Solo Travelling for Women: How the Conversation Has Changed (our 2026 trend report)

Back in 2021, when our Healing Tree Community series on solo female travel ran wild, the conversation was still largely centered on a single question: is it safe for a woman to travel alone? Three years on, that question hasn't disappeared, but it has matured into something more useful. Women aren't asking whether to go anymore. They're asking how to go well.

Less landmark. More local. The solo travel rules have changed.

From permission to planning

The shift shows up clearly in the numbers. Searches for solo female travel have climbed steadily year over year, and women now make up the overwhelming majority of solo travelers worldwide. What's changed is the tone behind the trend. In 2024, much of our series focused on reassurance, on convincing readers that solo travel was possible and worthwhile. Today's traveler has largely accepted that premise. The new questions are tactical: which destinations offer the smoothest experience, how to budget for the cost of traveling without splitting expenses and how to turn a solo trip into something more than an escape.

Safety still matters, of course, and recent surveys show many women remain cautious about walking alone after dark or choosing unfamiliar cities. But the response to that caution has evolved. Rather than avoiding solo travel altogether, women are choosing destinations more deliberately, leaning on safety rankings and building in more structure through guided meetups or small-group connections once they arrive. The fear hasn't vanished. It has simply become something to plan around rather than something that stops the trip altogether.

The rise of "soft networking" travel

One of the most interesting developments is the emergence of women-only group trips and retreat-style getaways that blend solitude with light social connection. Industry data shows a meaningful share of women now plan or have already taken a women-only trip and that number continues to climb. These aren't traditional group tours. They're built around the idea of traveling alone but not entirely alone: arriving solo, then "soft networking" with like-minded travelers through yoga sessions, shared meals, or workshops, with no pressure to perform or socialize beyond what feels comfortable.

This matters for a community like ours, because it represents a genuine evolution of the values our original series championed. Back then, the emphasis was on independence and self-reliance. Now, independence is being paired with intentional, low-pressure connection, which feels closer to the holistic philosophy The Healing Tree Community has always stood for.

Wellness has moved from add-on to itinerary

Perhaps the clearest trend line is the integration of wellness into the structure of the trip itself, rather than treating it as a spa afternoon bolted onto a sightseeing schedule. Retreats built around breathwork, sound baths, mindful movement, and even full moon ceremonies have moved from niche curiosity to mainstream offering. Digital detox stays, nature immersion (read about immersion, here) programs, and slower, longer retreats (a week or two rather than a weekend) are increasingly what women are booking when they travel solo with self-development in mind. Industry analysts describe this as a shift from chasing more trips to curating better ones: fewer, more intentional journeys that prioritize inner regulation over checklist sightseeing.

Pages, not maps: the rise of literary travel

One of the most quietly significant new trends is the surge in what's now being called "Bookbound" travel: trips planned not around landmarks or bucket-list sights, but around books. Travelers are tracing the footsteps of fictional characters, visiting the homes of writers, seeking out legendary independent bookshops, and booking reading retreats designed to do nothing more than slow down and sink into a story. According to Skyscanner's 2026 travel trends report, 55% of travelers have either booked or seriously considered a trip inspired by a book they've read and search filters for hotels with libraries are up 70% year-on-year. Fuelled by BookTok, celebrity book clubs, and the post-pandemic appetite for digital detox, literary tourism has grown into something far more tangible than a niche hobby. It is an antidote to the endless scroll, a way to swap passive consumption for embodied experience.

For solo female travelers, this trend is a natural fit. A literary trip offers structure without rigidity and it provides the built-in sense of purpose that can make solo travel feel more grounded. Whether it's a slow week in Edinburgh following the trail of beloved crime writers, a cottage stay in the Cotswolds with a stack of books and no agenda or a bookshop crawl through Lisbon, literature is becoming an emotional map, guiding travelers in search of cultural depth and the simple pleasure of walking where stories were once written.

The supermarket over the museum

Alongside literary travel, another trend has arrived that no one predicted but everyone immediately recognized: grocery store tourism. According to Hilton research, 77% of travelers already participate in grocery store tourism, and 35% specifically plan to visit a local supermarket on their next trip. Rather than queuing for another overpriced museum ticket, travelers are wandering the aisles of local markets, neighborhood delis, and artisan food shops — not out of necessity, but out of genuine curiosity. Skyscanner's 2026 Travel Trends Report found that 68% of travelers believe sampling local food is the best way to understand a culture, and 54% say that grocery shopping makes them feel more like a resident than a tourist.

This shift has a clear psychological logic. Supermarket shelves of hyper-specific snacks, regional drinks and everyday staples offer a kind of unfiltered cultural insight that even the best restaurant cannot quite replicate. It is also deeply democratic — no reservation, no entrance fee, no dress code. From a Spanish Mercado to a Tokyo konbini to a beloved local farm shop in the English countryside, these spaces reveal how people actually live: what they cook after work, what they pack in their children's lunchboxes, what they consider a treat. For solo travelers especially, the casual rhythm of a market visit offers an easy, low-pressure way to feel oriented in a new place.

Becoming a local, not just a visitor

Running through all of these trends — wellness retreats, literary getaways, foodie wandering — is the same deeper impulse: the desire to stop being a tourist. Slow travel is gaining momentum across the board, rising from 22% to 26% among long-haul travelers planning trips to Europe in a single year, reflecting a genuine shift in how people are thinking about what a trip should feel like. Women are increasingly choosing fewer destinations, staying longer, renting apartments in residential neighborhoods rather than hotels in tourist districts, and building the kind of daily rhythm that turns a visit into something closer to a temporary life.

Practical guidance now suggests renting in a residential neighborhood, frequenting the same bakery, learning the names of local shopkeepers, and leaving at least half your days unplanned: slow travel is about having the time to say yes to a local recommendation or spending three hours over a long lunch without checking your phone. Over 70 countries now offer digital nomad visas, making extended stays increasingly practical for women who work remotely. But even for those on a fixed timeframe, the "becoming a local" mindset is reshaping how trips are structured. The goal is no longer to see everything. It is to truly know somewhere.

Where to pay attention now

For our community, this points to a few areas worth tracking going forward. Destination choice has become more strategic, with safety and walkability now weighing as heavily as scenery. The appetite for solo-but-social retreat experiences is a natural fit for Healing Tree content. The wellness dimension of solo travel is no longer optional framing. And the emerging currents of literary travel, grocery tourism, and slow immersion all point in the same direction: women are traveling to feel something real, not to collect evidence that they were somewhere.

The thread connecting our 2021 series to where the conversation stands today is continuity, not contradiction. We were right that solo travelling was becoming a tool for growth rather than escape. What's changed is the richness of the toolkit women are now using to pursue that growth. And the confidence with which they are using it.