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Solo-ish: Why We're Traveling With Our Girlfriends Again in Our 40s and 50s
Not solo. Not a couples' trip. Something better — and a whole lot of us are quietly rediscovering it at exactly the same time.
By Jennifer Rancourt ·
There's a specific kind of quiet that settles into your life somewhere in your forties.
The kids get older and need you differently — less "hold my hand," more "can you Venmo me." The marriage, if you have one, settles into a comfortable shorthand. Work is handled. The calendar is full of everyone else's things. And one ordinary Tuesday you look up from the sink and realize you haven't done something purely, unapologetically for you — something loud and fun and a little bit yours — in longer than you'd like to admit.
I know that quiet. I've stood in it. And I've watched a whole generation of women my age decide, more or less at the same time, that we're done with it.
We're traveling again. Not solo — though I love a good solo trip and I'll defend it forever. And not the couples' trip, where you spend the whole weekend negotiating restaurants and someone's checking sports scores at dinner. Something in between. Something I've started calling solo-ish. You leave your regular life behind like a solo traveler does. But you do it shoulder-to-shoulder with the women who knew you before you were anyone's mother, anyone's manager, anyone's emergency contact.
It's Not Just You. It's All of Us.
Here's the part that gets me: this isn't some feeling I made up. It's a genuine wave.
The "girlfriend getaway" is now a multi-hundred-million-dollar corner of the travel industry. Women over 50 are fueling an actual billion-dollar boom — booking more, spending more, and traveling more than the industry ever bothered to plan for. One major tour company saw bookings for its women's trips jump nearly 60% in a single year. Communities built entirely around women traveling together are growing by the tens of thousands.
Read that as data if you want. I read it as a bunch of women all reaching the same conclusion in their own kitchens, on their own Tuesdays: I miss my friends. I miss myself. I'm going to go do something about it.
Why Now, Though?
I've thought about this a lot, and I think it comes down to a few honest truths.
We finally have a little room. The relentless, all-consuming years — the toddlers, the climb, the everything — start to loosen their grip. For the first time in a long time, a weekend can actually belong to you.
We know exactly what we like. This is the underrated gift of midlife. I don't need to pretend I want to rough it or party till 2 a.m. I want a great room, a walkable town, one perfect meal, and time to actually talk. We've stopped performing our travel for anyone. We just want the good stuff.
And we've learned what matters. Somewhere along the way — a loss, a scare, a friend who didn't get the years she should have — most of us got the memo that the "someday" trip has a shelf life. The women I travel with aren't waiting for a milestone birthday or the perfect financial moment anymore. We're going now, because now is the thing we actually have.
What "Solo-ish" Actually Feels Like
It's the specific magic of being away — that clean, weightless feeling of a life you can't see from where you're standing — combined with the specific comfort of the people who require zero explaining.
No small talk. No agenda you don't want. Nobody to manage. Just an old friend handing you a coffee on a porch, a long walk with no destination, a dinner that runs two hours past the reservation because nobody wants it to end.
You come home lighter. Not because you escaped your life, but because you remembered the woman living it.
That's the whole thing. That's why we keep doing it. That's why more of us are doing it every single year.
So This Is Your Nudge
If you've been standing in your own version of that Tuesday quiet — send the text. You know the friend. You know the one you keep saying "we should really do a trip" to and then never do.
Do it. Pick a weekend. Pick a town. Keep it simple.
We're not overthinking it. We're booking the trip.
And we'll see you out there.
Ready When You Are
A few things that make the "solo-ish" weekend effortless:
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Frequently Asked Questions
What does "solo-ish" travel actually mean?
It's the space between a solo trip and a couples' trip — you leave your regular life behind like a solo traveler, but you do it shoulder-to-shoulder with the girlfriends who require zero explaining. No small talk, no agenda you don't want, nobody to manage.
Why are women in their 40s and 50s traveling with friends again?
Life finally loosens its grip a little, we know exactly what we like, and many of us have learned the hard way that the "someday" trip has a shelf life. It's not just a personal feeling — women over 50 are fueling a genuine boom in girlfriend getaways.
Isn't it too late to start doing trips like this?
That's exactly the mindset this post pushes back on. The women who travel now aren't waiting for a milestone birthday or the perfect financial moment — they go now, because now is the thing we actually have.
How do I actually get one of these trips off the ground?
Keep it simple: send the text to the friend you always say "we should really do a trip" to, then pick a weekend and a town. Don't overthink it — the whole philosophy is just booking the trip.
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