Women-Only Trips Are A Hot Trend In Active Travel

In 1966, George and Martha Butterfield and Sidney Robinson launched Butterfield & Robinson, considered the first luxury guided active travel tour operator. Since then, they have led thousands of people on cycling, hiking and other active travel trips around the globe and remain the gold standard in the luxury travel industry, winning countless awards including yet another appearance on the coveted Travel + Leisure Magazine World’s Best Tour Operators list in 2024.

58 years after they started leading these trips, B&R has broken new ground and just launched its first ever slate of women-only trips, which debuted for reservations last Monday (September 23).

Called the Women For Women Travel collection, the new trips were created by two female employees, Kristi Elborne and Christina Cain, the Directors of Sales and Trip Design respectively. According to the company’s materials, “Butterfield & Robinson’s women-only collection aims to bring together like-minded women who share a passion for discovery. This B&R collection brings together adventurous, discerning women from around the world for unforgettable shared experiences centered around culture, cuisine, and connection. Each itinerary is carefully curated for women travelers, from special experiences with female winemakers in Tuscany and a dinner at the home of a female chef to discovering Cambodia with female tuk-tuk drivers and a visit in Vietnam with a woman who fought in the Vietnam War.”

The collection is launching with one guided, small group trip from each of the company’s three core areas, cycling, multi-sport and walking/hiking, each in one of the most popular spots for those trips. The first to depart is Camino de Santiago Women’s Walking in Spain in June 2025, then Tuscany & Umbria Women’s Multi-Active in October and Cambodia & Vietnam Women’s Biking in November.

I recently wrote here at Forbes about the overlooked importance of “Guaranteed Departures” in all kinds of group travel, including active, and B&R is one of the companies covered, so read more here.

The category the industry calls “solo women travel” has exploded, but this can mean women simply traveling without a companion, whether truly going solo or joining group trips, women-only or not. According to leading travel medical insurance and safety company Global Rescue, more women are traveling without men, accounting for as much as 85% of the customers of some tour operators, and 40% of women surveyed said their spouse was not interested in travel.

In active travel this can be an even bigger issue if one spouse cycles or hikes and the other does not, and a 2022 study by the Adventure Travel Trade Association found that women aged 20-70 comprised 75% of travelers in the categories of adventure, culture and nature-themed travel. Earlier this year travel industry publication TravelPulse reported that 57% of all adventure travelers are women and declared that, “Women-only tours are beginning a new trend.”

No major player has dove into this trend as deeply as Backroads, America’s largest luxury active travel operator and a longtime B&R competitor that launched way back in 1979. Backroads started offering women-only trips more than a year ago and has seen tremendous interest and growth. The company has quickly added new trips and is projecting an increase of more than 200% in guests on its Women’s Adventures in 2025 over 2024. In 2025 Backroads will run more than 125 Women’s Adventures departures. The collection currently includes more than 40 of Backroads’ most popular Walking & Hiking itineraries in bucket-list destinations, along with new biking tours in France and California, and an Active Culinary Adventure in Tuscany, the first women-only trip in this category for the company.

“Women of all ages have been a significant part of the growth in active adventure travel so we expected our Women’s Adventures would be well received, but we were thrilled with the overwhelmingly enthusiastic response,” said Backroads Executive Vice President, Avery Hale Smith.“ We’ve heard from many women—solo travelers and those who travel with friends or family—that the trips feel supportive, inspiring and rejuvenating and they love how the camaraderie and bonding is so organic.”

“We do plan to offer more women’s-specific trips,” said Collin Daulong, who founded his active travel company, KC&E Adventures, with his wife and business partner, Caitlin, who was a professional tour guide in Italy for years. The company started as a mountain biking specialist in Vermont but has grown into a top boutique active travel company covering the globe, with an emphasis on the U.S., Italy, Croatia, Morocco and Iceland. They do a full gamut of hiking and road cycling like the other companies in this space, but also a lot of mountain biking and gravel riding, which the bigger companies have mostly overlooked.

I have traveled repeatedly with both B&R and Backroads, and they are wonderful companies, and both have very high repeat customer rates, a telltale sign of doing a good job. I recently did a trip with KC&E, which has grown mainly through very positive word of mouth, and it was a great experience, very personal. Their niche is delivering curated small group private trips for the same price (or less) as their peers charge for group trips that can have over 20 people. This is an excellent value proposition for luxury travel, but the one area in which they are still scheduling group departures is women-only trips. Next up for KC&E is a Women-Only Sonoran Single Track mountain biking trip in Arizona in February, 2025.

“The reason we started doing women’s-only experiences is that when we began in Vermont, there was a clear desire from our clients for those types of trips. Whether they’re beginner cyclists or seasoned riders, women sometimes prefer to be in an environment that understands the unique nuances of being a woman in the sport—things like learning styles and comfort on the bike that men don’t always relate to. Since our company is 50% woman-owned, it’s something we’re particularly passionate about. We’re also noticing a growing interest in women’s-specific trips that are health-adjacent but not necessarily focused on cycling. Wellness experiences like yoga, hiking, and other activities in exceptional locations with amazing food are resonating. Women enjoy having these spaces to connect with other women and share unique experiences together.”

The offerings are growing fast all across active travel. REI Adventures is the group trip travel arm of the famous national outdoor gear retailer, Recreational Equipment Inc, and specializes in domestic travel, Canada and National Parks. They have more than two dozen different women-only cycling, backpacking and multi-sport trips across the U.S., including classics such as hiking the Grand Canyon.

Established cycling specialist The Cycling House offers several women-only departures for its Arizona gravel camps, California wine country road cycling and Montana luxury ranch gravel trips.

Intrepid Travel is a major luxury tour operator that was also covered in my story on Guaranteed Departures and does a huge slate of both active and non-active group travel worldwide. They are a member of the prestigious Virtuoso consortium of luxury travel providers and advisors, and have a division called Women’s Expeditions that offers adventurous trips to exotic spots such as Turkey, Morocco, Jordan, India, Pakistan and Nepal.

These are all top companies in the field and major players who I can personally recommend, but there are also a slew of companies entirely focused on this trend, including Adventure Women, Explorer Chick, Wild Women Expeditions, Adventures in Good Company and more.