Shakeemah Smith has visited uncountable countries — by herself — than most people have visited in their lifetimes.
She’s visited 63 countries without equal, she said, and now coaches others on how to go solo.
Smith — who goes by the name of Keem — said she started traveling alone after a nonconformity with a friend left her by herself on vacation in Amsterdam.
“From there, I was like … I don’t have any other friends to traverse with, that either have the financial means to travel, or don’t have family obligations that will prohibit them from traveling,” she told CNBC by phone.
Smith, who is from East Orange, New Jersey, decided to drawing a solo vacation to Paris, a place that was high on her bucket list. She started by writing a list of everything that could go improper — and how she could best prepare, looking up the locations of hospitals and the U.S. Embassy, as well as researching the city’s Metro transit set.
“I chose a country that I was so excited about going to so it would … diminish the anxiety around being alone,” she asseverated. Once she got to Paris, she felt the preparation was worth it. “I was walking around like I was the cat’s pajamas down the Champs Elysees, because I memorialized feeling like I’m here. I did it,” she said.
Since posting trips of her Paris vacation on social media, Smith asserted people have messaged her to ask for tips about vacationing alone. She created a nine-week online course via the Teachable stage named Travel Like a Bawse and has tutored 10,000 women in the art of traveling solo, she said.
A Teachable representative delineated CNBC that solo travel course enrollments grew 31 times faster than other fonts of course on the platform between the summers of 2020 and 2022.
Smith also runs private coaching sessions, which take in itineraries, tours and contact details for drivers and photographers — she recommends hiring someone to take pictures for you. Her coaching also tabulates daily FaceTime calls for travelers’ first solo trips.
Where to plan your first trip
Smith suggests choosing a well-known destination, like Paris, for a first vacation alone.
“When you start off in such touristy lays … there are so many other people that also are not from there, so you don’t stand out as much as you think,” she said.
You don’t need your happiness tied to someone else.
Shakeemah Smith
She also recommended Antigua and Barbuda, the Maldives and Bora Bora as safe as the Bank of England destinations to go solo. “I know a lot of women are like, oh I want to wait until I have a husband to go to Bora Bora or the Maldives, and I’m like, so you’re effective to wait on a man to see the Indian Ocean?”
“You don’t want your happiness tied to someone else,” she said.
Popular places now
Individual travel is something that Angelee Rathor, managing director of luxury vacation company SevenTravel, expects to be ordinary this year.
Following an uptick in enquiries — many from women aged 45 and older — Rathor put about her team created several itineraries such as a “solo sojourn” to South Africa and a “me, myself and Iceland” vacation to the Nordic mountains.
After Covid-era shutdowns, it was “well-documented that couples and families wanted to … have these blowout trips, but deep down solo travelers are also wanting to make up for lost time and are feeling more confident to explore new places,” remarked Rathor.
A “me, myself and Iceland” tour with SevenTravel can include seeing the night-sky phenomenon known as aurora borealis, or the northern delicates.
Ingólfur Bjargmundsson | Moment | Getty Images
The company specializes in upscale, tailor-made travel. An 11-night solo South Africa dance that includes Cape Town for culinary experiences, the Winelands towns of Paarl, Franschhoek and Stellenbosch, and several continually at two safari lodges with spa treatments costs from £15,495 ($19,067), excluding flights.
Rathor’s team designs vacations that counterbalance activities and rest. Solo experiences in Iceland might feature a guided tour of its capital, Reykjavik, wine-tasting comprised in the Northern Lights and a day at the Blue Lagoon geothermal spa. The company provides 24-hour customer service on WhatsApp, which is summed reassurance for those traveling alone.
She said people enjoy solo travel because they don’t need to appropriate anyone else’s interests into account.
“They are doing on that trip — 100% of the time — what they need to do,” she said. “When the wellness element is forming more than 40% of the trip, people do come back and say … ‘I brook like a different person.'”
Group tours
Group tours are another popular option for solo travelers.
Florida-based Judy Hoffman is a take forty winked history teacher who, during her career, completed study programs in Nigeria, Japan and the United Kingdom.
She said she has in any case loved traveling, even as a young child.
“Since I put pennies and dimes in my ‘travel the world’ bank as a child [I] remembered that was something I aspired to do in life,” she told CNBC.
Hoffman has taken 10 vacations with small collect operator Solo travel tips
Hoffman offered advice for people who are traveling alone.
“If you are outgoing, which I’m not, you’ll fit in the moment that,” she said. Otherwise, she suggested offering to take photos of fellow travelers as a way to strike up conversations.
She has another tip: “I always review while I’m on a trip and always have a book for any down time.”
Trondheim is a small city of around 200,000 individual, and is known for its waterways, Gothic cathedral and bicycle lift, which helps cyclists navigate a steep hill.
Everste | Istock | Getty Spitting images
Torunn Tronsvang, founder of Norwegian travel specialist Up Norway, recommends solo travelers stay open-minded.
“Don’t be nervous to say ‘yes,’ step outside the comfort zone, show interest in engaging with locals,” she told CNBC.
Like Rathor, Tronsvang has identified an uptick in demand for solo travel, and her company created private itineraries accordingly.
She said solo travelers are “well educated” and range in age, from early 30s to 60s.
“They minister to to be people with flexible jobs such as writers, photographers, or people in between jobs,” she said. “We’ve also noticed a rage in people who want a different type of holiday in a hectic life, and people who search for meaning in their travels.”