When Flights are a Portal to a Bolder Universe of Romance

Who do you become when, for a few hours, you’re just a seat number... and you meet someone? Three women report back. Hannah Roodman found romance in a 6am Delta flight, thanks to a clementine and a really good playlist. Nava Kavelin learned (the hard way) what happens when your crush can't handle t…

How to Go Clubbing Alone

How do you get into the most exclusive nightclub in the world, alone? Novelist Upasna Barath spent two months in Rome and Berlin to finish her second book and ended up in line at Berghain, the club with the hardest door in nightlife. Upasna swears this trip made her into a "type-b person", making t…

An Unsolved Murder, a Canceled Wedding and the Truth You Can’t Un-Hear

Can you ever un-hear the voice you only find when you're traveling alone? Nikki Vargas, founder of Unearth Women and Associate Editorial Director at Travel + Leisure, found hers in Iguazu National Park, days before she canceled her wedding. Years later, she took that same willingness-to-listen back…

Hate Being a Tourist? Take a 'Skillcation' Instead

"Skillcation" became the buzziest travel trend of 2026, and it may be the easiest way to solo travel. Travel creator Amy Zhou left her corporate job and started building her travels around a learning a single skill: bachata in the Dominican Republic, capoeira in Brazil, tango in Argentina, birdwatc…

Solo Traveling to the Places Headlines Teach You to Fear

What do you find in a place once you stop relying on the news to explain it? And are you more receptive to that story because you're alone? Nayeema Raza, host of "Smart Girl Dumb Questions", visited Libya, North Korea, Palestine and other places that many others would deem off limits. She shares he…

Going Home to a Place Where You've Never Lived

Can you find 'home' in a place that you've only ever visited as someone's kid? Devika Parmar grew up Gujarathi American, her whole relationship to India mediated through her parents and grandparents - never quite her own. After she lost both grandparents in the same year, she booked three weeks in …

How to Run 20,000 Kilometers Alone

What's the biggest risk you'd take to see the world? Ria Xi will be the first person to run the length of the Silk Road across Asia and Europe, and she'll run it alone. Ria believes travel should happen at the pace of a single footstep - slow enough to savor everything between point A and B. Julie …

3 Cheaper Ways to Solo Travel that Skip the Tourist Script

Are flights really cheapest on a Tuesday? How do you find a great homestay? Can you travel with just a purse? Gillian Morris built the cheap-flight app Hit List and she's perfected the art of budget solo travel. She's living proof that the less you spend, the more open you are to help from stranger…

Eat, Pray, Evacuate: Trying to Relax While Everything is On Fire

How do you cope when everything falls apart at home, and you're 8,000 miles away? Between jobs and craving a reset, TV producer Sam Schles books a solo trip to Thailand. Then, from a beach half a world away, she watches the LA wildfires close in on her home. With the help of some Buddhist monks, Sa…

The Paris Sex Club Incident and the Limits of Saying 'Yes'

How far can "yes" take you before it stops feeling like freedom? Comedian Kenice Mobley grew up on rom-coms where a woman flies to Europe, accepts an invitation from a man with high cheekbones, and gets a whole new life. So when a flirt in Paris turns into an invitation, Kenice follows it... straig…