Yes it is possible! You can join a women only group tour on your own after the kids leave, and at Women Travel Abroad that is how almost everyone arrives: over 95% of travelers book as individuals. You join a free Saturday call on Zoom, choose a departure, register with a $400 deposit, and meet your group of 6 to 10 women on a video call 90 days before you fly.
Your youngest has moved out and the house has gone quiet in a way nobody warned you about. You have vacation days you no longer ration around a school calendar. You have money that used to go somewhere else. What you do not have is anyone to go with.
You do not need one. The average Women Travel Abroad traveler is 55, and groups have included women from 20 to 81. Most of the women at your dinner table will be in a similar chapter, and nearly all of them will have booked alone too.
If this is the first trip abroad that belongs to you rather than to your family, take the group. Traveling alone is not unsafe. Logistics are what wreck first trips, and a train platform in a language you do not read is a poor place to learn.
How booking on your own works
There is no roommate form and no partner to coordinate. Here is the whole path, start to finish.
- Join a Community Call. They run every Saturday on Zoom. The team previews upcoming trips and answers questions about pace, rooms and safety. Women Travel Abroad asks every traveler to attend one, or to book a one-on-one call, before registering.
- Choose a departure, such as Iceland in March 2027, and read its physical rating before anything else.
- Register on the trip page and pay the $400 nonrefundable deposit. That holds your spot.
- Pay $400 on the first of each month until the balance clears. Final payment is due 90 days before departure, and a balance still open after that date carries a $250 penalty.
- Buy travel insurance. If you cancel more than six months before the start date, you can request a 50% refund. In the last six months before the trip there is no refund. Ask for a Cancel For Any Reason plan; the trip pages suggest Travel Guard and Allianz.
Book nine months or more ahead if you can. The monthly plan has more months to work with, and you keep the 50% refund window for a while after you commit.
Start with Iceland: March 30 to April 4, 2027
Iceland: Culture and Geothermal Wonders is five nights for $6,345, single room included, and one hotel for the whole trip: Sand Hotel Reykjavik or equivalent. For a first trip, one base matters. You unpack once and come back to the same lobby every night. Your Travel Host is Chieko Steely, a former US Air Force analyst who has taught yoga since 2008.
Arrive at Keflavík by noon on March 30. That afternoon the group meets for a guided food and walking tour of Reykjavík’s old town: lamb soup, fresh fish, skyr and the city’s famous hot dog.
March 31 is the Golden Circle. Walk the rift valley at Þingvellir National Park, where the North American and Eurasian plates are pulling apart, watch Strokkur shoot water 100 feet into the air every few minutes, and finish at Gullfoss.
April 1 is free until dinner. Browse the design shops on Laugavegur or book the optional ride on an Icelandic horse. After dinner the group boards a northern lights boat tour from the Old Harbour onto Faxaflói Bay, weather permitting.
April 2 is the long one, roughly 7am to 7pm in a private vehicle along the south coast. You walk the path behind Seljalandsfoss, stand at the base of the 200-foot Skógafoss, and reach the black sand and basalt columns of Reynisfjara. April 3 is Sky Lagoon, the geothermal spa on the Kársnes shoreline, then a farewell dinner.
Iceland is rated Level 4, Active: up to 4 to 5 miles on a full-day tour, with mixed surfaces, inclines and stairs. That is one step more demanding than every other trip on this page. If long walking days are a stretch for you right now, start with one of the departures below, which are rated 3.
One timing fact to know before you book. Iceland departs in under six months, so the 50% refund window has already closed, and the full balance is due 90 days out, at the end of December. Book it if your spring calendar is settled. If you want the monthly plan to carry more of the cost, choose a summer or fall departure.
WTA travelers sightseeing on an Icelandic volcano
More 2027 departures to compare
Croatia, September 21 to 29, 2027. Eight nights, $7,495. You fly into Split and home from Dubrovnik. The day to look forward to is the sixth: a traditional wooden boat out to an oyster farm in Mali Ston Bay, oysters straight from the water, a glass of Pelješac white alongside. Your Travel Host is Alice West, a recently retired scientist. Physical rating 3.
Burgundy and Provence River Cruise, July 30 to August 7, 2027. Eight nights, $7,845: seven in a single-occupancy cabin aboard a boutique river ship on the Saône and Rhône, and one in a Marseille hotel. The ship does the moving, so you unpack once for a week. Wine, beer and soft drinks come with lunch and dinner on board, there are tastings at estates in Beaune and Tain-l’Hermitage, and the transfer to Marseille stops at a lavender farm in August bloom. Physical rating 3.
Italy by Train, from September 23, 2027. Ten nights, $8,995. You move by rail from Cinque Terre to Naples, with a private coach from Pisa to Siena by way of Volterra, so nobody hands you a rental car and a roundabout in Tuscany. Siena and Rome each get a free day, Pompeii comes with a guide on day nine, and the last full day is a private boat along the Amalfi Coast to Positano. Your Travel Host is Michelle Alexander, a senior IT analyst from Colorado Springs. Physical rating 3.
If ten days feels long for a first trip, Amalfi Coast runs May 25 to June 1, 2027: seven nights at $7,495, one in Naples and six in Maiori, with cooking classes in Ravello and Amalfi and a day in Capri.
For a first trip as an empty nester, it is best to choose a single base or a ship. Iceland, Amalfi and the Burgundy cruise all let you unpack once. Save the itineraries that change hotels every two nights for your second trip.
Women exploring the many gems of Croatia
The pre-trip system that turns strangers into a group
The biggest fear for a first-time group traveler is not the flight. It is walking into a hotel lobby full of women who already know each other.
Four touchpoints exist to make sure that never happens.
At 90 days out your group meets on a video call, just your group, to get acquainted, meet your Travel Hosts, and work through flights, visas and the practical details that cause anxiety when they stay vague. At 60 days you get a detailed packing list and a carry-on-only packing tutorial video. At 35 days you are invited into a private WhatsApp group along with the free-time activity options, and this is where the group knits together. In Iceland, that is when women sort out who is booking the horse ride on April 1 and who is heading to Laugavegur. At 30 days there is an hour-by-hour walkthrough of the itinerary where every remaining question gets answered.
By the time you land at Keflavík you have been talking to these women for more than a month.
Know who does what once you arrive. Your Travel Host is the community facilitator and logistics coordinator, the person who keeps the days running and the group together. Local guides are different people, vetted experts who know the ground. In Iceland the price includes a local Icelandic guide in addition to Chieko.
What women who booked alone say
Nyia Kelly first heard about Women Travel Abroad from a stranger and booked years later. Her Google review: “A wonderful way to travel internationally safely and in style. I learned about WTA years ago from a stranger. Some time later I decided to give it a try. One of the best decisions ever! Made several friends saying yes to this!”
Crystal Tate went to South Africa. In her Google review she wrote that she “loved the women I met and the memories made,” and that she is looking forward to future trips.
Your own room, every night
Most tour operators price a trip for two people sharing, then charge a woman traveling alone extra for a room to herself. That charge is the single supplement. In JourneyWoman’s March 2025 study, Invisible No More, 78% of women over 50 named it the biggest barrier to solo travel.
At the empty-nest stage most women will not share a room with a stranger, and they are right not to. You have run a household for twenty years. You want your own door, your own thermostat and somewhere quiet to sit after a day of walking.
Women Travel Abroad charges no single supplement. Every room is single occupancy and priced that way from the start, so the $6,345 for Iceland is the number you pay on your own. You get the company at dinner and the closed door at ten.
What it costs, honestly
$6,345 for five nights in Iceland is not a budget trip, and $8,995 for ten nights in Italy is further from one. A traveler from Tyler, Texas, who went to the Galápagos with a group of nine wrote on TripAdvisor in February 2026 that the trip was worth it, then added a caveat worth repeating: for budget travel, this is not the group for you.
Read the inclusions before you compare prices with anyone else. In Iceland the price covers five nights in a single room, the airport transfer, local transportation, a local Icelandic guide, the Reykjavík food and walking tour, the south coast day, Sky Lagoon, the northern lights boat (weather permitting), breakfast every day and most lunches and dinners. It does not cover airfare to Keflavík, travel insurance, optional extras such as the horse ride, or tips for personal services.
How to choose your first trip
The first trip decides whether there is a second, and more than 60% of Women Travel Abroad travelers book again within 12 months. So choose the first one for a narrow reason: somebody else has already solved the hard parts.
This stage deserves its own answer, not the generic solo travel over 50 advice that treats a 52-year-old whose last kid just left and a 68-year-old five years into retirement as the same traveler. In the empty-nest window you are likely still working and still fit, with time and money you used to spend on other people. What you lack is a companion. Small-group women’s travel solves that without asking you to convince anyone: you pick a departure and you register.
Start with a country that does the heavy lifting on infrastructure. Italy, Portugal, Japan, Ireland and Costa Rica all have reliable transport, good medical care, wide English use and a real welcome for women traveling alone. Save the places that demand more from you for trip three or four.
Match the physical rating to the body you have now, not the one you had at 40. Every itinerary publishes its rating. A trip built on cities and food is a different trip from one built on long days outdoors, and neither is better.
Get the group cap as a number. “Small group” means nothing on its own, and plenty of operators call forty people small. At Women Travel Abroad the cap is ten, the size where you learn everyone’s name by the second day and still fit around one table.
Look at what happens before departure. A company that emails you a PDF and wishes you luck is not building a group. A traveler from Cincinnati who chose a St. Lucia wellness retreat as her first trip with the company in October 2025 described a group of seven, including two hosts, and a pace that was manageable, not frenetic.
When you know your rating and your dates, browse every destination and shortlist two.
WTA women ready for an ATV adventure in Costa Rica
Small group vs. large group vs. fully solo
| Factor | Fully solo | Large group tour | Women Travel Abroad |
| Group size | Just you | 30 to 50+ | 6 to 10 women |
| Single supplement | N/A | Common | None |
| Room | You arrange it | Shared unless you pay extra | Private single occupancy, included |
| Coordination burden | All on you | Low | Low |
| Built-in company | None | Spread across a crowd | Close-knit by design |
| Before departure | Nothing | Minimal | Group call, packing list, WhatsApp group and itinerary call |
| Pace and free time | Total control | Fixed schedule | Planned days with free time built in |
| Best for | Experienced independent travelers | Budget first, social side secondary | Women who want independence with company |
The large-group model spreads you thin. You are one of 40, the schedule is fixed, and the community never forms because there are too many people and not enough time. Fully solo gives you complete freedom and complete responsibility, which is wonderful once you know what you are doing and daunting as a first trip after twenty years of family logistics.
Book your seat
Join a Saturday Community Call and ask whatever is stopping you. If spring works, register for Iceland. If you would rather spread the payments over more months, browse the 2027 departures and pick the one that fits the year in front of you.