Emily Luxton on Empowering Women to Travel Solo

“Travel Stars” is an interview series created to get to know people in the travel industry who are making a difference; writers/influencers, producers, and travel executives.

This week we had the joy of interviewing Emily Luxton.

Emily is a full-time UK travel blogger focused on solo female travel, fun, and adventure! She has visited visiting over 50 countries. Emily uses her blog to tell her amazing adventures along the way and helps travelers to plan their own adventures. She has won several awards for blogging and has also been published numerous times as a freelance writer. She also worked as a contributing author on two published books!

Tell us a little bit about yourself – where are you from? Where did you grow up? Etc.

Hi! I’m Emily, a travel writer from Dorset in the southwest of England. I grew up in Weymouth on the Jurassic Coast, where cliff walks, sea swims, and countryside hikes instilled a love of adventure in me from an early age! After years of traveling the world and trying out parts of England to live in (from London to Guernsey), I finally realized that my heart belongs to Dorset and moved back… although I still travel as often as I can.

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Can you remember what first got you interested in the world of travel? and why?

When I was a kid, I read a lot and daydreamed about adventure. As part of a school project about travel writing, I read Kira Salak’s The Cruellest Journey, about her adventure kayaking the Niger Riger solo. That was when I first realized adventure could exist in real life – and from that moment on, I wanted to be a travel writer too!

In the next year, If you could only visit one place for one week, where would it be?
It’s SO hard to choose just one, but it would have to be somewhere in Latin America. Mexico is one of my favorites, but I’ve just got back from spending a month there, so maybe I’d choose to revisit Colombia.

What are some of the top places you enjoyed visiting the most? Why?

As mentioned above, Latin America is one of my favorite parts of the world. The culture, food, landscapes, nature, people… everything. I’ve never been anywhere else that felt quite so adventurous – especially Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia. And then there’s the wildlife of Costa Rica, the volcanoes in Nicaragua, and the cuisine in Mexico. So many different and wonderful places in that part of the world.

Can you share a funny story that happened to you while traveling?

Once, when I was swimming at a beach in Brazil, I turned around to see two horses trotting along the shore. One had a rider – and a dog was riding the other one! Sitting carefully in the saddle, following his owner on the other horse. I think that might be the only time I’ve done a genuine double-take!

What was one of your more popular posts in the last year? And why do you think it caught on?

This post went viral on Instagram last year – I think because I look like such an idiot!

Where are you planning to travel next? and why?

In the next couple of months, I’m really hoping to visit Jordan. I’ve never been and have always wanted to go to Petra! I also have a trip lined up to Texas – I’m heading there for a travel conference in May, but I am hoping to combine that with a mini road trip.

What are you doing now (or about to do) that you are excited about? Do you have any new projects?

I just got back from spending a month traveling around Mexico, and now I’m really excited to start working through all the content from that trip and putting out some new blog posts.

Is there a place you visited where you felt unsafe as a woman? Why?

The only place is India. I never felt exactly unsafe there, but I did feel very overwhelmed, and I definitely got the sense that my experience was very different to traveling as a man. On the whole, though, it was the same as anywhere else: as long as you’re careful and use common sense, you can generally stay safe. There are always a few bad people in any destination, but on the whole, most people are good and kind.

You say on your blog that you focused on helping solo female travelers to plan their own adventures. How did you come up with this idea?

Simply because I’m a solo traveler, really! When my boyfriend broke up with me several years ago, I did that cliche thing of going traveling solo in Asia for three months… and then never really stopped traveling solo. But traveling as a woman can be a very different experience from traveling as a man. It can be harder for women, especially in countries where the culture is still more patriarchal. But it’s also so empowering and can really make you a stronger, better version of yourself. I want to help other women try it for themselves and discover just how incredible a solo adventure can be!

Is there any advice you can give to women starting traveling?

Go for it! Perhaps start small, with a weekend away on your own to test the water. Stay in a hostel or join lots of group tours, so you have a chance to meet other travelers and make some connections. You could even join a multi-day group tour, like the ones that G Adventures or Intrepid Travel offer, for example. They’ll organize everything for you, which takes a lot of the stress out of the trip, and there will be other people on the trip with you, so it’s easier to make friends and find people to hang out with.

I always like to remind people that you can always come home if you hate it. If you go and regret it for whatever reason, you can reverse that quite easily. But if you don’t go, you can never undo that – and you may regret it a lot later.

How do you finance your trips around the world?
Through travel blogging. This is my full-time job – I make money through banner adverts on my website and through freelance writing. I’m also a guidebook writer for Lonely Planet. Most of the time, I pay for my own trips – using the money I make through blogging. Sometimes, I also make press trips, where a tourist board or travel company will host me so that I can create content for them to showcase the destination. It’s almost like a free trip, which is a huge perk of my job as a travel blogger – but those trips are also a lot of work. I’ll generally do/see a lot more in a lot less time than a tourist would, and have to take photos, videos, make notes, and create social media and blog posts about everything I do. It’s still a lot more fun than my old job in customer service, and since I love what I do, it never feels like too much work!

Thanks for joining us on this interview and for sharing your knowledge on solo female travel with our readers, Emily! 

If you want to know more about Emily, here is where you can find him:
Emily Luxton Blog
Emily’s Instagram