I absolutely love solo travel for a number of reasons. One of those is that traveling on my own gives me total autonomy over the solo travel destinations I choose, as well as what I do once I get there, which is thrilling. However, this is sometimes a double-edged sword – with great autonomy comes great (planning) responsibility.
This decision-making starts before you depart, with probably the biggest decision you’ll make of the trip: where should you go on your solo trip? The planning stage of a solo trip is exciting but can also feel daunting. With so many variables to consider and so many solo travel destinations to explore, how do you even start?
Maybe you have a dream location that you’ve always wanted to solo travel to. If that’s the case, not sure what you’re doing here – go plan the trip already! However, maybe you’re a bit more like me, staring down a block of vacation time and wondering how you want to use it. Tragically, googling “solo female travel destinations where should I go” rarely provides the magic fortune-telling powers that I wish it would.
Developing a system for finding solo travel destinations
Over my years of solo travel, I’ve developed a system to help me choose solo travel destinations. This system allows me to get excited while staying within the parameters of possibility that I set. Let me introduce you to my ultimate checklist for picking solo travel destinations!
I’ll be the first to admit that I love a good checklist. Be it for priority-setting at work or meal planning for the week, seeing a nicely organized list makes my brain happy. Luckily, this applies to planning a solo trip as well. When I’m trying to choose a destination for my next solo trip, I like to start by asking myself a series of questions to narrow down the destinations in play.
The checklist contains 4 sections that I like to work through in order: 1) Trip scale & budget, 2) Trip Goal, 3) Seasonality and Climate, 4) Travel Style
My checklist for brainstorming & choosing solo travel destinations
Trip scale & budget
- How much time do I have for this trip? Is it a long weekend? A week? A full month of travel?
- How flexible are my travel dates? Do I have a specific window I need to travel in, or can I shift my dates depending on pricing/availability? Do I need to travel on the weekends, or can I take flights/trains during weekdays?
- How much travel time am I willing to dedicate to the trip? This will scale with how long the trip is – you don’t want to take a 15-hour flight for a long weekend trip!
- What is my spending budget for this trip? This becomes relevant in two main places: how much am I willing to spend to get to my destination, and how much am I willing to spend once I get there?
Seasonality & climate
- Do I want to travel somewhere during their peak travel season, or am I looking for off-season/shoulder season destinations?
- What is the ideal climate I’m looking for in my destination? Tropical? Mediterranean? Mountainous? Snowy? Beachy?
Trip goal
- What is the goal of this trip? It is relaxation? Outdoor adventure? Cultural exploration? Language immersion? Sightseeing? Culinary enjoyment?
- Do I have a specific bucket list experience that is serving as the inspiration/motivation behind this trip?
- Is there anything non-negotiable that I’m hoping to get out of this trip above all else?
Travel style
- What speed do I want to travel at? Fast travel where I move to a different destination every night or two, or slow travel where I stay in one place for a week+?
- How do I want to get around during my trip? Do I want to rent a car? Rely on public transportation?
- What level of amenities am I looking for in my destination? Do I want luxe conditions or something more off the beaten path? Do I need fast, reliable wifi to work remotely, or am I ok going off the grid?
- How comfortable do I feel with solo travel? Do I want a well-trodden destination with plenty of solo travel amenities (e.g., hostels, group tours, etc.) or am I comfortable with going somewhere that will require more planning?
- How much energy do I want to expend as a solo (female) traveler on this trip? Would I rather stick to destinations where a solo woman traveling is fairly commonplace, or am I ready to explore places where my presence may garner more attention?
- Is it important to me to be able to speak the language at my destination? Am I comfortable traveling to a destination where I don’t speak the native language and most residents don’t speak my language?
Working through the solo travel destinations checklist
As I go through the checklist, I not only answer each question, I also prioritize each category based on my current situation. For example:
Scenario A: perhaps for one trip I’m working a job where I have exactly 5 vacation days so I’ve got max 1 week to travel, and it’s important to me to minimize travel time and have as much time at the destination as possible. However, I can be more flexible on budget, as I just got a bonus at work and I’m allocating part of it towards travel. I can spend a bit more while optimizing for closer destinations and weekend travel.
Scenario B: For another trip, I might have a few weeks between jobs, so my timeline is a bit more flexible. However, I have a set budget and know that I want to spend as much time lounging on the beach as possible. I can adjust my dates and destination around my budget and goal experiences.
After I go through the checklist, I’m left with an almost mad-libs-style search query. This helps to narrow down my solo travel destination options immensely.
Example mad-libs style result:
I’m a solo female traveler looking for a destination for a one-week trip with flights under 8 hours from Boston. I want to travel in April, but the exact dates are flexible. My flight budget is $600, and I’d like to spend no more than $50/night on accommodations. I’m looking for somewhere I can hike and enjoy the outdoors, and I’d rather stay in one place for the full trip. I’d rather not rent a car. I’m happy to go off the beaten path and don’t need strong wifi. I’m good with any climate or travel season as long as I can hike. A mountainous landscape would be a plus!
How to turn the checklist into viable solo travel destinations
So you’ve worked your way through the checklist and you’ve described your dream trip. Now, how do you turn this inspiration into a realistic and exciting solo travel destination?
For a start, you can always try plugging a longer query like the above into Chat GPT or Google Gemini to see what they spit out. Unlike a simple Google search, these tools can attempt to take the many variables into account. However, for a bit more control over your results, here are the searches I start with in order:
Evaluating travel cost & duration
Look for flights/train journeys/busses/drives within your time and money budget from where you live. Personally, I like to use Google Explore to quickly narrow down my options.
For the example above, In Google Explore, I would enter Boston as my departure point, and “Anywhere” as my destination. I’d use the flexible scheduling feature to choose a 1-week trip any time during April. Finally, I’d use their filters to get specific on my price and time budget. Here, I’d set $600 as my maximum price and 8 hours as my maximum duration. With one simple search, I quickly see that I have plenty of options within the US, as well as a few in Latin America and a few in Europe.
Google Explore is by no means the only way to find flights with specific criteria. However, it’s one quick way to narrow down from the whole world to a more manageable list of options.
Checking the climate & seasonality
Once you have a better sense of what is within your time and monetary transportation budget, you can start to hone in. First, do a climate/landscape/seasonality check. If you are looking for a beach destination, for example, or you want somewhere that is going to be snowy, those are highly specific climate considerations that will narrow your search significantly.
To evaluate climate and seasonality, I find it easiest to look at a map visually. For example, if I’m looking at a map of the United States and I want to go on a sunny beach vacation in April, I know that I can quickly rule out anywhere that’s not on the coast. A quick Google search will tell me that the Northern regions of both the East and West coasts will be too cold for my desired climate. As such, I can quickly narrow down to either Southern California, somewhere along the Gulf of Mexico, somewhere in the Coastal Southeast region, or to one of the tropical islands that aren’t part of the contiguous states.
Exploring the trip budget
At this point, you’ll have gone from having the entire world at your disposal to a more manageable map of possible solo travel destinations to choose from. If budget is a significant consideration for you, now is the time to evaluate your destinations for budget-friendliness.
One way to quickly gauge travel costs is to use hotel costs as a proxy. When checking hotel costs, I like to start with three basic searches: hotels, hostels, and Airbnb. If budget options are looking slim but I’m already invested in the destination, I also do a 4th bonus “creative accommodations” search.
1. Hotel search
Do a general search for generic hotels in the area, using an aggregation site like booking.com. This will quickly give me a sense of the range I’m looking at. Are there a good number of highly-rated hotels for under $50/night, or are even the lower-rated properties over $100/night or more?
2. Hostel search
After I check hotels, I head to Hostelworld to see what kind of hostel infrastructure my potential destination has. If there are plenty of cheap hostels, that tells me that a) cheap lodging is an option, and b) there is a good chance that there is some degree of other budget infrastructure (i.e., group tours, cheap food, etc.) in the area. If there are no hostels, I know that solo and/or budget travel may be more difficult.
3. Airbnb search
Sometimes Airbnb can serve as a middle ground between hostels and hostels. This is particularly true when folks rent out a room in their house rather than the whole thing. If the hostel pickings are slim, I’ll see what kind of Airbnb infrastructure the destination has. If I’m planning a longer solo trip, Airbnb properties sometimes offer weekly or monthly discounts, which takes the price down further. In addition, if there is a kitchen, that can help me save on food spending.
4. Creative accommodations
Explore creative accommodation options. When I strike out on budget accommodations from my first 3 searches, I know I’ll have to get seriously creative to make the destination work for a solo trip on a budget. At this point, I begin researching alternative accommodations. These might include camping, housesitting, or working/volunteering in exchange for free accommodations.
Working in your trip goal & travel style
From here, take a look at your checklist/mad lib and identify the 2-3 components of your trip goal & travel style that are most important/immovable to you, as well as the pieces that are more flexible. Tailor your searches starting with the most important. For example, perhaps it is extremely important to me that I can hike, but maybe I’m flexible about the idea of renting a car.
From my shortlist of destinations that fit my time budget, financial budget, and climate preferences, I would start exploring which spots make good hiking destinations. To me, this is the fun part, and it’s where you get to be creative with your budget, travel style, and tradeoffs.
This phase requires the most in-depth research, which is why I’ve put it last – it’s helpful to have a shortlist of potential destinations before you reach this stage. For me, this research often involves reading activity guides, destination reviews, and even full itineraries that others are kind enough to share.
To gauge some of the more subjective pieces around the ease of solo female travel in a particular destination, I find perspectives from other bloggers to be invaluable. Personally, I’ve written full solo trip itineraries for both hiking Norway’s southern fjords without a car and soaking in the best of food + outdoor adventures in Cape Town. Check those out if Norway or Cape Town are on your travel radar to get inspired for your next trip!
Happy travels!
If you’ve made it this far, hopefully you now have one or more solo travel destinations that you’re excited about! Travel planning is a skill, and the next time you need to pick a solo travel destination, you’ll have some new tools at the ready. I always love adding to my list of dream solo travel destinations, so leave me a comment and let me know where you’re planning to go next!