Table of Contents
Some destinations make traveling alone feel like a chore: constant vigilance, taxis that won’t take a single passenger, dinners eaten at 6 p.m. to dodge the stares. Others make it feel like the most ordinary thing in the world. The difference rarely shows up in guidebook photos. It lives in the small mechanics of a place: how late you can comfortably walk home, whether a waiter asks if you’re waiting for someone, how quickly a stranger steps in when you’re squinting at a map on a corner.
After a decade of solo trips across four continents, these are the places I keep recommending to women who email me asking where to go alone for the first time, and to the ones booking their fifth.
What actually makes a destination good for solo women
Safety gets all the attention, but it’s only one variable. A city can be statistically safe and still be miserable alone if there’s nobody to talk to after 8 p.m.
- Walkability and public transport. If you can move around without negotiating a taxi price every twenty minutes, your day gets simpler and cheaper.
- How women are treated in public. Visible harassment, persistent staring, or being ignored in restaurants wears you down faster than any logistical hassle.
- Places to sit alone without feeling like a problem. Bars with counters, cafés with window seats, parks with benches. Small thing, huge difference.
- Someone to talk to. Hostels with communal kitchens, walking tours, cooking classes. Solo doesn’t have to mean solitary.
- Reliable infrastructure. Clean bathrooms, working SIM cards, tap water you can drink. Unglamorous, but it shapes your whole week.
Japan: Tokyo and Kyoto
Japan may be the easiest country on earth to be alone in. Solo diners are normal, ramen counters are built for single customers, and a table for one at a nice restaurant won’t earn you a pitying look. Tokyo Metro runs women-only carriages on several lines during rush hour, police boxes (koban) sit on almost every other corner, and losing a wallet in Kyoto is genuinely likely to end with someone chasing you down the street to return it.
Kyoto rewards slow mornings. Get to Fushimi Inari before 7 a.m. and you’ll have the lower gates nearly to yourself. In Tokyo, the city’s nightlife is deeper than the tourist strip in Shinjuku, and a good evening out doesn’t require a group. If you want a night that feels like a secret, the tiny six-seat bars of Golden Gai and Shibuya are worth researching before you go; this guide to Japan’s hidden shot bars and cocktail culture is a good place to start.
Iceland: the Ring Road
Roughly 1,332 kilometres of road circling a country with a population smaller than Coventry. Iceland has topped global gender-equality rankings for more than a decade, and it shows in the small stuff: unbothered women hiking alone, municipal swimming pools where nobody looks twice at you, and a bus system that actually runs.
The catch is cost and logistics. A rental car is close to essential if you want to leave Reykjavík, and a week of guesthouses will run you more than a month in Portugal. The payoff is a landscape so strange it keeps you company: black sand at Reynisfjara, steam rising off the ground at Hverir, and the northern lights in September if you time it right. Join a group tour for the highland interior if driving the F-roads alone makes you nervous. Plenty of women do exactly that.
Portugal: Lisbon, Porto and the coast
Lisbon might be the best value-for-safety ratio in Western Europe. English is widely spoken, the food is cheap and excellent, and the hostel scene in Alfama and Bairro Alto is full of women traveling on their own. Evening walks back from dinner feel fine in most central neighbourhoods. Watch your phone on tram 28, where pickpockets work the crowd, and you’ll be alright.
Porto is smaller and, honestly, friendlier. Ericeira and Peniche, ninety minutes north, are two of the most accessible places in Europe to learn to surf as a beginner, with lessons and shared accommodation that make meeting people automatic. A pastel de nata and a coffee costs about €2.50. You’ll have a lot of them.
Chiang Mai, Thailand
Northern Thailand has become a kind of second home for women traveling solo long-term. Chiang Mai is flat, walkable in the old city, and dense with cafés where nobody minds you sitting with a laptop for three hours. The Sunday Walking Street market is a good place to practice your Thai numbers; a cooking class costs around 1,200 baht and is one of the fastest ways to spend an afternoon with a dozen other travelers.
Book elephant experiences carefully and choose a sanctuary that doesn’t offer riding. The reputable ones fill up weeks in advance, so plan that before you fly. Bangkok’s BTS skytrain makes the capital easier than its reputation suggests, though the heat alone is a reason to slow your pace.
Oaxaca, Mexico
Oaxaca city has a rhythm that pulls people in: markets stacked with chapulines and strings of chilli, mezcal tasting rooms where the owner will talk your ear off, and a zócalo that fills with music every evening. Day of the Dead at the end of October and start of November is extraordinary, though you’ll need to book accommodation four to six months out.
Use ride-hailing apps after dark rather than hailing street taxis, and you’ll find the city easy to navigate alone. Plenty of women-run tour operators lead trips to Hierve el Agua and the weaving villages, which is a nice way to spend a day with company without committing to a whole group itinerary.
Ljubljana, Slovenia
Two hours from Venice and roughly half the price, Slovenia’s capital is small enough to cross on foot in forty minutes and has a car-free riverfront lined with cafés. Day trips to Lake Bled, the Škocjan Caves and Triglav National Park are all manageable by bus or a short train ride. It’s the kind of place where you can build a full week without ever feeling rushed or out of your depth.
Delhi, India, if you’re ready for it
Delhi is the one place on this list I’d hesitate to recommend for a first solo trip. It’s loud, intense, and the attention you attract as a foreign woman is relentless. It’s also one of the most rewarding cities in Asia, and a huge number of women travel there alone every year and love it. Go in with realistic expectations, dress conservatively, use a pre-paid taxi or the Delhi Metro, and give yourself a couple of days to adjust. A practical backpacker’s budget guide to Old and New Delhi will save you from overpaying in the first 48 hours, which is exactly when most people get fleeced.
Closer to home, if you want a trial run
There’s no rule that your first solo trip has to involve a long-haul flight. A long weekend in a US city you’ve never visited can teach you more about your own travel style than a month of research. If you’re weighing options, this list of the best solo trips for women in the US and around the world covers everything from Santa Fe to Slovenia.
The habits that matter more than the map
Where you go matters less than how you set yourself up. Book your first night’s accommodation in advance so you’re not solving a problem on four hours of sleep. Arrive in daylight. Learn how to say “no, thank you” in the local language, and use it without softening it. Share your location with someone at home and check in every couple of days.
Sit at the bar instead of the table if you want conversation. Ask hotel staff which neighbourhoods they’d walk in after dark, and trust the answer over anything you read online. Keep a €50 note or the local equivalent hidden in a shoe, and photograph your passport and cards so a stolen bag is an inconvenience rather than a disaster.
Age is no barrier, either. Many of the most confident solo travelers I’ve met started after 60, when the kids were grown and the calendar finally opened up. The tips for traveling solo after you retire apply at 30 as much as at 70: pack lighter than you think, build rest days into the plan, and choose the slower route over the more impressive one.
Start with Japan or Portugal if you want an easy first step. Pick Iceland if you want solitude in a place that takes safety seriously. Thailand, Mexico, or Slovenia if you want warmth and company. Wherever you land, the first morning alone is always the strangest and the third is usually the best. Book the flight before you talk yourself out of it.
