October 17, 2004 in Travel

More options available for women-only travel

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Melanie Harmon always enjoyed outdoor activities including backpacking and hiking. As her husband lost interest in arduous hiking and backpacking five years ago, she didn’t. She missed the challenges and realized the outings were critical to her well-being.

She joined a local hiking club that trekked once a month in the Great Smoky Mountains near her home, but “found that I wanted to push myself a little more than the day hikes did.”

Harmon, 48, general manager of a nonprofit corporation in Kingston, Tenn., searched the Internet for women’s adventure travel and found Adventures in Good Company, based in Baltimore, which limits its tours to 12 to 14 people.

“I went on my first trip in 2002, a Lake Superior lodge-to-lodge trip, and invited my mother, who now is 74. It was one of the best trips I have ever taken,” she says.

The two recently returned from a similar hiking trip in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.

Harmon says the trips “accomplished what I wanted as far as the level of exertion and hiking in a different territory that I normally hike in. There were two guides. The philosophy from the get-go was good value for what you pay, and pushing each person just enough where you feel really good about what you did. My mother loved it. She was so proud of herself.

“The dynamics of an all-women’s trip was incredible considering ages ranged from the 30s into the 70s. When you get women mixed with men, the dynamic is different. With the women, individual personalities came out. There was lots of laughter.”

Harmon’s mother, Joan Guthrie of Saginaw, Mich., a retired schoolteacher, says it was fun to travel with a group of women.

“We had a lot of laughs,” she says. “I love to walk, but I’m not used to mountains. But I was able to complete the four-hour hikes I set out on. I felt like I accomplished something.”

Like Harmon, tens of thousands of women, both married and single, middle-aged and older, want to take challenging vacations to fulfill their dreams. They want to join other women who want to hike, climb, dive, kayak and cycle rather than go it alone. They also seek less strenuous trips to learn about art and explore the wonders of nature, and to shop and go to the theater.

Women who want to travel alone – but not on a cruise or tour, where they can often feel like a fifth wheel – have ample women-only options these days.

From 1995 to 2004, the number of firms that cater to women-only travelers has risen 300 percent, to 21 from 7, says Marybeth Bond, author of “Gutsy Women” (2001) and an authority on women’s travel.

To clarify “catering-to-women-only” – a term that gives some women pause – this is not about lesbian-only agencies. The firms cited by Bond cater to all women, some married and traveling alone by choice or with a daughter, sister or friend, and others who simply want to travel with other women for a variety of reasons.

Said to be the oldest of the firms is Bozeman-based Adventure Women (adventurewomen.com; 800-804-8686). It was founded in 1982 by Susan Eckert, who had spent three years as a Peace Corps volunteer in Africa.

“When I started the company 23 years ago in Evanston, it was hard adventure,” Eckert says. “It was hiking with backpacks, carrying our canoes in the Boundary Waters, or hiking in Utah totally by ourselves.

“Now it’s much more soft. I’ve gotten older. My clients have gotten older. If there’s not a camel or a sherpa or a horse or mule to carry our stuff, we don’t go,” she says with a laugh.

“Now our trips include a Montana guest ranch adventure with white-water rafting, horseback riding and fly fishing. We do a Grand Canyon trip with camping and horseback riding in Banff National Park in Canada. Our 2005 trips include kayaking and cooking in Baja California, a ‘wings’ safari in Botswana and Zambia, and a barge trip in France.”

Eckert says all of her 16 trips are carefully rated so women can determine what they can and can’t do physically. The average age of her clients is 51, but the range typically is 35 to 65 – with a high of 81.

The firm that Melanie Harmon used for her hikes, Adventures in Good Company (adventuresingoodcompany.com; 877-439-4042), was founded six years ago by Marian Marbury, who worked as a guide for 16 years in Minnesota.

Marbury, whose firm offers 35 trips a year, says the bulk of her clients are in the same age range as Eckert’s. She offered three reasons why women go on her trips:

• They are single, and it’s more comfortable for them to travel with all women.

• They are married, but their husbands don’t have the time or the interest in an outdoors vacation.

• In some cases it’s women trying to reclaim something they used to love doing.

“When traveling with all women, they don’t have to worry about all the games that can happen on a coed trip,” Marbury says. “And they don’t worry about whether they are strong enough, fast enough, fit enough.”

For the softer side of women’s travel, there’s Senior Women’s Travel (poshnosh.com; 212-838-4740), run by Mary Ann Zimmerman, a senior herself, who leads her own tours from New York. Her four or five “very personal” tours a year focus on theater, art museums, shopping and dining.

Bond, the “Gutsy Women” author, has two Web sites chock-full of advice for women travelers: marybethbond.com and womentraveltips.com.

Some other women’s sites mentioned by Bond: adventurouswench.com; goingplacestours.com; menopausaltours.com; takemymotherplease.com.

Bond’s suggestion for women who want to start traveling:

“Start with an organized trip. You’ll meet like-minded women. You’ll feel great about yourself, and you’ll wonder why you didn’t do this 10 years ago.

“The quote I like to give is, ‘When you think back on your life, you’ve never regretted any trip you’ve ever taken, no matter how expensive or how inconvenient at the time. The only trips you ever regret are those that you didn’t take.’ ”

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