8 Ways That Travel Empowers Women

In this post, I collaborate with seven women to share some of the ways travel is empowering.

Travel is the confidence-boosting, perspective-shaping school of life. It is always teaching, and I am a willing student. Its power to soothe the soul, sparkle the heart and transform us through our experiences with people and places is life-changing.

Being someone who speaks often about the ways travel helps me confront fears while expanding my worldview, I’m here for all ways the journey can be particularly liberating for women. As such, I asked seven women I admire to share their thoughts on one question: “In what one way has travel empowered you?” Their answers provide lots of finger-snapping, yes-lawd, ain’t-that-a-word, head-nodding inspiration spanning self-acceptance, economic opportunities, breaking boundaries and cross-cultural learning. Here’s what Wanda, Abena, Ursula, Hauwa, Eulanda, Tayo and Edem had to say:

Wanda, Host, Black Women Travel Podcast | IG: @Bwtpod

Travel has given me the gift of myself. I’ve traveled to different parts of America, and while they were dope experiences, traveling abroad helped me to experience myself anew. I feel like I grew wings and could be more myself. Like I could stretch and grow taller and make an impact through my lived experiences.

Abena, Gen Z Travel Content Creator | IG: @Travellingtuesdays

Travel has helped me to do what I was told would be impossible. It’s revealed the artificial boundaries laid down by society for what they are. You can’t solo travel – it’s not safe. You can’t solo travel and go out in the evening especially. You can’t solo travel and be a woman – surely not?! You can’t solo travel and go to romantic destinations; you have to wait until you have a partner to do that. You can’t solo travel and have fun.

The truth is you can solo travel and do all these things – I have. I just need to be more diligent and street smart when it comes to my personal safety. And my future boyfriend just needs to be a bit more creative? I mean, come on – he has 195 whole countries to choose from. Ultimately, other people’s fears need not be reflected onto me as fact. I’ve learnt that now and I’m better for it.

You can find Abena as @travellingtuesdays on both IG and Tiktok sharing her budget and solo travel tips with other Gen Z’ers.

Ursula, Founder & Digital Content Creator, Caribbean & Co. | IG: @Caribbeanandco

Absence makes the heart grow fonder, and such is the case for international travel, which I have not done in the last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Being stuck at home has provided the opportunity for reflection and recognition that travel has been at the centre of some of my most memorable lifetime experiences, including visits to some of the best museums in Europe (British Museum in London, Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, Louvre Museum in Paris, etc.) and cultural festivals in the Caribbean (Antigua Carnival, Jounen Kweyol Saint Lucia, St Patrick’s Festival Montserrat, etc.).

The diverse experiences have helped me become more knowledgeable about people, cultures and cuisines across the globe. This awareness has helped me become more compassionate, looking beyond my own adversity, and become more appreciative of my life journey, which has not always been easy. Plus, it has allowed me to expand my personal/professional network and empowered me to pursue a career in travel and tourism. Tomorrow isn’t promised, so it is essential to do what we love (for me, content creation and digital marketing) within an industry that brings me joy daily and positively impacts local communities instead of just pursuing materialistic wealth.

Hauwa, Travel Content Creator & Service Provider, Shesuthman | IG: Shesuthman

Difficult doesn’t quite describe how hard it is to condense all of the ways travel has enriched my experience of life as a woman, into a single point and piece. I would say that the thing about travel is that it leaves its imprints on pretty much every facet of a woman’s life – some more overtly than others. However, if I had to name a single one of these imprints, it’d be about how travel(ing) brought home the understanding of the vastness of the world and the human experience to me.

I say often that my very first solo travel experience (which doubles as the most significant to me in my adult life) happened at a time where I was at my lowest, and needed – more badly than ever – to connect with, and understand my relative significant yet insignificance in the larger world. And that’s what I have found to be the most empowering thing about travel. The more that I have attempted to venture out of the familiar, to learn about all of the ways there could be to live, to love, to commune, to understand and to find my purpose in the world, the more I have come to terms with all the more other ways to do life. And that has been the most powerful, enriching experience of all. An unending cycle of learning and re-learning.

Eulanda, Co-founder & Creative Curator, Hey! Dip Your Toes In | IG: Dipyourtoesin

I declared my first travel goal at the age of nine. Upon losing my first tooth and slipping it under my pillow in the hopes of gaining a USD or two from the ‘tooth fairy’, my small hands withdrew several Yen from Japan that my parents (I later found out) had placed there with the intentions to encourage my interest in cultures around the world. Subsequently, every lost tooth that followed would result in me growing my collection of global currency. I promised myself that I would visit each country represented in my bag of coins. I was able to pursue that goal ten years later. It was then that I realised how travel could provide me the opportunity to make my childhood dreams a reality, whilst using it as a vehicle for economic empowerment.

Tayo, Adventure Blogger, The Five to Nine Traveller | IG: The5to9traveller

Ecclesiastes 3:1 – For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven.

Travel has taught me about timing; that your timing is exactly your timing. It had been a dream of mine to go travelling around South America. Yet, it was something I thought I couldn’t afford to do, both in terms of time and money, but it wasn’t necessarily true. I always had excuses: “Oh, it’s what others do”, “how will it affect my career if I take such a break,” “I should be saving for <insert societal milestone>” or “I should be thinking of settling down” (don’t you just hate that phrase?)

I was tired of my excuses and realised it was a now-or-never affair, and so I packed my bag and spent a glorious four months slow travelling. On that trip at the beginning, as I encountered many people younger than me, I lamented why I had not done this sooner.

There are moments on your travels that you will smile to yourself, enjoying it in its fullness. People you meet that you have those beautiful connections with and learn from. Sights you see as a flock of macaws in their splendid colours fly across the golden lit sky. These are moments that cannot be replicated any other time, and so I’ve let go of any lamentations of doing XYZ sooner or according to a manufactured timeline. I now know that those moments all came together perfectly for me.

Edem, Reinvention Coach & Host, Vamejo Travel Podcast | IG: @Edemadzaho

Travel has empowered me with confidence to explore and silence the voices I heard growing up that said “don’t”, “be careful.” The voices of fear. The confidence to try and string together my broken French so I can connect with amazing locals and sometimes difficult border officials on a road trip from Accra to Senegal. The confidence to smile and not freak out because an ATM in Maputo won’t give me the money I asked for, but knowing everything will be okay because, confidence comes with preparation to have dollars just in case.

How else would I have seen the mighty Lake Victoria at 6am if I wasn’t confident to speak to someone who took me on his motorbike to see it before my flight at 8am in Entebbe? Same with seeing Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe and Dune 7 in Namibia.

Confidence made me offer Ghanaian chocolates to the family I had just met when our train broke down as we left Amsterdam to Brussels. Six years later, I have stayed in their home in Oslo twice. I walk through Oslo airport as a person of colour with all the confidence like I walk at home in Ghana and Iceland.

The confidence I developed through travel is what opened career opportunities in Kenya, Botswana, Mauritius, South Africa, and many parts of Asia and Europe. To be able to travel is a gift, a blessing and a privilege. I am grateful for the confidence travel gave me to silence the “can’t.”

In what one way has travel empowered you?