Amanda here 👋, founder of this group and our Meetup Tours to 15+ countries around the world. Today, we specialize in tours to countries often considered less safe or challenging for solo female travelers—think Egypt, India, Morocco, Mongolia, and more. But go back 6 and a half years to our first-ever trip, and you might wonder why I chose Bali—a safe, easy destination—as our debut tour.
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💌 P.S. We still offer Bali today (but it’s even better now)!
Behind the Scenes of My First Ever Tour with The Solo Female Traveler Network
Why Bali?
Self doubt and good friends
A few years after my mom passed, I was still grieving. She had been my biggest cheerleader and best friend, and I felt deeply lost without her.
When the idea to run a tour came to me, I called a friend who was also a successful business owner. We sat in a little booth at a budget outlet mall, and she gave me the pep talk of a lifetime. I’ll always be grateful for her patience, passion, and support that day. As women, we rarely hear a heartfelt “YES, YOU CAN DO THIS!” from the world. So, we have to be that voice for each other—because, girl, we can do whatever we set our minds to.
Time to get to work
To create a website, I needed some branding. Our “logo” isn’t just a design—it’s a symbol of our community of women, with deep meaning.
The triangle with a line through it represents both the Earth and women. I added a compass on top for travel and transformed the line into an arrow to symbolize our forward journey. I love it so much, it’s tattooed on my wrist—but that’s a story for later.
When I started SoFe, I was a broke backpacker working below minimum wage at a pizza place in Melbourne. We were built on passion, grit, and a little luck—not investors or funding. I remember sitting in my ex-boyfriend’s friend’s filthy bachelor pad, surrounded by piles of dusty video games, agonizing over the website design. I changed the WIX background to baby blue, thinking it looked good! The website was ugly, but it was done, and I was ready to launch the Bali trip I had nervously planned.
From Zero to Oversold
I published the webpage for our first tour, and the response was overwhelming—it sold out fast! I wasn’t fully prepared for the rush, and I ended up accidentally overselling the trip. In the end, it worked out better than I could have imagined. I booked larger villas in Bali to accommodate everyone, and the experience turned out to be even more magical than I anticipated.
We stayed in two stunning villas, one in Canggu and one in Ubud. I included all meals for the group, which, in hindsight, was a bit too much. It made travelers feel like they needed to stick with the group to eat, limiting the solo time that many craved. After all, these tours are meant for solo female travelers, and I wanted everyone to have space to enjoy their independence.
We had 17 amazing women join us on that first trip, and even though we’ve done many tours since, it remains one of the most special ones to date.
Hiring the Team in Bali
One of the biggest lessons I learned on that first trip? Not hiring help to put together the team. It’s a lesson I take with me to every destination now and think about often. I didn’t account for cultural nuances and, honestly, I had no way of predicting the problems that would pop up.
I ended up hiring our team myself— a cook, a driver, a day tour guide, and an operations assistant. But I had no idea that the Balinese assistant and the Javanese driver wouldn’t get along due to long-standing cultural differences. The driver wouldn’t listen to my assistant, which led to extra work and some operational hiccups. The travelers were thankfully unaware. In the end, as long as the travelers are happy, I am happy, but this was a serious challenge behind the scenes!
Then there was the cook, who was Muslim, and the guide, who was Hindu—another culture clash I hadn’t seen coming. We had a bit of a rocky start, but I quickly learned how to resolve things. Thankfully, the one thing my team had in common was a respect for authority, and after stepping up with some strong leadership, things fell into place.
What a wild ride! Now, I always hire a local operations person who has amazing connections in their home country. This ensures the team clicks and trusts each other before the tour even begins. These days, our teams are rock-solid, and it’s one of my favorite parts of running this business—the incredible people I get to work with all over the world.
A total success!
Running our very first tour to Bali was hands down the most challenging thing I’ve ever done in my career. But it was also one of the most successful tours I’ve ever led. 9 of the 17 women on that trip ended up getting the logo tattooed, because they truly felt the community, freedom, adventure, and joy that I always envisioned The Solo Female Traveler Network to embody. I’m so proud of that first tour, and I’m deeply grateful to everyone who helped make it a success.Â
What started as a dream to create something meaningful has become a community of bold, adventurous women who share in the joy of exploring the world on their own terms. This isn’t just about the places we visit—it’s about the connections we make, the courage we find within ourselves, and the memories we create together.
While there were some bumps in the road on our first tour, we have been running trips for 7 years, have established and incredible teams, and have perfected our itineraries to include local known places and experiences with our friends and colleagues you probably wouldn’t find on your own. You don’t have take my word for it though, read what our traveler’s say.Â
