The number one question I get about Women Adventure Tours and Wild Women Expeditions is, “How do you choose which adventures you offer?” (The second most common question is, “What new trips do you have coming up?”)
Let me explain.
Over the past 35 years of offering adventure tours with Wild Women Expeditions, we’ve aged well. Every year, we learn, we expand into new areas, and we push the edges of our comfort zone.
The truth is, the compass we had back in 1991, when Wild Women began in the wilderness of Northern Canada, still guides us today. At our core, we are about empowering women: the women who join our trips as clients, the women who lead our adventures as guides, and the women who host us in their homes and communities on our tours.
We are also deeply rooted in our love of the wild—connecting with the spirit of the land and waters and caring for the animals that share our ecosystem. We know that the urge to travel is in our bones, and we feel drawn to discover new frontiers in the world while exploring our inner landscape.
Here are the seven reasons we choose any new Wild Women Expeditions Adventure tour:
1. Benefits local women and women-owned businesses
In most countries in the world (I’m not looking at you, Iceland), women face enormous barriers to equality, and the tourism industry is not exempt. Women are too often excluded from tourism opportunities and don’t receive a fair share of the benefits. Most businesses are owned by men, and most high-paying jobs and executive leadership roles in travel remain male-dominated.
So when we consider offering a Wild Women tour in a new destination, we look for local women’s leadership and invest in women-owned and women-led businesses. We offer the only tour in Kenya that utilizes 100% women-owned accommodations. All of our lead tour guides are women in 30 countries around the world. In some places, this is radical.
In Peru, we pay more so we can employ women porters on our Inca Trail treks, which is a rarity in the booming Machu Picchu tourism sector. In Mongolia, we support local guide training to enable women to work as guides. In Morocco, we employed the first Moroccan woman mountain guide. The women who lead our trips are trailblazers, and we admire their boldness and determination to step up and take up space.
2. Contributes to conservation
Respecting and protecting wildlife on our adventures is at the heart of how we move through the world. When we bring women on our tour of Thailand, we partner with World Animal Protection to visit an ethical elephant camp where elephants are not forced into invasive or harmful activities such as riding. Our tours also support conservation programs, including the Galápagos Conservancy’s giant tortoise restoration project and Polar Bears International.
3. Responding to the call from our clients
We genuinely value your ideas and take your feedback seriously as we shape our trips each year. While we do have to draw a few boundaries (we once had a request for Florida golf vacations 😄), so much of what we create is directly inspired by what our community asks for and dreams about.
A couple of years ago, I received so many messages from women asking for tours in Vietnam that I travelled there and worked with amazing local guides to design our Vietnam Explorer and Vietnam Hiking Adventure. Last summer, I travelled to Iceland to design a new hiking tour and a new horse-riding tour with local partners because my inbox was overflowing with requests.
I also heard loud and clear from many Canadian women last year who lobbied me to offer more adventures in Canada. As a result, I added several small-ship expeditions in the Canadian Arctic, a new trip in Newfoundland (where I’m from!), and new sailing adventures in British Columbia (where I now live).
4. The X factor: when we are utterly inspired
Quite often, I decide to offer a new Wild Women adventure simply because I’ve travelled somewhere and been completely blown away. I’ve been to Egypt eight times, and it’s one of my favourite places in the world. The first time I entered the temple of the goddess-pharaoh Queen Hatshepsut, I knew I would someday return and bring a group of women to this sacred place. Our Ultimate Egypt tour was born.
5. Brings value to communities
A little-known fact about me is that I worked for many years at a humanitarian non-profit organization, travelling to developing countries in the Global South, including Cambodia. There, I worked on some of the most heartbreaking issues of poverty and violence against women.
When I considered offering a tour in Cambodia, I knew it had to give back to women in the country’s most vulnerable areas. In addition to touring the incredible site of Angkor Wat, our Wild Women Cambodia Explorer includes a river cruise to the floating villages of Tonle Sap Lake. There, we meet local women who weave hyacinth cleared from the lake into beautiful crafts. Women in these communities need tourism, too.
6. Gives our clients an incredible life experience
In 2022, we began offering small-ship expeditions in the Arctic and Antarctica to groups of wild women. Many women who had been traveling with us for years wanted to experience the North or South Poles, and a small-ship expedition cruise is the best way to get there.
Over the past few years, countless women have told us that traveling to the Arctic or the Seventh Continent was a lifelong dream, and they are deeply grateful to have made it come true with Wild Women. In 2027, we are bringing Wild Women to Antarctica on the first-ever all-women Antarctica expedition aboard the Sylvia Earle.
7. Bowing to the beauty of nature
We are devoted to honouring the natural world and are continually in awe of Mother Nature’s wonders. Our trips are designed to bring us into the temple of nature, where we are humbled by its majesty.
Whether it’s watching the sunrise over the Himalayas in Bhutan, playing with curious sea lions on a snorkeling trip in Baja, searching for the elusive white Spirit Bear in Canada’s Great Bear Rainforest, or trekking through the misty forests of Rwanda to meet a wild gorilla, our journeys immerse us in a vitality that is deeply replenishing.
From the burst of colourful wildflowers in alpine meadows on hikes in Switzerland, to the orange glow of the dunes in Morocco’s Sahara, to the colony of king penguins on South Georgia Island standing in perfect harmony with the icy landscapes of Antarctica—this is the wild world we invite you to explore on our Wild Women adventures.
So now, to the second most common question we get at Wild Women Expeditions…
In 2027, we have many new adventures on offer, including a fresh collection of small-ship expeditions in the Canadian Arctic, Greenland, and Europe. We’re launching new safari adventures in Eastern Africa and a new trekking journey in the Annapurnas of Nepal. Our team is already developing ideas for 2028, and as I write this, I’m in Thailand scouting potential new tours.
I would love to hear what inspires you, and we’ll do our very best to help make your adventure dreams come true, too.
