Wander Womaniya: Redefining solo travel for women in India

What started as a simple idea to offer safe and affordable travel for women has now transformed into a thriving platform that caters to the growing demand for solo female travellers. With a focus on safety, comfort, and authenticity, Wander Womaniya provides enriching travel group experiences for women of all backgrounds and ages.

Growing up in a traditional household, Anuj noticed how his younger sister was particularly affected by the tense and orthodox environment at home which had started to take a toll on her. One day, his sister expressed a strong desire to take a solo trip, a chance to get away, relax, and clear her mind.

However, when they tried to find travel options for her, looking for potential travel groups, they quickly realised that most were mixed-gender groups with skewed gender ratios, to the likes of 10 men to two women, with the women typically accompanied by someone else. For a solo female traveller, these dynamics felt uncomfortable and unsafe, which led to a lightbulb moment

The problem was not unique to her sister, many women likely faced the same challenge of wanting to travel, but finding few options that felt secure and comfortable for them.

This realisation sparked the idea of creating travel groups tailored specifically for solo female travellers. Hence Wander Womaniya was born, it started small, offering budget-friendly weekend trips designed to be safe, welcoming, and enjoyable for a group of women who wanted to travel on their own terms.

Over time, the idea has grown into a business, with an expanding range of trips that kept the original mission at its heart, to offer affordable, empowering travel experiences for women, free from the concerns and discomforts often associated with traditional group travel.

Ever since you began, how has the market evolved?

We began in 2018, since then the market has evolved, in a really positive way. To add on that, earlier people were not very open to this idea. Like we used to get calls from like men and even women, they always wanted to travel as couples and there were hesitations like “why would I let my wife/daughter probably do something like that”, or that “we would obviously travel together”.

Over the years, I think this idea has really picked up, and more and more women are travelling solo because they do not want to be confined to the rules of being a mother, or a sister, or a daughter or even a girlfriend for that matter. Even during vacations, women end up taking those roles and begin catering to the needs of other people around them.

Now they can be themselves, and have the time of their lives without any preconceived rules and responsibilities, even if it is just for a week, 10 days or maybe even a weekend.

What is the typical client profile that you get? Has it changed over the years?

Initially it was the career women, mostly who were working in either banks or, you know, basically large companies. But I think over the it has changed wherein a lot of our clients are housewives; we are getting students also and definitely the corporates are still there. There is no longer a particular umbrella that we can categorise them into.

What is the dominant age group that approaches you for these kinds of trips?

I would say the dominant age group would be 27 to 50 years. That constitutes the 90 pc of our clientele.

We have worked with a few above the age of 70 as well. We have had someone who was 76 years of age when she travelled with us. However, the majority would be 27 – 30 years.

We get limited number of younger women who also want to travel. While you are studying or are still early in your career you are in touch with your friends and so these young women prefer travelling with friends. And then, over the years there has been a surge of solo travel. Not with a group, but completely alone, there are young women who want to go alone, they are confident enough to plan their own trips make itineraries. We help the women who want to travel on their own but are hesitant and need support, this is where the travel groups that we make come in.

What are the most common fears or hesitations women have when they consider solo travel in India? And how do you help?

I think safety and security has to be one of the major reasons. In fact, I think because of a lot of online scams happening, people are hesitant because they are not sure that if they book a trip online, is it real and not a scam or if it is a company they can trust. Especially for women, safety is a primary concern, the people they are going to travel with, the hotels that they stay in, they want to make sure everything is safe.

Most of our trips have a female tour buddy so that the women are completely confident and comfortable, if they have any issues they can talk to the tour buddy. She also coordinates your stay, activities and much more.

We plan the itineraries in such a way that there are enough breaks. Especially during road trips, we make sure they are not too long.

Ensuring that the trip is smooth with no issues between the travellers, all the while taking care that all communication between the vendors and the hotels, so that these women can enjoy themselves and the trip completely.

All the drivers and all the vendors, even the hotels for that matter, they are all vetted by us. They have been used by us. So, everything is pre-experienced by us and our team and then only offered to the clients.

We have shortlisted hotels for all our trips so they can actually have a look that okay, this is the kind of property that we will be staying in and we as a company also promise a standard of the property, and services.

How are your itineraries curated?

I travel rigorously myself. So, most of our itineraries are based on first hand experiences of our team. We do not make itineraries that would find online, like just type on Google ‘things to do in Kerala’ for five days and just pick up all of that. You know, these are places that we have experienced, either myself or somebody from my team.

So, we curate the itineraries on the basis of our own experiences that, this is okay this is a feasible thing to do or that this is something that the women will like to do. For example, if we take a Kerala trip. In that trip we are making them have the Kerala thali (platter), which is a staple food which the locals have.

In Kerala there is a beautiful thing that every 20 km you go and the texture of the food, the thali changes. We are actually including that almost on a daily basis to give that experience to these women. We also make sure to include local dance shows and cultural performances as well in the itineraries, amongst other things.

We have to show the best offerings of that destination and we try to include everything, from culture to food to night life, so that these women can experience almost everything the destination has to offer.

What is the emerging trend for female solo travellers for 2025 in India?

Almost about a decade ago, lot of people were travelling only for ticking of a destination off their bucket list. Now people travel for experiences, they want to experience the local culture, the local food, the places which most people don’t know about, and not just landmarks, travel is not just about standing in front of the Eiffel Tower in Paris and getting a picture anymore.

I think this trend is going to be visible next year as well. We are a big country and women while travelling actually want to get to know about that destination or city and then say that, yes, I experienced it not just visited it, and that is the thing that I think I feel is going as a change.

Along with that a lot of people are focussing on themselves, going for yoga retreats and wellness trips. We are also coming up such trips and getaways. People these days are more and more motivated towards healing and getting better, looking better and being a better version of themselves.