More women boldly go, solo or matched with companion

It’s not a personal ad, but a traveler’s plea.

Single women (and even some who are married) are increasingly hitting the road on their own, exploring Mother Earth either by themselves or with like-minded female globe-trotters.

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A trekker woman looking over the mountains and the jungle from the Great Wall of China. Women are bolder in their travel plans and the travel industry is noticing, providing services to find travel partners and plan adventures for women only.

• Rio de Janeiro Girlfriends Getaway

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The Travel Industry Association of America, a tourism trade group, doesn’t keep track of the number of women traveling alone. But if the bumper crop of travel professionals catering to single women travelers is any indication, the group is large — and growing.

“I did my homework,” said April Merenda, who founded Gutsy Women Travel, a female-only tour operator, in 2001. At that time, 40 percent of women 40 and older were either single, divorced or widowed. “And no one was speaking to that market,” she said.

That first year, her Pennsylvania-based company served about 100 female travelers, a number that has grown tenfold in seven years. Merenda gives them a variety of guided vacation choices, from New York City to Italy to Thailand.

Longtime travel agent Arlene Goldberg had a different motivation. Many of her female clients were tired of paying higher costs for cruises and other vacation packages that charge more for solo travelers.

“People have come to me for many years and asked me to find them a travel partner,” said Goldberg, owner of Action Travel in Solon, Ohio. So she founded Travelers Without Partners, a networking group that links like-minded female wanderers with each other.

“I love to travel,” said Elaine Shively of Aurora, Ohio, whose husband died three years ago. “We traveled quite a bit together, and when he died, that left a void in my life.”

So far, she’s taken a Mexican Riviera cruise and traveled to Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, with women she met through Goldberg’s group.

Marianne Wiley, a retired teacher from Mentor, Ohio, is still married, but she and her husband have, in her words, “different ideas on travel.”

So she is heading out on her own, first on a Caribbean cruise in December. She will bunk with a woman she met through Travelers Without Partners.

“How it will work?” she asked. “I don’t know. I’m willing to try.”

Even if the two are completely incompatible, unlikely given the time they’ve already spent together, Wiley is philosophical: “You’re not marrying the person. You can go on one trip.”

For Joyce Norr, widowed for 10 years, the issue wasn’t companionship — “that’s never held me back,” she said — but money.

Norr, who took a European cruise this summer with a roommate from Goldberg’s group, said she couldn’t afford the single supplement. That’s travel jargon for the common industry practice of charging travelers more if they don’t have someone to share a room with. Cruise companies typically charge almost double the cost for a traveler who doesn’t have a cabin companion.

“I wouldn’t even allow myself to rationalize that,” said Norr, 67, of Mayfield, Ohio. “I’m going to pay $1,000 more because I don’t have a companion? That doesn’t sit well with me.”

Norr met her cruise companion at a Travelers Without Partners meeting in February. “We talked, we went out to lunch and we got to know each other,” Norr said.

Goldberg’s group meets every other month for lunch. There’s an online component, as well, where members list their dream destinations and briefly describe their hobbies and interests (“love the ocean” and “must include Sunday Mass on trip”).

Members then can search the database for other like-minded explorers. A “contact” link allows members to get in touch with one another.

Because not all members use her as an agent to plan their trips, Goldberg said she is unsure how many women have actually traveled together.

Fellow travel agent Lee Pappas Spence, who owns Corsa Bella (translated: beautiful travel) in Chagrin Falls, Ohio, is also starting to capitalize on the singles market.

She’s planning four singles-only trips for next year — to Jackson Hole, Wyo.; Costa Rica; France; and Williamsburg, Va. Though her trips are open to men, she’s expecting most of the interest to come from women.

She works with psychotherapist Holly Klein, who founded Just Us Girls Travel two years ago.

The Internet-based matching service uses a series of 120 questions to help pair solo women travelers together for upcoming adventures.

Spence, who was widowed herself 11 years ago, said single women are much more adventuresome than they were three decades ago when she got into the travel business.

“I think women are being a lot more versatile and bold in terms of what they’re willing to do for themselves and by themselves,” said Spence.

Even so, many women aren’t yet bold enough for author Stephanie Elizondo Griest, who encourages women to set out completely on their own.

“I travel almost entirely by myself,” said Griest, 34, who wrote “100 Places Every Woman Should Go” last year. “Traveling alone is an extraordinary thing, a pivotal experience.”

She understands the fear — of being alone, of being lonely, of getting lost, of feeling unsafe. She often feels it herself. “You have to do it anyway,” she said.

When she travels with others — whether her boyfriend, her mother or a friend — the focus is often on the relationship. Compromises are made about where to go and what to do.

When you travel alone, she said, it’s all about you, your surroundings and the people you encounter.

“When I travel with others, I feel something is missing,” she said. “I don’t meet as many people. To me, real travel — with a capital T — is something that can only be done by yourself.”

Still, she understands that someone who is reluctant to go to a movie alone in her hometown isn’t going to book a solo trip to India.

So she recommends baby steps: have dinner by yourself at a neighborhood restaurant; spend a night at a hotel an hour away from home.

As she traveled the country last year promoting her book, Griest found herself giving how-to travel seminars instead. She expected an audience of 20-something adventure travelers and instead attracted women in their 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s.

“These women really wanted to travel,” she said. “They just had no idea how to do it.”

But — with a little help, in some cases — they’re certainly willing to learn.

WOMEN’S TRAVEL Resources

Here are some resources to get you started on your journey:

Corsa Bella: www.corsabella.com

Gutsy Women Travel:

Adventure Women: www.adventurewomen.com

Adventurous Wench: www.adventurouswench.com

Call of the Wild: www.callwild.com

Just Us Girls Travel: Online matching service that links single women over age 40 who are looking for travel partners. First 15 days are free, then $14.95 per month. www.justusgirlstravel.com