Solo Female Travelers: small-group luxury tours for women at $150K a month

Solo Female Travelers sells small-group luxury tours for women to women travelers, and its founders reported revenue of $150K a month, founder-reported in December 2023.

How it started

The business started as a Facebook group in 2015, created by a friend of the founders who was looking to connect with other women traveling solo. Mar Pages and her business partner Meg took over group management because the creator was going on a long solo trip and would not have time to manage it. When they took over, the group was around 15,000-20,000 members. Meta started to consciously focus on growing Facebook communities when the pandemic caused them to take off, and the group grew to 100,000 in 6 months.

Moderating and managing the group became a full time job that had to be split into 3 to 4 daily shifts with a follow-the-sun model, because members were across the globe, so hiring full-time staff became an imminent reality. When Meg became pregnant and prepared for her maternity leave, the founders needed a business model that would ensure the financial sustainability of the community. Mar could not manage the group alone 24 hours a day for the 4-5 months Meg would be away, so they needed to make structural decisions.

The idea of launching Solo Female Travelers Tours occurred in 2021, after running their first annual survey on Solo Female Travel Trends and realizing that there were many challenges for women to travel solo, almost all of which could be addressed with women only tours. They did not want to just launch a tour operator and make money; they wanted the tours to be meaningful and have a positive impact beyond filling their pockets, because tourism can be a force for good but also a source of inequalities and exploitation of local communities. Women make the vast majority of travel decisions, yet represent a small proportion of senior positions, so they decided to make the tours not only women-only but also women-led.

They only hire local and female guides, and aim to make the tours as close to 100% female led as possible, including staying at hotels and eating at restaurants owned by women, and engaging the services of women artisans and activity providers. In some countries, such as Tanzania, they get involved in guiding certification and development of potential new guides by donating a part of tour sales to finance the tuition and channeling guest donations. The tours launched in February 2021, in the middle of the pandemic.

What it sells and how it charges

According to the official website, fetched on 2026-09-30, the company is "100% Female Powered Luxury Tours for Women" and "Our small group tours are led by women for women and take you to bucket list destinations and immersive experiences." The site says it is "a for profit company with a social impact mission" and that it wants to help shape the travel industry to be more equitable for women by supporting local female-owned and led businesses in amazing destinations around the world. It describes the tours as "100% Female-powered tours for women, by women" and invites "women like you" to join a trip of a lifetime.

The website organizes tours by destination and also lists private tours, a waitlist and new tours, a calendar, reviews, a podcast and a blog. Two destinations named on the site are Kilimanjaro Climb and Swedish Arctic. The supplied website data does not include a pricing page or pricing text, so no price is stated in this section.

How it got its first customers and what kept growth going

The founder said growth is entirely organic and they have spent almost nothing on advertising besides the $4,000 that Facebook donated as part of the Accelerator. On discovery, the founder stated: "Most of our customers find us via a combination of online searches, media mentions, the Facebook group, and word of mouth." On the sales split, the founder said: "about a third of the sales come from the group, a third via online searches (which include appearances in the media), and a third from the newsletter".

The newsletter had over 70,000 subscribers and was sent every Tuesday and Friday since 2020, with a close to 50% open rate and a loyal, engaged base of readers. The repeat rate was 30%. The websites received about 100,000 visits a month thanks to a combination of useful tips on solo travel, destination guides, and tour pages.

The founders personally ask all travelers for reviews because social proof was important for credibility and bookings at the beginning, and they publish all reviews on the website, including those received via email or anonymously. Some tours are accompanied by professional photographers, and the founder attends every new tour launch alongside a professional photographer to record footage that is turned into a tour highlights video. Content marketing drove traffic, generating affiliate and advertising revenue as well as a steady flow of leads. Media mentions came via HARO, relationships with journalists, and the publication of the annual Solo Female Travel Survey results, which are read by 10,000 industry professionals every year.

The numbers

Revenue: $150K a month, founder-reported in December 2023. In the same interview, the founder stated that in 2023 the company offered tours in 14 destinations and took around 300 guests on their dream trip, grossing just over 1 million EUR in revenues.

Team size: at the December 2023 interview, the company had 2 founders and 1 employee, founder-reported. The founder's interview states, "We are a full time team of 3 people complemented by 2 part time employees," plus a team of local female guides and ground handling companies that helps manage logistics in some countries.

The founder also stated the business has been profitable since the second year and enjoys a healthy gross margin of about 30%. No startup cost figure was stated in the supplied interview data, so none is given here.

How it compares

According to 1M.chat's analysis of founder-reported cases, the Outdoor, sports & travel category contains 68 businesses with founder-reported revenue. The dataset behind this is 1M.chat's analysis of 1,997 businesses with founder-reported revenue in Starter Story interviews (2015–2026); a self-selected sample of founders who chose to be interviewed, not a random sample of all businesses.

Metric	Value from 1M.chat's analysis of founder-reported cases
Businesses in category with founder-reported revenue	68
Median monthly revenue in category	$77.5K
Share of category at $1M a year or more	48%
Median employees in category	3
Share of category started by one founder	54%

Top growth channels in the category, of the 53 businesses with channel information, were organic social media at 58%, word of mouth & referrals at 49%, SEO & organic search at 47%, and paid ads at 30%. The same analysis puts Solo Female Travelers at about 2 times the category median.

What a founder can take from it

You can build on a community you already serve. The founders took over an existing Facebook group and only launched tours in 2021 after an annual survey showed solo travel challenges that women-only tours could address.
You can start with local partners instead of building everything yourself. The founder said relying on local and experienced partners was more costly, but it was a source of experience and allowed a lean launch.
You can grow with organic channels and a consistent newsletter. The founder reported growth as entirely organic, with almost nothing spent on advertising besides the $4,000 Facebook donated as part of the Accelerator, and sales split roughly a third each from the group, online searches, and the newsletter. The newsletter had over 70,000 subscribers, was sent every Tuesday and Friday since 2020, and had a close to 50% open rate; the repeat rate was 30%.
You can ask for reviews and publish them as social proof. The founder said they personally ask every traveler for reviews and publish all reviews on the website, which helped credibility and bookings when the company was new.
You can test a co-founder relationship on a shared project first. The founders worked together on a project before taking over the group and launching the company, which let them test working styles, quirks, and strengths, and confirm shared values.

Sources

Revenue, team and start-cost figures are what the founder reported at the interview date, not current figures and not a prediction of what you will earn. Product and pricing facts come from the business's own website as checked on 30 September 2026. Method & sources · Disclosure