Top destinations for women only holidays

The best women only holidays give you a pass into places off limits to mixed gender groups. It’s not just about the places – although Mongolia and Jordan aren’t exactly repulsive backdrops – but the people, who will welcome you into their cooking schools, farms and homes. Read on to discover our top destinations for women only holidays.

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Top destinations for women only holidays

Women only holidays tend to fall into one of two categories: cultural or wellness. If you’re signing up for a cultural holiday to Iran, Morocco or Jordan, you’ll join a small group and follow in the footsteps of women who live in these countries. Women only holidays to Mongolia are usually tailor made to your (and your Mongolian hosts’) preferences. Wellness holidays are also small group trips. Although you’ll get free time to roam, these tours are more about exploring yourself than the landscape. All in all, these holidays are for fans of immersive travel, so leave aside one or two weeks.

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Our Women only Holidays

1. Atlas Mountains, Morocco
2. Iran
3. Jordan
4. Marrakech, Morocco
5. Mongolia
6. Portugal

Atlas Mountains, Morocco

1. Atlas Mountains, Morocco

Life slows right down in the Moroccan Atlas Mountains, ancestral home of the Berber villagers. Women often outnumber the men here, who go away to work in the cities. Life goes on in the villages, though, where women cut grass, grind wheat, collect water and look after the young and elderly as a community – usually to a soundtrack of song and dance.

Atlas Mountains, Morocco

Iran

2. Iran

Iran isn’t what you think it is – as a women only holiday will show you. Chat to the glamorous entrepreneurs in the beauty parlours of Shiraz. Learn how to tie a headscarf in Tehran, where female designers are filling shop windows with outfits straight off Fifth Avenue. And spend the night in a Fars village, with Turkish pastoral nomads who’ll show you the ways of land.

Jordan

3. Jordan

Fancy finding out what life’s really like for women in Jordan? Join a tour that’ll whisk you around the cooking schools, women’s co-ops, Dead Sea beach resorts and Bedouin campfires – areas where women would have to cover up around men. Of course, no trip to Jordan is complete without heading to Petra, where columned temples and tombs are carved out of pink sandstone.

Jordan

Marrakech, Morocco

4. Marrakech, Morocco

Hospitality is everything in Morocco – especially when you travel with barrier-breaking all-woman group. Women’s weaving cooperatives show you how storytelling and rug-making are inseparable. And you can learn how to make couscous with the real experts at a cooking class. This is all set against the nonstop stage that is the fabled trading city of Marrakech.

Mongolia

5. Mongolia

A women only holiday to Mongolia is a real myth-buster. You’ve probably heard about the eagle hunters, and you’ll meet them. But what about the linguists, felt-makers and teachers in the frontier city of Ulaanbaatar? And the female herders who are charged with keeping the animals? For once, the snow-dunked mountains and glacier lakes take second billing to the cast of characters you’ll meet.

Mongolia

Portugal

6. Portugal

Looking for total peace? The Portuguese countryside is your place – and the ideal setting for women’s wellness holidays. Retreats here are all about empowerment through learning, so you’ll get the lowdown on how your menstrual cycle affects everything from your body temperature to your mental health. It’s almost like going back to school; just swap biology with botanical medicine and gym class for yoga.

Travel Team

If you'd like to chat about Women only or need help finding a holiday to suit you we're very happy to help.

01273 823 700

Calling us from outside the UK?

rosy@responsibletravel.com

01273 823 700

Calling us from outside the UK?

rosy@responsibletravel.com

Women only holidays advice

Jenny Gray from our supplier, and women only holidays pioneer, Intrepid Travel, tells us why she recommends women only holidays.

Behind the scenes

“Going to the local salon with some of the female tour leaders in Iran was hands down one of my favourite travel experiences ever. It’s off limits to men, so headscarves and coats can be removed, music is blaring, and the conversation is lively. It makes you realise how very off compass your original perception of Iranian women is.”

Rave reviews

“Traveller feedback has been phenomenal. They say they experienced the women of Jordan in a very personal way that wouldn’t be possible otherwise, and loved every minute of it.”

Times are a-changing

“This message of female empowerment is spreading like wildfire. More and more people, businesses and figureheads are taking a stand for gender equality. There’s a long way to go but there is encouraging progress.”