto the end of a coach tour, give you three drives if you are lucky, and the leopard does not read the schedule. Four nights in one reserve with five drives is enough time to see the Big Five without rushing and enough downtime that the trip does not feel like a checklist.
Your room, in the city and in the bush
Every night you have your own room. In Cape Town that is a boutique hotel. At Thanda it is your own tent with a proper bed, a bathroom and a view of the bush. No roommate assigned at the airport, no shower rota, no negotiating the thermostat.
This matters more on safari than almost anywhere else. Game drives start before dawn. You are up at 5 a.m. one morning and asleep by 9 p.m. the next, and the woman in the next bed is not on your clock. A door you can close is the difference between resting between drives and merely waiting for the next one.
Kathy, 63, from New Brunswick, has taken three WTA trips and put it this way on the trip page: single occupancy options “make for a truly worry-free travel experience.” Her trips were Saint Lucia, Bali and Spain rather than South Africa, but the room policy is the same on every itinerary.
The pace of a safari day at 60-plus
Note that game drives are sitting down. That is the part most women over 60 do not realize until they get there. You ride in an open vehicle with a ranger and a tracker, you stop when there is something to see, and you get out for coffee at sunrise or a drink at sunset. A drive is three to four hours. Between the morning and afternoon drives you have the middle of the day free at the lodge: pool, spa, a book, a nap.
The Cape Town portion is where the walking is. WTA rates this trip Level 3, Moderate, which on their scale means walking tours of two to three miles at a steady pace, some inclines and stairs, and up to two hours on your feet at a stretch. If you can do a two-mile walk around your neighborhood without thinking about it, you can do this trip. If you cannot, look at a Level 1 or 2 itinerary instead; the rating is published so you can decide before you pay a deposit.
The average WTA traveler is 55. The oldest so far was 81.
Women Travel Abroad travelers taking a safari tour in South Africa.
Arriving alone into a group of 6 to 10
Over 95% of the women on WTA trips book on their own, so you are not the odd one out. You are the norm. Groups are capped at ten women and never run below six, which is small enough for one table at dinner and one vehicle on a game drive.
You also do not meet the group for the first time at the airport. 90 days before departure your group has a video call with your Travel Host to go over flights, visas and the practical questions. 35 days out you are added to a private WhatsApp group where women start comparing arrival times and planning what to do with the free afternoon in Cape Town. By the time you land, you know names.
Your Travel Host for this trip is Michelle Alexander, who has hosted South Africa before and calls it her favorite WTA trip. She handles logistics and keeps the group together. The rangers at Thanda and the guide in Cape Town are local specialists, and that is a different job.
What $7,495 buys, and what it does not
Included: nine nights, the domestic flights between Cape Town and Thanda, all ground transport, airport transfers, five game drives, the Winelands tasting, the Boulders Beach visit, the estuary cruise, park fees, daily breakfast and dinner, and lunch every day except day two. Tips on included services are covered.
Not included: your international flight to Cape Town, travel insurance, drinks beyond what is listed, and personal spending.
Compare that to the usual safari math. A JourneyWoman survey published in March 2025, “Invisible No More,” found that 78% of women over 50 named the single supplement as their top barrier to travel. Not safety and not the cost of the trip itself but for the surcharge for sleeping alone. Some operators have started waiving it on selected departures, and a Botswana operator dropping theirs recently made travel news. A waiver is a promotion. A price that never had a supplement in it is a policy. Book the policy.
Practical terms: a $400 non-refundable deposit holds your place, then $400 a month minimum until paid, with the balance due 90 days before departure. Cancel more than six months out and you get 50% back. Inside six months, nothing, so buy insurance with a cancel-for-any-reason clause. WTA recommends it.
WTA traveler posing with the elephants in South Africa
Who should not book this trip
Skip it if…dawn wake-ups will ruin your holiday. Three of the four safari mornings start before sunrise, and that is when the animals are moving.
Skip it if…a two-mile city walk is a stretch. The Cape Town days are on foot.
Skip it if…you want a private guide and a bespoke pace. This is a group trip with a fixed itinerary, and the trade is company and a fixed price for less say over the schedule.
For everyone else, this is the safari you have been putting off.
How to book
So what are you waiting for? Register now for a place on the South Africa 2027 trip. Groups fill on the small side, and ten is the ceiling.
If you would like to talk to someone first, WTA asks every new traveler to join a Saturday community call before registering. It is a chance to ask the questions this page has not answered, and to hear from women who have already gone.
For the wider picture on traveling alone at this age, our guide to solo travel for women over 60 covers pace, pricing and how to choose an operator. For other 2027 departures with the same room policy, see the 2027 trip calendar.
Ten WTA women posing at a wine estate in outside of Cape Town, South Africa