Freedom Looks Like This – solo travel for women over 40 ready to choose themselves
Freedom Looks Like This is a solo travel podcast for women over 40 who feel restless, disconnected, or tired of waiting for the "right time" to start living differently. Hosted by Damianne President, the show explores intentional solo travel as a way to rebuild self-trust, stop waiting for permission, and create a life that actually feels like yours again.
Solo travel is just where the story starts. What this show really explores is what happens when women stop waiting, take themselves seriously, and begin making decisions for themselves, without over-explaining or asking for approval.
Episodes dive into topics like:
- solo travel for women over 40
- fear, self-doubt, and the hesitation to go alone
- learning to trust yourself again
- identity shifts in midlife
- choosing what you want and acting on it
Whether you’re planning your first solo trip or simply craving more freedom in your everyday life, Freedom Looks Like This offers real conversations and relateable reframes to help you move forward, whether at home or on the road.
Episodes
38 episodes
This Solo Travel Skill Saved My Family Trip to Nigeria
I was standing in the corner of Edinburgh airport with two suitcases, a backpack, a side bag, and no visa, making call after call that went nowhere. The plan had been for my whole family to fly to Lagos together for my stepmother's 61st birthda...
From the Vault: Feeling Ready When You Take The Solo Trip
I'm bringing this one back from the vault. I recorded it in April, before this month took me through Nigeria, Ghana, and Rwanda, and before I missed an episode for the first time because I didn't have reliable internet. It still holds up. The n...
The Papua New Guinea Trick That Turns Solo Travelers Into Instant Micro-Tribes
You never find somebody who's just like you, not even twins. My guest today, Kristine Madera, has backpacked solo through China, Russia, and the Baltics during the fall of the Soviet Union, served in the Peace Corps in Papua New Guinea, taught ...
From the Vault: What It Costs to Wait to Be Seen
I recorded this one a while back, and in it I explore a feeling so many of us have after 40, where you walk into a room and somehow nobody quite registers that you're there. Back then I thought the answer was to be seen again, to be noticed, an...
Follow the Feeling, Not the Feed: Choosing Solo Travel Destinations After 40
A lot of us have a list somewhere, in a notes app or just in the back of our heads, of places we'd like to visit. Every place on it sounds lovely, and not one of them is an obvious yes. So we keep researching, and we keep not choosing.<...
From the Vault: Solo Travel Safety for Women Beyond the Rules
Safety can become a giant question, one that seems to require a single answer before we are allowed to book the trip. But that is not how it works when you are actually travelling. What matters is the judgment you build in the small moments: wh...
Why Alone Isn't Lonely When You Travel Solo After 40
People often ask me if I get lonely when I travel on my own, and it's a fair question. But after more than 40 solo trips, I realize that being alone and being lonely don't really have much to do with each other.I took myself to see The D...
How to Plan a Solo Trip You'll Actually Enjoy
We plan our trips around the famous sights, the must-do list, the things we'd feel a little silly skipping. And then we come home exhausted, having seen everything without focusing on enjoyment.What if the trip you'll actually enjoy is t...
Your Adult Gap Year Doesn't Have to be a Year
We keep telling ourselves we'll take the trip we actually want once we've finally figured everything out. What if you have that backwards? You will not think your way to your next chapter from inside the old one, and the clarity you keep waitin...
This is the 40+ Solo Travel Advantage
Solo travel as a 40-year-old looks different from solo travel at 25 in ways that have very little to do with the budget or the boutique hotel. By 40 you already know what you want clearly enough to design a trip around it, and the work at this ...
The Decisions That Build a Solo Traveler Aren't the Big Ones
The small decision on a Sunday morning, the park or the cafe or the hotel room, is building something that will help you for your solo trip.I took myself on an overnight trip to Olomouc in the Czech Republic, a city about three hours fro...
Searching vs. Meeting Yourself as a Solo Traveler
I'm sharing a conversation from Kellie Stirling's podcast Talkin About Midlife where I'm visiting as a guest rather than a solo host or inte...
From Giggling Through Cairo to Leading 30+ Solo Travel Retreats
Most women have a definition of solo travel in their head, and it's usually the thing keeping them from taking the trip they dream of. If solo means handling every unknown by yourself with no one to call on, of course you're not booking the...
Why Not? Stop Overthinking Solo Travel
Maybe you've been thinking about a trip for months, looking at flights, reading about the destination, knowing roughly what's there. And still not booking. Or you've already been on the trip and running a calculation the whole time: how do I ma...
.png)
You Never Feel Ready to Travel Alone Before You Take The Trip (and that's alright)
You probably have a condition before you'll book the trip, something that needs to be true first. But if you look back, a version of that condition has likely already been true. You met it, and then something else came up. The timing wasn't rig...
How Solo Travel Changes You
Each of us has a default response to unexpected moments, often without noticing it. I watched mine during a recent trip in Japan, paying attention to where I used to smile and keep moving versus where I'm now stopping, staying in the conversati...
What if I Don't Know Where to Travel Solo
Sometimes people tell me they don't know where to travel solo. I want to sit with that for a moment, because I think that when most people say it, they mean something closer to: I don't trust where I want to go. The destination is usually alrea...
Deciding to Speak Up When You Travel Solo
I can feel right away when something is slightly off and I have to decide, quickly, what I’m going to do with it.Do I say something.Or do I let it go.I think you know that moment, the one where you’re still in it, and you’r...
What It Means to Be Present When You Travel Solo
Most people think experiences speak for themselves. But something else is happening while you’re inside them.On this trip to Japan, I noticed three very different moments: a sand spa where I couldn’t control anything, a sushi dinner wher...
The Pink Door Moments That Make Solo Travel Worth It
People think meaningful travel comes from big moments, the kind you plan for, experience, and remember as highlights. But some of the days that stay with you the longest don’t look like much at all.In this episode, I share a day trip to...
It's Hard to Leave (even when you're ready to go)
Have you ever stayed somewhere longer than you wanted to… just in case?Just in case something important happens at the end. Just in case leaving early seems rude. Just in case you’re ... fill in the blank.On ...
.png)
The Hidden Pressures Women Over 40 Carry Into Solo Travel
When you travel alone, it’s easy to fall into the habit of accomplishment: the pressure to see more and make the most of every moment.But what if the real question isn’t where you should go next?In this episode of Freedom Look...
What Really Makes a Solo Trip "Worth It"
What actually makes a solo trip worth it?Is it how much you see? How early you wake up? The number of places you fit in? Your distance from home?In this episode of Freedom Looks Like This, Damianne reflects on the subtle ...
How Being Competent Makes Women Over 40 Invisible
Can competence make you invisible?If you’re a capable woman over 40, the one who organizes, anticipates, manages everything, you already know how to move through the world efficiently. You know how to make things work.But what if ...
The Story Women Over 40 Tell Themselves Before a Solo Trip (And Why It's Wrong)
There’s a moment that happens so quickly we almost never notice it.You want something. Something small. Something light. And before you can even finish the thought, it’s already over. A reason has appeared. A story has formed to hold you...
