Travelling Solo vs Travelling with Family for Solo Women Travellers
Travelling with your loved ones and family is amazing but we recommend all women & girls to travel solo at least once for its beautiful & life changing.
Have you tried travelling alone yet? Do share your experiences with us (Good or Bad) we are all ears
We all love to travel whether it is with our family or alone or with a travel group and why not. We at Wander Womaniya believe that there are two ways to grow as a human being which are Reading or Travelling. 
We bring to you a fun comparison on how different it is when you travel with your family vs when you travel in your own company:1. Destinations
When you travel with family you have to think about a lot of aspects which can be availability of child care facilities, market which has all or most services readily available, is easily reachable ,has good public administration services like hospitals, parlors, saloons, restaurants, some entertainment options for kids & well established hotels among a lot of other things so you end up in destinations like Mussorie, Nainital, Shimla, Goa, Manali, Paris, London, Italy, Dubai etc. Basically well explored destinations where a lot of tourists go for vacations.
However, while travelling solo you have the option to choose offbeat destinations which are less explored, unique, lesser known & relatively closer to nature like Chitkul, Sangla, Gokarna, Ladakh, Chandratal, Jibhi, Kyrgyzstan, Bali, Guatemala etc.
2. Hotel vs Home-stay
We all like luxury and staying in flashy hotels with night clubs, spa, multi cuisine restaurants, kids activity room, butler service so on & so forth but we highly recommend to stay in an AIRBNB, hostels or a Home-stay with a local family and learn about their culture, what they eat, how simple they are and trust you will realize that sleeping in a wooden tree house is sometimes more memorable than staying in the Taj's & Oberoi's of the world. So yes when you are travelling with family you cant experiment too much but when you are on a solo girl's trip you can try these unique experiences. Have you ever stayed in a hostel dorm with other people while travelling solo, do share your experience with us :)
3. Activities on a solo trip vs What you do on a family trip
When you are travelling with family in most cases you might not be able to try adventure activities but you would probably be doing city tours, visiting forts & other important landmark buildings, theme parks etc which are surely a lot of fun.
However it is better to travel solo if you want to try adventure and high adrenaline activities like sky diving, scuba diving, river rafting, trekking, Bungee jumping & so much more. Needless to say your family might not be too comfortable with you diving from the top of The Macau Tower :p & there is relatively less time on a family trip for such experiences. Also there is question who will take care of the kids while you are busy.
4. Cost
"With facilities come high bills" isn't this true? Try comparing but family holidays are generally more costly because you would most likely take the help of a travel guide or taxi to travel around and go to places The children would want to eat a particular cuisine which they like in a specific place which is fit for the family. However when you are alone you can take a roadways bus, or shared bus, traveler or even just take up a scooty / 2 wheeler to go around. You are almost left with no choice but to splurge a lot of money while you are travelling with your family. What does this mean? It means you can take lesser of these luxury vacations because none of us is an Ambani or Jeff Bezos but there can be multiple solo trips in relatively lesser budget.
5. Be yourself
You are a mother, a daughter, a sister, a girl friend , a wife but never just yourself when you are travelling with your family. Subconsciously women tend to continue to play these roles and give preferences to the children or husband or parents over their own will to do something or even while eating something. It is so much imbibed in us that we don't even realize it but that changes when you are travelling with other like minded women travelers or while travelling solo because you are responsible only for yourself. You can be selfish and do things which you like and choose not to do things which do not interest you. 6. Nightlife
You can't really get drunk and do late night club hopping when with family for obvious reasons especially if travelling with children but well solo trips exist for girls who wish to explore the best of parties. Heard about the Koh Phangan all night beach parties? And the music festivals like Sunburn & tomorrowland. Sigh
This being said travelling alone has it's fair share of challenges like safety & security concerns. Indian girls are more often than not have inhibitions about being ll by themselves because sadly crimes against women have only been rising. Other reasons of not taking up solo travelling could be the pain of planning the whole trip, choosing which places to go, time management, expense management and still there can be times when you find yourself lost. You might long for co-traveller to talk to somebody or we like to have a like-able company like a friend or somebody who cares for us, provides assistance
To counter these issues and many others there are new innovative type of exclusive women only travel clubs coming up where you can join as a solo traveler in like minded group of ladies only travel group. These Women travel groups helps girls travelling solo with the concern of safety & security & ensure that you don's have to face the hassle of planning your trip yourself or booking your flights, ensuring that flight connection has enough time or same terminal or choosing which hotel to stay in.
You can search Solo trips for girls on google to look for such women only travel agencies & groups.
We at Wander Womaniya urge the women today to not stay confined to household chores, we motivate you to travel. Start with travelling with your family and then take that pledge of trying to travel solo we are always here to assist you with all the information and arrangements you might need.
P.S We relish family vacations equally just that solo travel is a completely new experience that will give you a fresh perspective about life. Let us know in comments what do you think about this comparison. Do share any suggestions that you have too!
Here is a list of some Women only travel companies: https://www.wanderwomaniya.com/post/best-women-only-travel-groups-across-the-world-for-girls-travelling-solo
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