Women seek safety and freedom when traveling alone – 09/20/2024 – Equilíbrio

Not having anyone to go with can be a deterrent for some women when deciding to travel. In addition to the lack of company, they are also afraid of experiencing situations such as harassment and assault in an unknown city. To avoid missing out on the trip, they have sought out agencies that specialize in women. This way, in addition to the trip, they also meet other women in the same situation and make new friends.

Tamires de Souza Pires, 34, a psychologist, was uncomfortable about having to travel with her family or her partner, from whom she was separating, and was afraid of traveling alone. So she decided to travel to Bento Gonçalves, in Rio Grande do Sul, with the agency Viaja Guria, in July of last year.

“I felt very welcomed,” says Tamires. “I highly recommend that women have this experience of traveling alone. It’s a feeling of freedom, independence, achievement, of ‘I can do anything’,” she says.

Since then, she has taken three trips with the agency and often meets up with her fellow travelers for happy hours.

Letticia Gerhardt, the company’s founder, says that women have several reasons for seeking out an agency like this: getting out of a divorce, greater independence, making new friends and feeling safe when traveling alone. During the trip, the guides organize integration activities so that the passengers can connect. “The person leaves home alone, but they don’t stay alone,” says Gerhardt.

Patrícia Fialho Lucrécio, 51, a civil servant, wanted to visit Jalapão, in Tocantins, but she had no company and didn’t know how to access the attractions in the state park. Among her fears of traveling alone, she mentions harassment, booking a trip with a company she can’t trust, mugging, and getting sick and not being treated.

She says she did a lot of research and found the Woman Trip agency. Now, she is planning her next trip with friends she met in Jalapão. “On the first day of the trip, we already create a connection,” she says. “It was everyone’s first time traveling alone.”

Planning a safe itinerary is a craftsmanship, says Dandara Degon, from the agency Woman Trip. Often, she and her sister, Larissa Degon, with whom she founded the company, test out destinations beforehand and talk to locals. They also get tips from their own community.

Through social media and messages, the company’s travelers vote on new destinations, warn about places they didn’t feel safe and ask for suggestions for trips outside the agency. “The pandemic was the moment that made this sense of community most clear,” says Larissa.

A survey conducted by Maxmilhas indicates that 6% of reservations on the platform in 2023 were made by women traveling alone. More than 94% of them traveled within Brazil, with São Paulo, Brasília and Rio de Janeiro in the top 3 national destinations between 2020 and 2023. Among the international destinations were Lisbon, in Portugal, Buenos Aires, in Argentina and Rome, in Italy.

Gilsimara Caresia sees her agency, GirlsGo Viagens para Mulheres, as a springboard for solo travel: “I lose clients and I don’t care,” she said. For her, traveling alone is a sign of financial and emotional freedom.

The company runs trips to places like India, Morocco and Egypt, countries that customers say they are most afraid to travel to alone.

“There is a perception that a woman alone is not safe and we see this in practice: harassment, greater vulnerability to assault and violence,” says Caresia. “But I, who live in São Paulo and have traveled to more than a hundred countries, can list countless places where I felt much safer than going out here in my neighborhood,” she says.

Pâmela Lemos, founder of the Surferinhas agency, “just wanted to bring women together to surf” when she founded the company in 2017. She has taken 110 trips and 30 day trips since then. She says that the sea is a dangerous environment, and that it is important to have company when surfing.

Furthermore, when she entered the sport 20 years ago, she did not feel welcomed by the surfing environment. She had no close references in terms of female teachers or colleagues. She created the agency to change this scenario.

The Surferinhas group of “most present” surfers currently has around 200 people. They travel nationally and internationally. The audience ranges from 22 to 50 years old, but “my grandmother has already taken lessons”, says Lemos.

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