How Amanda Black Built The Solo Female Traveler Network

On She Built It®, Amanda Black, founder of The Solo Female Traveler Network, TEDx speaker, and leader of women-only group trips around the world, shares how a one-way ticket to Honduras, became the beginning of a global community of more than 600,000 women.

Amanda talks about building her first trip to Bali with a negative bank balance, firing a guide a week before her travelers arrived, and watching 9 out of 17 women tattoo the trip logo on their hands by the end of it. She shares what real female connection looks like when you give women the time and space to simply be themselves, and why, for women who want to see the world, the only thing standing in the way is usually themselves. This conversation is part travel story, part founder origin story, and entirely about what becomes possible when you decide to just go.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I really wanted women in my corner who understood me and who weren't going to just tell me to bail the first second things got hard. I started it after I got robbed and I was traveling and I got robbed, like raw blind. And once I once I replaced my computer, I that's when I started the Facebook group. That's when I was like, okay, this is it. This thing has to exist. So I'm going to create it.

SPEAKER_01 0:27

I love how it happened organically. And what made you go on your first solo trip? And overcoming all of those challenges had to teach you a certain type of resilience because it's not easy, you know, when you have no support network and you're somewhere, you could be in a beautiful place, really enjoying yourself. But something like that really teaches you resilience and confidence if you can when you're able to overcome it.

SPEAKER_00 0:49

First of all, I always knew that I wanted to. I remember being very little kid and telling my parents, one day I'm going to live in another country and speak a different language. And I had no basis for this. I hadn't been anywhere, but I just knew. And so my parents were amazing, but they did always tell me, you can travel when you retire. Go to 10 days in Europe, maybe when you graduate college. We'll see. 10 days in Europe. That's it. Like that's the that's the travel you're gonna you're have. But then my mom died. And it was the worst. I I really, really, in a sense, lost everything. My anchor, my sense of family, my sense of belonging in the world. I I was lost. I'm so sorry. Thank you. But, you know, when she died, I got a small amount of money, and I decided to take it and buy a one-way ticket and go do the thing I wanted to do the most, which at the time was to become a dive master. So I got a one-way ticket to Honduras and I stayed- I had chills.

SPEAKER_01 1:55

I'm chills hearing this story. That's amazing.

SPEAKER_00 1:57

Yeah. So that's that's how my real solo travel got started. But I was living abroad before she died. And but after she died, it was like, can I curse here? Yes. It was like, fuck it. Like, I'm just gonna do what I want. Life is short. No one cares where I am or what I'm doing. So I'm gonna just do what I want. And that's what I've been doing since.

SPEAKER_01 2:19

Yeah. And I love that you had the mindset of why wait? Because why wait? Yeah. And you know, I'm a mom of twins and I feel like lately I'm never alone. But the thought of taking a trip alone is it it seems scary if you've never done it. And then it also seems very empowering. I mean, I love alone time, especially as a twin mom, don't get me wrong. And I also love my friends. Are you doing travel groups with with friends?

SPEAKER_00 2:48

Yeah. We so our tours are mainly for, you know, they're for women traveling solos so that they know that they can come somewhere where they're not the only one coming alone. They're not going to be like surrounded by couples or families. Um, but we do have friends come on our trips. We also do private group tours as well. If you had like a group of like 10 friends who wanted to go somewhere. So we do that stuff too. But really, we are for women who want to want to go somewhere, don't want to wait for their friends, don't want to hear it from their family. They just want to go. They maybe don't want to go totally solo. Maybe they want the comfort, security, or the fun of going with other people. And also there are corners of a of the world. A lot of our tours go to places that are perceived as less safe for women or more logistically difficult to go by yourself. We exist for a lot of reasons, but at the end of the day, we want women, if they want to see the world, I want them to see it. So we try to make that as easy and as fun as possible.

SPEAKER_01 3:54

If there is a woman in the position that you were in where maybe friends or family don't want to go, but she still does, what is your advice to her as a next step?

SPEAKER_00 4:04

I say just go a lot, and I know that it sounds oversimplified. I know it's not that easy. But I think that first the question to ask is, is it really your friends and family that are giving you the hard time? Or are you believing, are you believing these lines? Oh, it's too dangerous, it's not safe, you can't do it, you're gonna give up, it's gonna be too hard. I would ask that first. Do you believe that? If you believe that, then we can talk. If it's just your family, your family isn't the one who's going to look back in 10 years wishing that they had done it when they could. It seems like it's really about overcoming limiting beliefs to a to a certain point. For sure. I know it's scary. I remember the first time before I left for that trip for Honduras. I we didn't have anything like my community at the time. There wasn't really anyone to ask. And so I would Google everything, and it was tragic. I mean, the questions I asked were so silly, but it was just anxiety. Yeah. But at the end of the day, I knew I had to do this, and I was really scared. And there was no way to prep fully prepare you. There's no way to understand to expect the unexpected, but you have to believe in yourself. And once you do finally go, once you just go, you will discover how capable you've been all along. And you're never really alone. There's so much support. There's communities like mine. You can go on trips like mine so that you can kind of get a taste for being on your own, but then also have us in your corner for safety, for logistics, have the group for friendships. Like there's so many ways to travel. There's just no excuse anymore.

SPEAKER_01 5:49

And what are you saying as far as connection from women and the relationships that are made on the trip?

SPEAKER_00 5:55

I have seen the best friendships form on my tours, and some of my best friendships have formed on my own tours. It's so clear to me after doing this for so long that first of all, women are amazing. We think and connect in a deeper, more interesting, more heartfelt way. And when we have the space to do it, we connect quickly. And when you go on a tour like this, you're doing things for the first time together. You're experiencing and seeing things for the first time. These amazing, like coolest places and things in the whole world, new cultures, new food, and you're doing it together. You become best friends. And I see it time and time and time again.

SPEAKER_01 6:46

And tell us more about your business and if someone wanted to go on the trip, tell us about that process and where do you go around the world?

SPEAKER_00 6:53

Booking a trip with us is easy. Just go on our website, pick where you want to go, pick your dates, and then you drop a deposit, and that holds your spot, and then you're then you're coming. So the destinations that we go to are pretty varied. We specialize in destinations that are perceived as less safe for women. So Egypt is one of our best destinations, Morocco, India. We also go to Bali, Cuba, we go to Uganda to see the gorillas and the all the animals. We go to Kenya, Tanzania, Turkey is one of my favorites, Mongolia, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan. We go to these places and more. And when you come on one of these tours, what we're what you experience are things that you can never experience on your own. We've spent years in these destinations, getting to know people. We have some of the coolest relationships with women out in the countryside and indigenous communities, women who we love to support and who love to invite us in. So that's what you're going to experience with us along with all these friendships. And it's as easy as booking your spot and committing to yourself to go. And how often do you travel? I travel, I do like one of our tours maybe once a quarter, depending. So I do a big trip, maybe four times a year. Yeah. So on the tour, you have a local guide who is with you 24-7, and they're part of our team and trained by me. So they're the best. And they're there with you as your host and as your guide.

SPEAKER_01 8:34

Tell us about the business and the operational scale from your first trip.

SPEAKER_00 8:38

It was a journey. Before I launched that very first trip, I had minimal experience in tourism. I worked for a volunteerism company, which is a company who sets you up with volunteering around the world. I worked in marketing and recruitment for them. So I had some but minimal experience. And I also was an avid traveler. Like I had, I had traveled a ton. So I felt like I could put a trip together. So I was living in Australia at the time, and my travelers said they wanted to go on a trip. So I decided to make it to Bali because I at the time was an expat in a country where I found it really hard to get a job. I was young. I had no money. I had like a negative bank account balance. So this had to be no risk for me. So I put together a trip to Bali. I oversold this trip by accident, actually. I had to get a second villa to accommodate everyone. But I had 17 travelers on that trip. Now our maximum is 14, but at the time it was whoever I could get. I was operating this all by myself, which is the worst idea. I didn't even know how little I knew. It was like I had an assistant. Well, first I had a guide who was given to me. I swear I was sabotaged by a competitor. I'm using air quotes because at the time I wasn't anything. She gave me a contact and he was awful. I had to fire him a week before the girls got there. I didn't know what I was gonna do. I found a female driver to do our trip. I found an assistant. And like an angel, I accidentally connected with this Australian woman who who owned villas in Bali. And she took pity on me and she took me under her wing and she helped me. And if it wasn't for her, I don't know how that trip would have gone. I don't know if I ever would have done another one. That's where all things happen for a reason. I think about her a lot. But what was happening with the team that I hired, that I found, I liked them enough individually. But what I didn't have any idea about is that they were all from different parts of Indonesia and had different religions. And I A wouldn't know that by talking to them for sure. Like I'm not from there. I didn't know that some of those destinations and religions don't get along, don't respect each other. I had a driver who would not listen to my assistant. She made him obsolete. So in the middle of the trip, I had to fire her because she was awful, to be honest. Um, I had to find a new driver last minute. It was crazy behind the scenes. And this was my fault. I set it up badly. But I learned so many lessons. And at the end of that trip, not only were my travelers so crazy happy with this trip, that nine out of the 17 of those women loved their experience so much that they got our logo tattooed. They asked me for a tattoo artist and they wanted to commemorate the trip this way.

SPEAKER_01 11:55

It was beautiful. Wow. That says that you're going to build probably something that's coming next. Yeah. You know, that probably said, okay, there's something to this. I need to continue to grow it. And good for you for continuing to move forward because you could have said, I don't know how to do this, but you you made that first leap.

SPEAKER_00 12:15

There's no choice. Once people rely on you, once people have paid you for me, my work ethic, and integrity, whatever, or maybe it's my ego. I don't know. I cannot let them down. I can't tell them no. I can't be refunding. I have to give them what I promised. And that trip was one of the hardest things I've ever done in my career, but thank God I did it because now it's been eight years. I've learned all the lessons. I was gonna say, tell us now. Yeah, I know, right? Yeah, I swear. I don't operate trips by myself in countries I've never been to anymore. We have amazing teams around the world in every destination. We have an entire team from that location who are really experienced in what they do. In all of our countries, we even have connections with the local, like government authorities so that if something goes down, we know before the news knows. It's very connected now. Learned a lot since that first trip, but I want to tell that story just because if anyone is listening and they're thinking about starting and they think it needs to be perfect, it doesn't. If you start something and operate with the with your keeping in mind that your customer, or in my case, my traveler, is the number one, two, and three priority, then you're gonna be okay. It doesn't have to be perfect.

SPEAKER_01 13:42

And you have 600,000 people now within your community. And with AI, and as disconnected as we can be, community and travel is becoming a really important topic. What do you see next for what you've built?

SPEAKER_00 13:58

One of our biggest values is supporting and uplifting the women in the communities that we visit. So in every destination we go to, we have a female guide, except for one destination. We have a male guide because I love him and he's been with me from the beginning. But otherwise, they're women. We go to women, women's houses, we go to women-focused NGOs, we support women-owned boutique hotels when we can. And so what's next for us is figuring what I'm trying to do is put together ways that we can support these women around the world in a much bigger way. I don't want to give too much away right now, but that's what I'm working on to touch as many women's lives as we can. It's amazing.

SPEAKER_01 14:47

We'll be watching for to see the the what's next. As you look at what you've built in your life and the women that you've impacted, I'm sure that that brings you a lot of joy as as well as the travel. What do you do every day to make sure that you're finding and living your joy?

SPEAKER_00 15:02

I love that question. And honestly, sometimes that's a hard question to answer. Even just last night, I found myself working on the computer all day until it was 11 p.m. and I was like, oh man, I'm not done yet. So I love that question because I think it's really important. It can it can seem from the outside that I have the coolest job, and in some ways I definitely do. But it is a lot of it is a lot of pressure and it's a lot of work. On a day-to-day basis, I am going to the gym and I'm walking my dog and I cook myself food. I don't order takeout very often. I like taking that time to make myself a meal is important time for me. It forces me off the computer and into my head, like into the like quiet of my thought. It's these really simple things, honestly, on a day-to-day basis. Going to a coffee shop in the middle of the day, if I feel like I'm getting a little disconnected, or making sure that I plan things with friends, making sure I go to the beach because it's 10 minutes away, and sometimes it's easy to forget that.

SPEAKER_01 16:20

I know I live so close to the beach, and some days I don't see it, and I think there's this is wrong. Yeah. I need to see the beach at least once a day. Yeah. It's so important that you say that though, because so many of the women that I talk to, and I know many of the women and the leaders listening love what they do and are so inspired by what they do and what they're growing. But at the beginning of the this year, I said, I'm gonna do five minute meditations and I'm gonna do 20 to 30 minutes of waits a day and really try to get that time in because you're right, when you love what you do, you can go the whole day on your computer and continue building. And it doesn't mean you don't love it, but then we also have to remember who we are as people and within ourselves. So and I love that you said that you take the time to cook yourself food. This sounds like it's such a peaceful time.

SPEAKER_00 17:04

Yeah, it goes hand in hand with going to the gym or doing yoga, whatever your thing is. For me, I lift weights, so gotta get the protein in. So, you know, just making sure I keep that promise to myself is really important for me because I've certainly gone through periods of pretty intense burnout, as a lot of us have.

SPEAKER_01 17:25

Thank you so much for joining us today and for inspiring us to travel. And if we feel like it, travel solo or with our favorite friends. Please share with us how and where we can find you.

SPEAKER_00 17:36

So the best place to find out about all of our trips and contact us is on our website, thesolofemale traveler network.com or sofitravel.com for short, s-o-fetravel.com. There you can find all of our destinations, all of our trips, ways to contact us, as well as a kind of fun Cosmos style free quiz to answer the question: where should you travel next?