Marketing to solo travelers: the fastest-growing outdoor segment
Solo travelers are the fastest-growing segment in outdoor recreation, and most outfitters are completely ignoring them. Online searches for “solo travel” surged 72.6% in a single year, bookings from solo travelers jumped 42% over the last two years, and the global solo travel market is on track to triple in size by 2033. Meanwhile, the average outfitter website shows a group photo on the homepage and writes all its trip descriptions for “you and your friends.”
That’s a gap you can fill.
Marketing to solo travelers in outdoor recreation isn’t about building a separate website or creating entirely new trips. It’s about changing a handful of signals in your existing marketing - signals that tell this segment “you’re welcome here” - and then addressing the specific concerns that stop solo travelers from booking.
Who books solo outdoor trips
The typical solo outdoor traveler doesn’t match the stereotype of a backpacker with a death wish. Women make up 84% of solo travelers overall. Millennials and Gen Z lead the trend, but 86% of solo travelers are over 35. These are adults with disposable income and strong preferences - not a fringe segment.
Adventure travel is the single most popular category among solo travelers. Thirty percent prefer adventure experiences, beating out urban sightseeing (23%) and beach vacations. And 88% want to explore places that feel off the beaten path. That profile maps almost perfectly onto what outdoor recreation businesses offer.
What drives someone to book a guided outdoor trip solo isn’t recklessness - it’s the opposite. Solo travelers pick guided experiences precisely because they want safety, local knowledge, and connection without the complexity of coordinating a group. They’re not asking “will this be safe?” They’re asking “will I feel welcome, and will I meet people like me?”
The single biggest barrier: the single supplement
Here’s where most outfitters fumble. Solo travelers pay roughly 47% more than couples on comparable trips when single supplements apply. Hotels and cruise lines have normalized this penalty for decades. Many outdoor operators have quietly adopted the same model.
The problem isn’t charging a single supplement - it’s how operators communicate it. A traveler who discovers a 40% surcharge buried in checkout has already spent an hour reading your trip page. That’s a trust breach at the worst possible moment.
Wilderness Travel built a significant portion of their business around getting this right. They publish solo-friendly departure dates with reduced or waived single supplements. They put it in the trip description, not the fine print. Over a quarter of their entire client base is now solo travelers. More than half of their Camino de Santiago departures include at least one solo traveler.
You don’t need to eliminate solo supplements to compete here. You need to be transparent about them and, where possible, offer some departures where solos travel at the standard per-person rate. Even one “no single supplement” departure per season signals to this audience that you take them seriously.
Write trip descriptions that speak to solo travelers
Most trip pages are written for “you and your group” without ever saying it explicitly. The language assumes a plural audience: “gather your friends,” “this is a great trip for couples,” “you’ll share a cabin with your group.” None of that is hostile to solo travelers, but none of it is welcoming either.
A few targeted additions change that dynamic entirely.
Add a sentence in the trip description about what the group dynamic looks like. “Most of our May departures have 8-12 guests, a mix of first-timers and returning paddlers.” That answers the solo traveler’s real question: will I be the only person there without a friend?
Include a testimonial from a solo guest. Not a generic five-star review - a specific quote that names the solo experience. “I came alone and left with people I still float with every year” is more persuasive than any marketing copy you can write.
REI Adventures explicitly labeled select departures as “solo-friendly” and saw measurable lift in bookings from that segment. It costs nothing to add that label. It signals without requiring a separate page or dedicated campaign.
Build content around what solo travelers actually search
Solo travelers research differently than group travelers. They’re more careful, more self-reliant, and more likely to search specific questions before booking. They’re reading reviews looking for mentions of other solo guests. They’re asking: “Is this safe for someone going alone?” “Will I be welcomed?” “What’s the group like?”
Your content strategy should answer those questions before they become booking hesitations.
A “frequently asked questions about solo travel” section on your trip pages or a standalone blog post about what solo travel looks like on your specific trips performs well in search and builds trust simultaneously. Search terms like “solo [activity] [location]” - “solo kayaking Boundary Waters,” “solo guided rafting Colorado” - have meaningful volume and almost no competition from operators who’ve bothered to write about it.
Trip reports written from the first-person perspective of a solo guest are another underused format. If you write about trips at all, ask a past solo customer to contribute a short piece. It ranks, it converts, and it costs you almost nothing. Content that books trips, not just gets clicks is built around exactly that kind of specificity.
Price your trips so solos don’t feel punished
The single supplement conversation starts earlier than most operators think. Solos often check pricing before reading the full trip description. If they see a per-person rate that assumes double occupancy, they do the math and close the tab.
A few structural adjustments can reduce that dropout. If your trip pricing is built around shared accommodations, list it as “from $X per person, based on double occupancy” and immediately link to your solo supplement policy. That way the information is available before the frustration builds. Outfitters on the Boundary Waters routinely charge $ 950-$1,100 for a five-day guided canoe trip per person in a shared canoe. Solo paddlers in their own canoe are sometimes charged an extra $75-$150 - modest relative to the total, and far more acceptable when it’s disclosed upfront.
Some operators have moved to flat per-person pricing with no supplement. This works well on trips where the per-person cost is high enough that room occupancy is a small variable. It’s less feasible for lodge-based trips where accommodation is the primary cost driver. Know your margin structure before committing, but even publishing a clear supplement amount - rather than “contact us for solo pricing” - converts better than ambiguity.
Email segmentation for solo guests
Once someone books as a solo traveler, you have a signal worth using. They told you something about themselves: they’re self-directed, they’re likely to return, and they’re probably talking to friends who might want to come solo too.
Segmenting your email list to identify solo bookers lets you send them content that’s actually relevant. Pre-trip emails that mention “you might be the only solo on this trip, or you might meet five others - either way, here’s what to expect” are far more reassuring than a generic itinerary. Post-trip emails that specifically ask about the solo experience, and invite them to share it with friends considering solo travel, tap into exactly how this segment makes decisions.
We’ve written about segmenting your email list by traveler type - solo vs. group is one of the most valuable splits you can make, because the pre-trip anxiety and post-trip satisfaction arc looks completely different for these two audiences.
How social proof works differently for solo travelers
Group travelers read reviews to confirm the trip is good. Solo travelers read reviews to confirm they won’t be the odd one out.
That’s a meaningful distinction, and it changes how you should collect and display social proof. When you ask guests for reviews, prompt solo travelers specifically. Something like: “If you traveled with us solo, we’d love to know what that experience was like.” Then display those reviews prominently on your trip pages and in your Google Business Profile - not just the star rating, but the text that mentions the solo experience.
Photos are the other lever. Your photo gallery shouldn’t be exclusively couples and groups. A single person mid-rapid, standing at a trailhead with a pack, or laughing with a guide - those images do work for solo travelers that group photos cannot. Social proof that converts depends on your potential guests seeing themselves in your existing guests.
Turn solo travelers into repeat guests and referrers
Solo travelers return at higher rates than group travelers, and for an obvious reason: they don’t have to coordinate with anyone. They decide to come back, they book, they come. There’s no group consensus required.
This makes them disproportionately valuable to your long-term business. A group of six that books once and never returns is worth less, lifetime, than a solo traveler who books every other year and eventually convinces two friends to come along.
The outfitters who’ve figured this out - Wilderness Travel, NOLS, and several smaller guiding companies - treat their solo alumni like an informal community. Post-trip touchpoints that acknowledge the shared experience of solo travel, referral incentives designed specifically for introducing a “first solo” to friends, and loyalty recognition for returning solos all compound over time.
Start with the simplest version: flag solo travelers in your CRM or booking system, and make sure your post-trip email sequence acknowledges what they actually did. “You came alone and did something hard” lands differently than “thanks for joining us.”
If you sell outdoor experiences and haven’t audited your trip pages for solo-traveler signals, do that this week. Read each page as someone planning to book alone, and ask whether you’ve answered the question they’re actually asking. Most pages haven’t. Fixing that doesn’t require a new campaign - it requires about two sentences per trip page and a willingness to be specific about who’s welcome.
