The Tracee Ellis Ross Effect: Why Solo Travel Is Trending for Women 40+

I watched Solo Traveling with Tracee Ellis Ross and expected to be taken in by the beauty of it — the locations, the ease, the confidence. That part was there, but it wasn’t what stayed with me. 

What lingered were the imperfect moments, like her getting sick while traveling alone or sitting down to eat by herself. I could relate when she let her loneliness show up without trying to smooth it over or turn it into something inspiring. There is something disarming about seeing independence lived so plainly, without explanation or justification. 

In this episode, I talk through why that visibility matters — especially for women over 40. It doesn’t have to be a model to follow or proof of anything; it can simply serve as a disruption to what we might expect, or what others expect of us. When certain lives are made visible, it stirs questions we don’t always know how to name — about timing, expectation, and choice. What we were told adulthood would look like may look nothing like what actually feels true now. 

I keep coming back to the scenes where Tracee is alone — getting sick, sitting down to eat by herself — and how little effort there was to make them palatable. There’s no hard-hitting lesson. The moments speak for themselves. That’s the part I haven’t stopped thinking about.