Female travellers are embarking on more solo travel trips than before.
Hostelworld, an online hostel-booking platform, found in a 2018 study that bookings by solo female travellers increased by 45 percent from 2015 to 2017, compared with a 40 percent increase for men.
Budget Direct Travel Insurance wanted to identify which destinations currently hold the most appeal for women travelling solo.
To create this map, the Budget Direct team analysed 1,426,053 Instagram posts tagged with #WomenWhoTravel and 6 other related hashtags, including #travelgirlsgo, #shetravels, #solofemaletraveler, #damestravel, #citizenfemme, #solofemaletravel, to find out where in the world each post came from. They then sorted the geo-location data extracted from 779,546 posts into country, city, state, region and province. The data gathering was done in April 2020.
Globally, London claimed the top spot on the Top 10 Female Solo Travel Destinations list, followed by New York, Paris, Singapore and Rome. Barcelona, Los Angeles, Dubai Gianyar in Bali and Bangkok made the top 10.
In South Africa, Cape Town, Johannesburg, Stellenbosch, Franschhoek and Graskop featured.
According to Budget Direct Travel Insurance, the UK featured the most popular destination spot in the world for solo female travellers, with London’s Big Ben, the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace and the bustle of Piccadilly Circus top choices.
In the US, New York City faired well, so did Los Angeles, San Francisco, Las Vegas and Chicago. Top destinations for female travellers in Asia were Singapore, İstanbul in Turkey, Tokyo in Japan, Hong Kong in China and Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia
In Europe, popular destinations for female travellers include Rome, in Italy, Barcelona in Spain, Lisbon in Portugal and Prague in the Czech Republic.
For the full list, visit bit.ly/WomenWhoTravelResearch.