Married But Traveling Solo: More Common Than You Might Think

Marcia Henderson, 66, of Las Vegas has visited 173 countries solo, including 22 solo tours with Road Scholar, and booked eight solo trips for 2024. She also did 13 volunteer trips with Earthwatch Institute, including research with pandas in China and tagging leatherback turtles in Trinidad.

Oh, she's married. "My husband loves to golf — I don't. He's not as active as me, and doesn't share my passion for nature, culture and history," said the retired city government staffer and US Air Force veteran. "This is my passion, and he is supportive as I support his golfing."

She often travels with one specific friend, but always has her own hotel room and the two don't do everything together. "We do well because we're not joined at the hip. I cherish my time to explore and do what I want on my timetable. I don't want to feel obligated or be responsible for another to enjoy their trip. I'm not a babysitter."

Traveling without a spouse does raise eyebrows, Henderson noted. Her reaction is blunt: "It would be an atrocity to not travel because your spouse doesn't like it."

Henderson's experience is far more common than you think. The majority of people 50-plus who travel solo with Road Scholar are married (60%), a 2023 report by the tour operator for people ages 50-plus found. The percentage of solo married travelers has risen since 2013 (and peaked during the pandemic), said the company, who serves 80-100,000 older adults each year, of whom 20-30,000 travel solo.

Why? A blog post, Eight Reasons Why I Travel Without My Husband, spurred the study. "It really caught my attention. I always knew most of our solo travelers are women, but figured it was because women outlive their husbands and that we had lots of single women traveling with us," said Road Scholar PR director Kelsey Knoedler Perri of the post by Barbara Winard, a retired producer/writer for WNET/13, New York City's public TV station.

"It honestly hadn't occurred to me a huge swath of married women were traveling solo. Then, I started seeing many anecdotes from married women whose husbands didn't want to travel in our Facebook group for women. I wanted to delve into it and see if serious numbers could back that up."

Mimi Salmon, 66, a retired software engineer in Seattle whose husband still works at Amazon ("he refuses to retire until he's 70"), spent six weeks in Florence to learn Italian and travel with Road Scholar, saw Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand with them, and spent six weeks in Guanajuato, Mexico learning Spanish, all solo. But traveling solo doesn't mean traveling alone, she noted.

Walking Spain's famous Camino de Santiago route, over 500 miles from St. Jean Pied de Port, France to Santiago de Compostela, she rose before sunrise, ate breakfast, walked 5-6 kilometers, had a second breakfast, kept walking, stopped for lunch, walked for 20-30 kilometers to an inn and ate a communal dinner, every day for 35 days. "I walked by myself but you're never alone on the route unless by choice. I kept meeting friends along the way," — friends she made while walking, at bars and cafes for snacks, or in the inns.

"People are much more likely to chat or offer a greeting than in 'real life' off the Camino. If you run into someone a few times, conversations are struck up and friendships form," said Salmon. She planned her trip using Gronze (a guide to the Camino's different routes), John Brierley's guidebook, and YouTube channels and blogs documenting peoples' Camino journeys, and booked private or dorm rooms at inns on booking.com. She so enjoyed the French route, she also walked the Portuguese route and plans future Camino walks.

Some married couples combine solo travel with travel with a spouse, meeting up before or after a trip, like Deb Conrad, 70, of Liberty, Texas, near Houston, who did 30 trips with Adventures in Good Company, a women-only adventure tour operator. On its Vermont Appalachian Trail tour, she and her husband drove around before the tour. After her Orvieto, Italy tour with her daughter, her husband and her daughter's boyfriend joined them in Rome, and they drove around for two weeks and saw Tuscany.

"I'd always know someone on a trip, either a guest or a guide. Later, I started making friends, and we'd sign up for a trip together. A group of us met on AGC's Cinque Terre, Italy tour, and we later toured Greece and Croatia together," said Conrad. "When we talk, we find we don't have friends at home that like this type of travel. Here, you're with people all day long and have dinner together - of course you're going to talk. I try to sit next to a different person each time." A CPA married 35 years to her husband, who retired, she prefers longer trips and more strenuous hiking than he does.

An unforgettable experience occurred on an AGC hiking tour in Chile. "In the Atacama desert, we rose at 3 AM to see the geysers at sunrise. That's the only time the geysers go off — they freeze up overnight, then spout when the sun comes up. Then we jumped into the hot spring."

Kate Berich, 62, has seen 37 countries, mostly with a friend or one of her children, but Kenya, Tanzania, Israel, Jordan, Argentina and Antarctica with Road Scholar. Either she or her husband stays home to care for their disabled son. But her destinations have changed over time. "When my daughter was a flight attendant, I took advantage of the free airfare and chose countries I considered easy to travel solo based on language, safety and public transportation, like Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Singapore. When she left, I chose more challenging places I wouldn't want to see solo based on the language barrier and other factors."

But what Julie Gaither, also 62, relishes the most about solo travel is the freedom from roles and responsibilities at home. "I get to be JUST me for a little while. The feeling of being nobody's mom, wife, daughter, etc. is so rejuvenating, compared to being younger with kids home." She's more extroverted and adventurous than her husband. "He's very laid-back, likes a much slower pace (a chair!) and more familiar locations." She added, "Honestly, after 40 years of marriage, we found a break from each other is good."

While 85% of solo travelers with Road Scholar are women, over two-thirds of its men solo travelers are married, its report found, based on its 2022 survey of its clients. "My wife Ann and I were both independent-minded when we got married, and flat-out agreed if one of us wanted to go somewhere with friends and the other didn't want to, we were fine with that," said George Hood, 77, a retired supermarket executive.

He took solo Road Scholar tours to Belize, Roatan, Costa Rica, Dominica — he loves to snorkel — Peru and Ireland when she was alive, plus 17 Road Scholar tours and cruises with her. On a Netherlands trip with UnTours, which features vacation rentals, rail pass, planning help and a local guide for questions, he stayed in the apartment in Leiden; Ann stayed with friends an hour away. "We had no children," Hood said. "I think some people are so busy with grandchildren they feel obligated to stay home and fulfill family obligations. Some don't want to get out of their comfort zone, especially for international travel, and deal with things that pop up."

Since her death in 2017, all his Road Scholar tours are solo. Growing up in Rochester, New York, he said, "My parents always had people from different countries stay for dinner, and learned about different customs. I've never been a loner, always enjoying meeting new people."

But not everyone does. "I have some friends who simply will not travel without their spouses — especially the males," Hood noted.