How to help your favorite travel business (for free) + Use your holiday allowance + We're on Substack!
Published about 20 hours ago • 11 min read
Hi Reader,
I am in Uzbekistan still, enjoying all the stunning architecture, the bright blue tiles and the well preserved Silk Road buildings.
It has been a joy and a shock to return just 7 years later and find a country so changed, so focused on tourism, and genuinely booming.
I am feeling a bit like when I was in Vietnam a few months ago: tourism has really taken off here and with it, infrastructure, construction, traffic jams, crowds, places focused entirely on tourism and so many new hotels, restaurants and experiences.
The hotel I stayed in Khiva had opened only 10 days prior to my stay, I visited 3 more than opened in the last 6 months, and several 5* in Tashkent that had opened recently too. There are new roads, new hotel openings every month, new experiences, even an entire new neighbourhood built from the ground up to honor the Silk Road.
With more than 12 million people visiting the country during the first 9 months of this year, this is a country playing in the major league of tourism hot spots.
Join our waitlist if you'd like to travel with us in 2027 and follow me on Instagram to see what we will be up to.
On this week's email:
Have you ever had a truly life changing experience when traveling? Have you returned home from a trip with something invaluable that has changed the way you see yourself or the world? Has a travel experience affected you so much that you have changed your life irrevocably? If a travel business (a guide, driver, chef, artisan, expert, community...) has left a lasting mark, there are a few ways in which you can truly show your appreciation while helping them, and they don't cost a thing.
This is your last chance to book our Xmas markets tour and save 350 EUR. We are closing bookings really soon and have only 2 spots left. Go reserve your spot now!
The end of the year is coming and if you have any pending vacation to take, this is the time to plan and book it, only 2.5 months left!
This week's podcast episode is an interview with Alessandra, founder of Women in travel CIC, a social enterprise bringing equity and employment opportunities to the tourism industry through the Tour Guiding Academy, a free course diverse women can complete to become qualified tour guides or create their own tours. We have partnered with them for our Scotland tour, which featured a Ukrainian guide sharing the ties between Kiev and Edinburgh and a food feast and a deaf guide that talked about the often ignored but very important deaf women of Scotland, all during our welcome evening. Alessandra and I will host a full day of tours in London on the 31st of October and I would love for you to join us. Details here.
How to help your favorite travel business, for free
With Mari, our Japanese guide
Running a travel company is both incredibly rewarding and incredibly intense.
You are in the business of people and people are unpredictable and much more nuanced and challenging than dealing with machines in a factory.
People make the "product" and people "consume" it.
The entire experience relies on your partners and collaborations being at their best, on the guides being present, interesting, entertaining and likeable and on the guests being respectful, interested and appreciative.
The result relies on the chemistry between the parts.
Our guides are all 100% amazing, and 95% of the times, our guests love them too. But there are times when a guest just does not gel with a guide or a group. I know there are guests that do not love me or Meg either. And I've learned that we can't please everyone, we aren't ice cream after all 😉
In the words of Carl Jung, "The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: If there is a reaction, both are transformed"
Even though we know all your partners, collaborators and guides really well and 40% of our guests have traveled with us before, we could never predict how all of them feel together.
Like most travel businesses I know, we put our hearts and souls into every tour.
We painstakingly think about the smallest details you probably haven't even noticed, and that is the point.
From the route we should take and the exact time we should depart so we come across the best toilet stop available at the time when we think the group will need a stop, to the daily menus to ensure locally sourced, seasonal meals showcasing local culture while not repeating dishes and catering to the ever expanding list of dietary requirements and likes / dislikes.
If you could spend a day in the life of a guide or a tour company, you would be left speechless at the types of questions we get asked, or the minutia we spend our time on.
And this is because we care.
If it all goes as planned, it all goes smooth and nothing is noticed.
Travel is indeed one of the few things we buy that makes us richer.
We know every trip is important.
It can be life-changing, it can be a big celebration, it can rekindle the love for yourself or help you reclaim your independence and identity. It can teach you things about yourself, it can introduce you to your new best friend or even your future wife.
How can we let you down?
This is not like selling a phone charging cable. Yes, it can be life changing in some situations, I know better than anyone, but there isn't a person behind who tried to make your phone charging moment special and memorable.
If you have ever returned from a trip and felt like it was purposeful, out of the ordinary, or that you were well taken care of and welcomed like a friend, here are a few ways in which you can help the people who made it special:
📝 Tell or show them
It seems obvious, but we sometimes forget that this is a people business and the best way to help someone is by telling them what a great time you had.
Write a heartfelt thank you note, bring a small souvenir from home, give them a hug if appropriate, show your appreciation with your heart. If customary, leave a generous tip, especially if they went the extra mile and worked outside of regular hours, took you out at night or added extra stops or detours just for you.
Many of our guides receive heartfelt cards on our tours and they genuinely appreciate it. As a business owner, I have also received small gifts from guests, from a hand painted coffee cup to a small pottery piece or a personalised thermal coffee mug with my name, and I treasure them. Feeling like someone thought of you is wonderful
🗣️ Tell a friend!
Most travel businesses have grown on the back of some serious word of mouth. I am sure you have asked a friend or family member you knew had visited a place for recommendations before.
If a guide, driver or tour company made your trip extra memorable, tell your friends about them.
We promote our guides and partners on all channels when anyone asks us, but you don't even need a huge audience to help out.
🗯️ Share on social media
Better yet than telling a friend or waiting for someone to ask you, you could make a social media post and tell everyone about them. It is likely that you will be sharing photos and videos, so why not tag them too?
You can also answer posts asking for recommendations or jump on Reddit and talk about them. Share their contact details, tag them, let the world know they are worth it.
We do this with all our guides and collaborators too: we promote them, we spotlight them, we tell everyone about them, on our IG posts, our IG stories, these emails... We know for a fact that it helps them and they get bookings from women who follow us. We don't hide the women we work with, they are front and center and talked about by name. We don't want to gate keep. A rising tide lifts all boats and we are here to support women, so we will always hype them up.
💯 Leave a review
You cannot imagine how difficult it is to get reviews. Most travel companies get a maximum of 5-10% of their travelers leaving one.
At the same time, over 90% of us read reviews before choosing a guide, a driver, a tour company, a travel agency, etc.
But we often forget to leave a review not because we thought the guide or experience wasn't amazing, but because once we get back to the daily routine, we forget and life takes over.
If you really want to help your favorite travel business, leave a review, this is the one thing you can do that does not cost absolutely anything yet can mean the difference between them getting another customer or not. And don't just focus on one review site, leave a review in all of them if they have presence in several platforms. Write a review, click on the star rating and upload photos if possible.
In a world where AI rules, it is harder to trust anything online and photos are much harder to fake. A public endorsement is the greatest gift you can give a travel business that made your trip extra special. And the best part is that you can do that anytime, it does not have to be for a trip, experience, restaurant, etc. you have just tried, you can review a business you traveled with last year.
So go on, locate them online or better yet, ask them where they want you to leave a review. A small gesture can be big help, especially for small businesses.
💌 Reach out
Are you still thinking about an experience you took 3 years ago?
Reach out and let them know, trust me, it is wonderful to hear from a previous guest years later.
If you follow them on social media, you can just reply to one of their posts that maybe features the experience you had, the food tour you joined, the trip you went on, etc.
And if you've traveled with us, have found my newsletters helpful or are part of our Facebook community and it has helped you in a meaningful way, leave us a review, or reply to let us know, it will mean a lot to us. We are still a pretty small business doing things differently, and there are just 6 of us behind it all, so chances are you already know us by name :)
Episode #28: How to close the gender gap in tourism, one female guide at a time
This week's podcast episode explores the many ways tourism can help close the gender gap by providing employment and enterprising opportunities to women from diverse backgrounds, and how you can book an experience and contribute to that too, while having fun in the process.
If you have followed us for a while or traveled with us on one of our tours, you know this is what we are ALL about and thankfully, we are not the only ones passionate about this.
In this episode, I am talking to Alessandra, founder of Women in Travel CIC and her Tour Guiding Academy focused on training women from diverse backgrounds to become guides and rekindle their love for their culture, their heritage, their traditions or the place they left behind, as well as the one they now live in.
Refugees, those who fled limiting social norms, visual or hearing impaired, victims of domestic abuse or women in varying situations that are looking for a flexible and enriching career become your host into their communities and their worlds.
They take you to learn more about Ethiopian or Indian food, about Ukraine's links with Edinburgh or the botanic plants and flowers that have medicinal properties and you can grow in your own garden.
They'll teach you to belly dance or appreciate frankincense perfume, to see London's food influences since Roman times or where coffee comes from. You can immerse yourself in Caribbean culture in Amsterdam or Palestine in London, all the while as you are having a meaningful connection and supporting a fantastic initiative.
And while you are having a great time on tour, 20-25% of the money you spent goes back to financing the guiding certification for another women to join the industry.
If there ever was a way to genuinely have a great time while giving back, this is it. BONUS: You can do that with me and Alessandra on the 31st of October.
We have organized two half day tours of London spotlighting 3 of these incredible women and Alessandra and I will join them.
25% of the proceeds from the tour return to the Tour Guiding Academy and will be devoted to helping more women become qualified guides and start their own tours or work for established companies.
Who said you can't have fun, eat, drink and dance and for it to help others make the world a better place?
Morning - 10,30am to 2,30pm: Ethiopian food + Arabian fun
We will start with an Ethiopian food and coffee tour, learning about this unique gastronomy not found anywhere else and the birthplace of coffee with Sefanit.
We will end the day with a belly dancing class and introduction to Arabian music and perfume with Amal
Afternoon - 2,30pm to 9,30pm: Arabian fun + History of London on a plate
Start with the Arabian music and perfume intro by Amal followed by a belly dancing class and continue with a food tour that will take us throughout London to sample the dishes that tell the story of the city, from Roman times to the colonial period with all the influences that make the city the cultural melting pot that it is with Martina.
Amal, Martina and Sefanit
I would LOVE to meet you in person in this rare opportunity to get the Solo Female Travelers community together.
We always talk about giving back, about regenerative travel, about helping bridge the gender gap, this is a fun and easy way to do so. Will you join?
Quick break to tell you about one of the few news accounts we follow on Instagram at Solo Female Travelers, check it out!
350 EUR OFF our Xmas markets tours - Last chance!
Our Xmas markets tours this year have only 2 spots left and they are on sale with a discount of 350 EUR!
Dates:
21 to 29 November, 2026
5 to 13 December, 2026
We visit 4 countries and 5 cities including walking tours of each with a local female guide, castles that inspired Disney, several Christmas markets filled with tradition, lots of treats, a cheese fondue and a cheese raclette, warm gluewine (mulled wine), picturesque villages on the lakeshore, a food tour and a Christmas cookie baking class.
This is the tour that will make you feel all the fuzzies for the Christmas spirit of giving, sharing and loving, even if you are not Christian or religious.
PSA: Don't forget to take your vacation allowance!
We just entered Autumn fully and there are just over 10 weeks left till the end of the year. If you have any vacation allowance left, it is time to book that trip, or at the very least, take the time off so you don't lose it.
You don't even have to travel, you can be a tourist in your own city or region is finances are tight or you are saving for something else. But don't let the time off go to waste!
ICYMI: Useful global travel news & updates
Useful travel tips and updates from around the world you should know:
AI can help you plan the trip, but it will be the same as everyone else, and it will feature all the big landmarks. The errors and generic itineraries are boosting the luxury travel agency market. Read here.
What to do if the airline loses your bag. Read here.
The funniest wildlife photos from the wildlife comedy awards. See gallery here.
The women transforming Zanzibar seaweed industry. Read here.
The World Wildlife Fund has just published their newest The Living Planet Index (LPI) which tracks population of wildlife around the world to see if they are declining or increasing in size. Between 1970 and 2022, the populations the LPI follows declined by an average of 73%. Some species have also seen a recovery; the green turtle, tigers, Southern African elephants, etc. Wildlife is such an important part of the reason why many of us travel, and travel could be a great incentive to protect a species. The report is both hopeful and saddening. Read here.
Have a wonderful rest of the week.
CO-FOUNDERS, SOLO FEMALE TRAVELERS
Solo Female Travelers C/ Europa 18 5-2, Sitges, 08870
