Dear JourneyWoman readers:
This September is a special month for JourneyWoman — it’s actually the start of our 33rd year of publishing solo travel articles for women. Think about that for a moment — what were you doing 33 years ago? I had just started my first job in Toronto in the technology industry. The World Wide Web, as we called it then, was just starting to take off. Three years later, in 1997, Evelyn Hannon launched journeywoman.com, making it one of the first travel websites in the world. She was undeniably the first female editor and writer to talk about women’s solo travel and women’s solo safety. As many of you know, she also wrote the Government of Canada’s first Safety book for women travellers, called “Her Own Way”.
You’ve probably noticed that the topic of solo travel has become a mainstream one. There are thousands of articles and websites providing advice on solo travel, making it even harder to know who to trust. The mass adoption of AI (artificial intelligence) into the travel industry (and our lives) has created even more opportunity for disinformation and risk to personal and online safety. As you saw in last month’s issue on Responsible Travel and our new Executive Editor Norie Quintos, we are investing heavily in providing you with articles written by travel writers who have actually been to the places we write about. I think this is absolutely essential to ensure our safety as women, rather than trusting a search engine or artificial intelligence. We’ll be talking more about the impact of AI on travel in our webinar next week. I hope you can join us!
Last week, I moderated a panel called “The Women’s Travel Revolution: Solo, Savvy and Unstoppable” at the International Women in Travel and Tourism Forum, which is working to improve diversity and inclusion in the travel industry. Most of the discussion was about solo travel — how it is not ‘one size fits all’, the need for improved accessibility and visibility of services, particularly in hotels and airports, and affordable options for solo women, including the single supplement. There is much work to be done here, and I am grateful to have been invited to lead and participate in this discussion.
Carolyn (left) with our Women’s Panel including: Monika Lewicka, Founder, empowered.travel and empowered.climbing; Gerda van ‘t Land, Accessible tourism consultant and ambassador, Paula de Keijzer, founder Buitengewoon Reizen and Freely Travel, Monique White, Editor, An Unstoppable Journey.
Supporting women’s voices is core to everything we do, so I’m thrilled to introduce **JourneyWoman Departures**, a new space within our book club dedicated entirely to books written by women in our own community. For years, the JourneyWoman Book Club has brought women together over stories of travel, reinvention, and adventure — but we’ve never had a place to turn the spotlight on the authors sitting right here among us. So many of you have written memoirs, novels, and travel guides inspired by your own journeys, and it’s time those stories got the stage they deserve. If you’ve published your own novel, please submit your story so that we can amplify your efforts on our website.
Since my trip to Costa Rica in July, I’ve been working on a very big transition in my life. For years, I’ve dreamed of living in Spain, and this year, after walking the Camino, I finally decided to JUST DO IT! With my partner Tom, I bought a small house in the mountains near Malaga, and I hope to spend several months a year there. While I love Canada (and always will), I know that our time on this Earth is precious and that we can’t put off our dreams. I hope this means I’ll be able to meet even more JourneyWoman readers and partners in Europe (please reach out to me!). I also want to bring you even more insight into what it feels like to move to and live in another country — it’s a journey all on its own, believe me!
With more than 30 years of solo travel articles, selecting only seven for this issue of JourneyWoman Magazine was almost impossible! You can access all of our Solo Travel archives here, but for now, I’ve decided to feature some of our most recent features to help both aspiring and experienced solo travellers find inspiration and practical knowledge. I’d suggest you start with Leyla’s “Lessons from 50 Years of Solo Travel”, a reminder that solo travel is not new, nor foreign to those of us at JourneyWoman.
As always, thank you for all you do and for those you inspire through your own actions!
With gratitude,
CEO, JourneyWoman
editor@journeywoman.com
The post Letter From the Editor October 2026: The Solo Travel Issue appeared first on JourneyWoman.