Can I join a trip if I am traveling alone? And other questions from Solo Female Travelers
If you have never been on an all-women tour before, this article is for you.
Here are some of the questions solo female travelers ask our team again and again. Read over this list before booking an all-women trip with us to Italy, Spain, Costa Rica, and beyond.
If you still have questions, set up a Discovery Travel Call with our team and let’s chat logistics.
Can I join a trip if I am traveling alone?
Most of our guests join a Bold Spirit Travel all-women tour on their own, so you’ll be in good company.
Many of our guests are single, divorced, widows, and even married women whose spouses do not want to leave the country. Sound familiar?
Our women-only, small-group tours are designed for solo female travelers who want to explore the world, make new friends, and share meaningful experiences without having to plan everything themselves.
You’ll have the support of an experienced tour leader and a welcoming group of like-minded women, along with opportunities to enjoy time on your own. Whether you want to wander through a local market, stop for coffee, shop, or simply soak in the scenery, you’ll have a balance of independence and companionship.
At Bold Spirit Travel, you can arrive solo and leave with new friendships, wonderful memories, and the confidence that comes from discovering the world on your own terms. Our guests are a mix of women who have traveled to many countries and new travelers who are embarking on their very first solo international adventure.
What ages and backgrounds are represented?
At Bold Spirit Travel, adventure has no age limit.
Wondering if you’ll be the youngest or oldest woman on a trip? You’re not alone. We hear this question all the time. As long as you’re 18 or older, you’re welcome to join us. (In fact, many mothers and daughters join our trips.)
Worried that you’ll be the only traveler navigating perimenopause during your trip with a pillbox full of vitamins? Think again. We host women who are in all stages of life. And yes, we take lots of restroom breaks because…this is an all-women adventure, and we get it.
Some of our favorite trips bring together women of different generations. These multigenerational groups are inspiring, full of wisdom, and a wonderful reminder that we can learn so much from one another.
Wise women know it’s healthy to have friends of all ages. Why not make a few new ones while hiking in Scotland, riding a ferry along the Amalfi Coast, or spotting monkeys in Costa Rica?
If you’d like to learn more about the age range on a particular tour, feel free to schedule a call with our team.
What is the group dynamic like?
Let’s talk about fitting in. It is scary for most of us to go on a trip with a bunch of people we’ve never met before. The “what ifs” get going and cause anxiety to spike.
- What if I am the oldest one on the trip?
- What if I am not fit enough to do the walks and activities?
- What if everyone comes with a friend or a partner and I’m the only one going solo?
- What if I am left out?
- Will the other women like me? Will they welcome me? (Will I like them?)
- What if we have nothing in common?
The list goes on and on.
The women who join our trips are welcoming, curious about the world around them, and open-minded. Most women come alone.
Our travelers come from a variety of cultures, backgrounds, lifestyles, life circumstances, and ages. We believe that exploring our differences is just as fascinating as discovering our similarities. If you’re a woman who wants to step outside your comfort zone, be a little bolder, and meet new friends along the way, you’re in the right place.
Will I have to do everything with the group?
You do not have to participate in all the activities or the meals. This is your vacation. If you want to skip an activity, simply let your tour leader know so she is not waiting for you.
We do not provide replacement activities if you choose to skip a group experience.
How do I choose the right journey?
Be honest with yourself. What is your spirit craving right now?
- Is it downtime on the seaside to reset from chronic stress?
- Is it an active vacation that allows you to move your body and challenge yourself?
- Is it a spiritual trip that allows for reflection and meditation while you work through a big life shift?
Once you feel into what you most need, it’s time to set up a call with us.
Peruse our all-women Journeys page, then schedule a call so we can talk through trip logistics and make sure you’re on the right trip.
There’s a particular kind of silence that falls over a canal
There’s a particular kind of silence that falls over a canal when a barge approaches something it cannot pass. A fallen tree across the channel, a sand-bar, a lock under repair. On most of the hotel barges, that silence lasts a while. Converted from working freighters built to haul grain and gravel, they are magnificent vessels, but they have long memories and little appetite for changing their minds. Once they’re committed, they’re committed.
The Randle was never a freighter. She was built as a cruiser, designed from the keel up to carry people rather than cargo, and that simple fact shapes everything about the way she moves. At 22 metres she’s more compact than her converted cousins, she sits with a shallower draft, and she answers the helm with an eagerness that still makes her captain smile. Built to an exceptionally high standard and powered today by renewable fuel, she’s less a floating hotel than an elegant yacht: made to measure, and all the better for it.
22 metres of classic yachting charm.
That difference follows you below deck, too. On a converted freighter, daylight arrives only through a row of portholes. The Randle‘s cabins were conceived as cabins from the start, so alongside her vintage portholes each is lit from above by a skylight. You wake to the soft light of a Burgundy morning spilling down from overhead, watch the riverbank slide past at eye level, and on a clear night you can lie back and see the stars drift by. It’s a small detail on paper, and an unforgettable one in person.
The master and twin cabins, each with its own skylight and portholes.
The historic old town of Clamecy, once the heart of the log-rafting trade that fed Paris its firewood, sits at a bend of the Yonne where the river has quietly built up a sand bar across the approach to the port. For the larger hotel barges, it is now simply off limits. The Randle is currently the only one that can slip over the shallows and tie up in the port itself, which means our guests step ashore into the medieval streets, the market, and the grand Gothic Collégiale Saint-Martin, whose story begins in 1075.
That same agility shapes where we can take you. Of all the six-night cruises on the Nivernais, ours is the longest, running all the way from Auxerre to Chevroches, and along the way we turn off the main river to visit Vermenton, a charming detour up the little branch towards the Cure that the larger boats pass by. More waterway, more villages, more quiet mornings on deck: when your boat is built to go further, it seems only right that she should.
More waterway, more villages, more quiet mornings on deck.
Then there are the surprises. Canals are living things, and every season brings its share of the unexpected. When The Randle meets an obstacle, she simply turns around, finds another stretch of water, and the day carries on with barely a pause in the conversation on deck, whilst larger vessels are left waiting.
The wheelhouse saloon, with all-round views whatever the river brings.
Perhaps the best description of her came not from us but from one of the captains on the Nivernais. Being passed by The Randle, he said, was like being passed by a classic Porsche on the motorway. We’ve never quite recovered from the compliment. It captures something we’ve always felt: that elegance and agility belong together, and that the finest experiences often come in the most thoughtfully made packages.
Sometimes the best way to see Burgundy is aboard the boat that was built for exactly that. Go further and find adventure aboard The Randle.
Discover The Randle | Explore our voyages | Contact us
 Tim Harrold is owner and captain of the Randle, a beautiful and classically styled river boat fitted with two en-suite cabins and all the modern facilities to travel in comfort.Tim offers private barge tours on the picturesque Burgundy Canal du Nivernais and river Yonne. A luxury cruise with Tim and his crew includes gourmet cuisine, fine wine, and guided tours by private car to vineyards and chateaux. Learn more about Edge Charter and barge trips on the Randle along Burgundy's canals and rivers here. Slow Travel Tours is an affiliation of small-group tour operators who offer personalized trips in Italy, France and other European countries. |
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Highlighting two 2027 Battlefield Tours
In this article Knee Deep Into History is highlighting two 2027 battlefield tours because of their unique nature. The first is a Yankee Division (WW1) Tour. The second is a Monuments Men and Women (WW2) Tour.
Yankee Division WW1 Tour, 14 – 20 April, 7-days / 6-nights
During WW1 the 26th “Yankee” Division was a National Guard division consisting of units raised throughout New England and led by Maj. General Clarence Edwards. Edwards was loved by his troops; but was not viewed unfavorably by General Pershing and top leadership of the American Expeditionary Forces. On this tour participants will visit the division’s major battlefields and training grounds, including: the Chemin des Dames, Seicheprey and Apremont-la-Forêt, Belleau Wood, St. Mihiel Salient, Meuse-Argonne and Boucq. As always on a Knee Deep Into History tour, there will be time for discussing the friction that arose between the division and AEF leadership, comparing the division’s performance to other divisions and exploring the division’s casualties and replacement rate. We anticipate hosting a social and a then and now photo line-up at the Château de Boucq, a key YD headquarters, and meeting the Mayor of Seicheprey, a town forever written on the hearts of the 102 Infantry Regiment’s soldiers from Connecticut. If you’re a Yankee Division fan, or if you had a relative who fought in the division, this is the perfect tour for you.
Signal Corps photo of General Edwards and staff posing at the Chateau de Boucq
We’ll visit the temporary American Cemetery at Mandres, where soldiers killed in the Seicheprey Raid were buried.
Seicheprey Mayor, Gerard Andre, speaking with private tour clients whose great uncle was killed in the German Raid on 20 April 1918
Monuments Men and Women Tour, 9 – 16 September, 8-days / 7-nights
The second tour we want to feature is our Monuments Men and Women Tour. The tour begins in Paris, where we will learn about the art collection efforts and looting of the ‘Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg’ (ERR) in France and Rose Valland’s efforts to track the works. The interplay between Rose Valland (curator at the Jeu de Paume Museum), her supervisor Jacques Jaujard (director at the Musèes Nationaux), and James Rorimer enabled the monuments men to locate key ERR storage facilities throughout Germany and Austria. The tour will visit a Parisian museum’s permanent exhibition of unreturned works of art.
After Paris, we will move northeast to Belgium, where we will visit Michealangelo’s Madonna and Child sculpture in Bruges and the Van Eyck masterpiece known as the Ghent Altarpiece. These two works were featured in the 2014 film, The Monuments Men. We’ll honor the two monuments men who were killed in action, Maj. Ronald Edmond Balfour (British) and Capt. Walter J. Huchthausen (American), by stopping at their graves in Kleve, Germany and Margraten, Netherlands, respectively.
The tour then follows the Allies’ advance through Germany and Austria in early 1945 and we will explore key ERR safekeeping sites and explain their significance; this includes above- and below-ground visits to the mines at Siegen and Heilbronn, Germany as well as Altaussee, Austria. (Note, we will not be stopping at the Merker’s mine, because that is covered in our Third Reich Underground Tour.) We will visit famous castles such as Neuschwanstein, and churches and monasteries that likewise served as art repositories. Finally, we will cover a few of the collecting points established by the Americans to facilitate the return of art and artifacts to their rightful owners. This small-group tour will be as unique as the real story of the Monuments Men and Women.
Memorial to the Kochendorf Concentration Camp in the Heilbronn Salt Mine–the same mine where Nazis stored looted art
Lt. James J. Rorimer, 7th Army Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives Officer inspecting looted jewelry and snuff boxes kept in Neuschwanstein Castle by the Nazis for safekeeping
Full 2027 Battlefield Tour Schedule
A full list of our 2027 battlefield tours can be viewed online. At the time of this writing, founder Randy Gaulke is in Europe for five weeks of tour guiding, so full tour brochures will not be available until early November. But please mark your dates now and reach out to Randy Gaulke if you are interested in a particular tour. We will send details as soon as they are available.
Or Hire KDIH to Design and Lead a Bespoke Tour
Because of our love of research and our deep European knowledge base, KDIH excels in planning and guiding bespoke (i.e. custom) tours for your family and friends, or for an historical association. For more information and case studies, see our bespoke tours page on our website.
If you have any questions, email Randy Gaulke at kneedeepintohistory@gmail.com. We look forward to getting knee deep into history with you in 2027!
2023 Yankee Division Tour participants visiting the famous quarries at the Chemin des Dames
 After decades of personal battlefield tours, Randy Gaulke quit his job as a financial analyst in Manhattan and spent eight months in France in 2017-18 as a freelance guide during the World War I Centennial.He subsequently founded Knee Deep Into History, with a philosophy of getting clients into the field on a small-group tour designed for the military history enthusiast. Equally important is the attempt to tell both sides of the story and to help Americans bridge cultures. Most tours are led jointly with European guides, including retired Bundeswehr officer and historian Markus Klauer. The groups enjoy family-owned European hotels and restaurants. Experience a military history tour that brings the battlefield to life! Learn more at www.kneedeepintohistory.com Slow Travel Tours is an affiliation of small-group tour operators who offer personalized trips in Italy, France and other European countries. |
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