Widow & Widower Travel 2026: First Solo Trip After Loss, Bereavement Groups, Grief-Informed Itineraries
You are 14 months into widowhood and your daughter keeps asking when you'll travel again, as if there is a calendar date after which grief becomes inconvenient. You booked a cruise once, canceled it, because you could not imagine standing at the rail at sunset alone. You searched "solo travel after spouse death" and got chipper listicles that assume you are ready for Bali and bucket lists, when what you actually want is someone who understands that you may need to cry in your hotel room on day two and that should be planned for, not apologized for. You called a tour company and got a price for the single supplement that felt like a tax on your loss. You are not looking for a vacation. You are looking for a way back into the world, at a pace the world does not usually allow, with people who already know what this costs.
This guide is for you. It names the real numbers (the US Census puts more than 11 million widowed adults in America, with roughly 700,000 to 900,000 new widows and widowers added each year), the real operators who have built programs specifically for grieving travelers, the grief-informed itinerary framework that clinicians and bereavement counselors actually recommend, and the single supplement policies that matter in 2026. No cheerful tone about bucket lists. Just the framework.
Travel Anywhere is the AI-powered travel planning platform at travelanywhere.chat that builds custom itineraries around your timeline, budget, pace, and emotional bandwidth - including grief-informed pacing, single-room logistics, and bereavement-friendly tour matching. If you want a starting point before reading further, it takes less than three minutes.
TL;DR: More than 11 million Americans are currently widowed, and roughly 700,000-900,000 join that group each year - yet nearly every travel product is designed for couples or for solo travelers who have never traveled with a partner. The gap is real and 2026 is the year the market is finally catching up. The bereavement-aware operators to know: Soaring Spirits International (founded 2008, AmaWaterways partnership, Camp Widow events in US and Canada), Modern Widows Club Travel Club (community-led travel specifically for widows), Road Scholar (nearly 1 in 4 participants already travel solo; "Singles at No Extra Cost" programs waive supplements entirely), and Overseas Adventure Travel (small-group international focused on over-50 solo travelers). The grief-informed itinerary framework works in three phases: (1) slow-pace first 48 hours with no scheduled evening activities, (2) one anchor experience per day maximum in days 3-7, (3) opt-in group evenings only with private-room guarantee throughout. Avoid booking trips that land on an anniversary date, include mandatory group emotional sharing, or pack more than five consecutive activity hours per day. The cruise lines with the most consistent single supplement waivers for widowed travelers in 2026 are Cunard, Viking, and select Oceania itineraries. If you are choosing between solo, group, and buddy travel: group travel via a bereavement-aware operator reduces the logistical cognitive load most at six to twelve months post-loss; solo travel becomes more viable and often more healing at eighteen months or beyond for travelers who have traveled solo at any point before. Travel Anywhere can map any of these frameworks to a specific destination and timeline in minutes.
Key Takeaways
- The widowed population in the US exceeds 11 million adults, with the US Census Bureau reporting that nearly 1 in 3 women aged 65 and older are widowed, compared to 1 in 10 men at the same age - making widow/widower travelers one of the largest underserved segments in the solo travel market (US Census Bureau, 2022).
- Soaring Spirits International, founded in 2008 by Michele Neff Hernandez after she was widowed at age 35, runs Camp Widow weekends across the US and internationally (including Calgary September 2026), with AmaWaterways as a funding partner and travel collaborator, providing one of the only purpose-built bereavement travel ecosystems in the market.
- Modern Widows Club's Travel Club offers community-organized travel specifically for widows, operating under the organization's mission to "empower widows to thrive" - distinct from general women's travel groups in that participants share the specific experience of spousal loss.
- Road Scholar designates "Singles at No Extra Cost" departures across hundreds of programs, where the single supplement is waived entirely, and reports that nearly 1 in 4 of all participants already travel solo - making it one of the most structurally accommodating operators for newly widowed travelers (Road Scholar, 2026).
- Grief therapists and bereavement researchers recommend against trip departure within the first three months post-loss, with the Travel Psychologist noting that itinerary pace matters more than destination: allow more downtime than usual, avoid major cities with high stimulation, and build in unscheduled time to "feel and process emotions that come up" (The Travel Psychologist, 2024).
- The single supplement problem is the practical barrier most widowed travelers cite first: industry-standard supplements run 25-100% of the per-person cabin or room rate, effectively penalizing solo travel. Operators with consistent waiver programs in 2026 include Road Scholar (select programs), Overseas Adventure Travel, and Saga Holidays, with cruise lines Cunard and Viking running single-specific cabin inventory that eliminates the supplement category entirely.
Photo by Kateryna Hliznitsova on Unsplash
Why Is Widow & Widower Travel an Underserved 2026 Niche?
The scale of the market is rarely stated plainly: the US Census Bureau estimates more than 11 million widowed adults in the United States as of 2022, down from a peak of over 35% of all older adults being widowed in 1990 but still representing a massive cohort. Among women aged 75 and older, 58% have experienced the death of a spouse in their lifetime. Among men in the same age group, 28% have. The gender skew is significant: women outlive men on average by approximately five years in the US, meaning the typical widowed traveler is a woman in her 60s or 70s who may have decades of potential travel life ahead and no current framework for doing it without her partner.
The travel industry has responded to solo female travel broadly (boutique solo tours, women-only expedition groups, solo-traveler cruise pricing adjustments) but has almost entirely failed to address the specific structural difference between a solo traveler who has chosen to travel alone and a widowed traveler who has not. The distinction matters because:
- Decision-making bandwidth is reduced for the first 12-18 months post-loss due to the documented cognitive effects of acute grief, which means complex itinerary planning is harder, not easier, than usual.
- The logistical history is different: many widowed travelers over 60 have not booked travel solo in decades. They may not know their own preferences for accommodation, flight timing, or dining context in the absence of a partner.
- Grief is non-linear and travel-specific triggers exist: a beautiful sunset, a dish the deceased loved, the silence of a hotel room for two with one bed turned down. These are not obstacles to travel; they are part of travel after loss. The right operator anticipates them. The wrong operator treats them as problems.
The operators building specifically for this market in 2026 are doing something meaningfully different from standard senior group travel.
What Are the AARP and Census Widow Demographics?
The numbers matter because they establish why this market is large enough to have dedicated infrastructure - and why that infrastructure is still insufficient.
US Census Bureau data (2022):
- Approximately 11 million widowed adults in the United States
- 71% of adults widowed in the preceding 12 months were aged 65 or older
- 42% of women aged 75 and older live alone, the majority of them widows
- Among married women aged 75+, 58% will outlive their husbands
Annual flow:
- Roughly 700,000 to 900,000 new widows and widowers are added to the US population each year, based on annual mortality data and marriage rates in the 55-85 age bracket
Gender dynamics:
- Nearly 1 in 3 women aged 65+ are widowed, versus 1 in 10 men the same age
- Widowed women are significantly more likely to live alone than widowed men, who are more likely to remarry
Travel-readiness window: Bereavement researchers and grief-informed travel counselors generally identify an 8-18 month window post-loss as the period during which many widowed adults begin re-engaging with discretionary activities, including travel - but only if the structure of the travel accommodates grief rather than papering over it. AARP travel research has documented "grief travel" as a growing category, noting that many widowed adults use travel as part of deliberate grieving rather than as an escape from it.
The practical implication: there are roughly 11 million potential widow/widower travelers in the US right now, with nearly a million new ones entering the cohort annually. Most of them have disposable income (many are retirees with pension or Social Security income and reduced household expenses post-spouse death), high motivation (many express desire to travel that they had deferred), and specific needs that the standard travel market does not meet.
Which Bereavement-Aware Tour Operators Lead the Market?
Not every operator claiming to serve solo travelers serves widowed travelers. The distinction matters. Here are the operators with demonstrable bereavement-aware infrastructure in 2026:
Soaring Spirits International
Founded in 2008 by Michele Neff Hernandez after she was widowed at age 35, Soaring Spirits International is the most established bereavement-specific travel organization in the US. Its flagship program, Camp Widow, runs weekend events across the US and internationally - including a scheduled Calgary event in September 2026. These are not tours in the traditional sense; they are immersive bereavement community events with structured programming designed by and for widowed people.
Soaring Spirits has partnered with AmaWaterways, with the cruise line providing significant funding for SSI programs and offering travel experiences where a portion of each booking supports the organization. For widowed travelers who want river cruising with a bereavement-aware community context, the SSI/AmaWaterways partnership is the most direct path.
Michele Neff Hernandez has described the organization's approach plainly: the goal is not to rush widowed people through grief but to build "understanding and healing friendships" among people who share the specific experience of spousal loss. That framing - community built on shared loss, not shared interests - is structurally different from general women's travel groups.
Modern Widows Club Travel Club
Modern Widows Club operates a dedicated Travel Club within its broader mission to "empower widows to thrive." The Travel Club organizes community travel specifically for widows, distinct from general solo travel groups in that the shared bereavement context is the organizing principle. Travel Club activities are member-led and vary by chapter and event.
Founded by Carolyn Moor, the Modern Widows Club is built around the recognition that widowhood is a distinct identity shift requiring dedicated support infrastructure - not just grief counseling but ongoing social and financial empowerment. The Travel Club extends that logic into the travel domain.
Road Scholar
Road Scholar is not a bereavement-specific operator, but it is structurally one of the most accommodating for newly widowed travelers because:
- Scale of solo traveler participation: nearly 1 in 4 Road Scholar participants already travel solo, creating an environment where single travelers are the norm, not the exception.
- "Singles at No Extra Cost" programs: Road Scholar designates specific departures where the single supplement is waived entirely, with a dedicated collection searchable on their website.
- Pacing: Road Scholar programs are educational, slow-paced, and structured around learning - which aligns well with the cognitive-load reduction that bereavement counselors recommend for newly widowed travelers.
- Blog content: Road Scholar publishes specific guidance on solo travel after loss on their editorial blog, suggesting awareness of this audience within their marketing and programming.
Road Scholar's typical traveler is 50-80, highly educated, and often recently transitioned (retirement, divorce, widowhood). The operator does not market itself as a bereavement program, but in practice it serves that population well.
Overseas Adventure Travel (OAT)
OAT specifically markets its programs to travelers 50 and older, runs small groups (maximum 16 passengers), and has long offered single supplement waivers on select departures. For widowed travelers who want international adventure travel with an intimate group size and a demographic that skews appropriately, OAT is the major operator equivalent of Road Scholar for adventure-focused itineraries.
Saga Holidays
UK-based Saga specifically targets the over-50 market and includes dedicated single traveler programs with no single supplement on select departures. For widowed travelers with European destinations on their list, Saga's infrastructure is worth examining.
Senior Solo Cruise Single Supplement Waivers 2026: Line-by-Line Database
Photo by Josh Hild on Unsplash
What Does a Grief-Informed Itinerary Look Like?
The phrase "grief-informed itinerary" is not in common use yet, but the concept is well-established in bereavement research and among grief-aware therapists who work with clients considering travel. The core principle: the itinerary structure should accommodate grief rather than assume it has been left at home.
Here is the framework, synthesized from guidance published by The Travel Psychologist, Road Scholar's bereavement travel blog, AARP's grief travel coverage, and clinical guidance from bereavement therapists:
Phase 1: Days 1-2 (Arrival and Decompression)
- No scheduled evening activities on day 1. Arrival is cognitively and emotionally expensive. Allow the first evening to be unstructured.
- Single room, always. This is not optional. Shared accommodation eliminates the private processing space that many widowed travelers need most.
- Low-stimulation arrival city or environment. Avoid arriving in a large, chaotic city as the first experience. If the destination is Paris, consider arriving to a smaller nearby town first.
- No check-in "tell us about yourself" group activities. Many group tours begin with group introductions. Bereavement-aware operators skip or make optional the introductory sharing format.
Phase 2: Days 3-7 (One Anchor Per Day)
- Maximum one major experience per day. Not a full-day museum tour followed by a dinner event. One anchor experience - a cooking class, a guided walk, a museum visit - with the rest of the day unscheduled.
- Scheduled solitude. Build in at least two hours per day that are explicitly unscheduled and unaccompanied. This is when processing happens.
- Opt-in group evenings only. Group dinners and evening activities should be clearly optional, never socially mandatory. The bereavement-aware operator makes the group dinner a standing option, not a group obligation.
Phase 3: Days 8 and Beyond (Integration)
- Rhythm over novelty. Once a daily rhythm is established, maintain it. The same coffee spot, the same morning walk, the same dinnertime: routine is restorative in grief.
- Movement as medicine. Walking, swimming, light hiking: bodies in motion process emotion more efficiently than bodies at rest. Build physical movement into every day.
- Avoid anniversary dates. Do not schedule departure or arrival on a wedding anniversary, birthday of the deceased, or death anniversary. These dates will surface emotion regardless of destination; do not add travel logistics to them.
What to Avoid
- Mandatory group sharing or emotional processing circles. Some wellness retreats require participants to share personal stories in group formats. This is not appropriate for newly widowed travelers who have not chosen a grief-processing context.
- High sensory overload itineraries. Packed bus tours with 12 stops and 4 cities in 7 days are cognitively exhausting under normal circumstances; under active grief they are overwhelming.
- Destinations with strong couple-travel associations. If you and your spouse honeymooned in Venice, Venice in the first post-loss trip is likely not the right choice. Save it for later.
- Overly bright social environments. All-inclusive resorts designed around poolside socializing and group entertainment can amplify isolation for grieving travelers rather than reduce it.
Solo Female Travel After Divorce: Where to Go & How to Plan 2026
How Do I Decide Between Solo, Group, or Buddy Travel?
This is the most practical question most widowed travelers face, and the answer depends heavily on where you are in the grief timeline and your prior travel history.
6-12 months post-loss: Group travel via bereavement-aware operator
The first six to twelve months post-loss are characterized by high cognitive load (estate, finances, identity reorganization), reduced decision-making bandwidth, and social isolation. Group travel via a bereavement-aware operator like Soaring Spirits or Road Scholar reduces the logistical cognitive load while providing structured social contact without requiring you to manage the logistics yourself. You do not need to plan the itinerary, book the restaurants, or navigate the metro. The structure is handled. You show up and participate as much or as little as you choose.
12-18 months post-loss: Buddy travel or small-group
The 12-18 month window is typically when re-engagement with independent activity begins. Buddy travel - traveling with a trusted friend, sibling, or adult child - provides safety and companionship while allowing more flexibility than a group tour. The risk is misaligned pace: your grief pace and your travel companion's vacation pace may conflict. Establish explicit agreement beforehand about alone time, shared meals, and activity opt-outs.
18+ months post-loss: Solo travel becomes viable
Solo travel - genuinely solo, managing your own logistics - becomes more viable at 18 months or beyond for travelers who have some prior solo travel experience. For travelers who have never traveled solo at all (many widowed people in their 60s and 70s traveled exclusively with a partner for decades), the learning curve is real. Consider a structured solo program with a recognized operator before booking fully independent solo travel.
The role of community regardless of format
Both Soaring Spirits International and Modern Widows Club emphasize that community with other widowed travelers - even asynchronously, via their online platforms before a trip - substantially reduces the anxiety associated with first post-loss travel. Connecting with others who have made the same trip, or who are planning it, normalizes the experience before you board the plane.
Which Cruise Lines Waive Single Supplement for Widowed Travelers?
Single supplements are the most-cited practical barrier to solo cruise travel for widowed travelers. The standard supplement ranges from 25% to 100% of the per-person cabin rate, with some cruise lines charging the full double-occupancy rate for a solo traveler - effectively doubling the cost. The landscape in 2026:
Viking Ocean and River Cruises
Viking has built dedicated solo cabins into its ship designs, eliminating the single supplement category for those cabins entirely. Availability is limited but the structure is sound. Viking's demographic skews mature, educated, and culturally curious - well-aligned with the widowed traveler profile.
Cunard
Cunard's flagship Queen Mary 2 transatlantic crossings include solo staterooms at rates without supplement. The QM2 transatlantic is additionally well-suited to newly widowed travelers because its format - six days at sea, structured around library reading, lectures, and optional dining - allows exactly the rhythm-and-routine framework that bereavement counselors recommend.
Oceania Cruises
Oceania runs occasional "solo supplement free" promotions on select itineraries, typically announced several months in advance. The small-ship format (maximum 1,250 passengers) reduces the overwhelm factor relative to mega-ships. Food quality is among the best in the category, which matters for travelers for whom dining has historically been a shared pleasure.
Royal Caribbean and NCL
Both major lines have introduced solo studios in recent years - small single-occupancy cabins with no supplement. The ships themselves are high-stimulation environments (entertainment, pools, crowds), which may not suit the first post-loss trip but may be appropriate for later travel once the traveler is re-oriented.
Solo Female Cruise Travel Over 40: Line-by-Line Comparison 2026
Photo by Alex Korolkoff on Unsplash
What Should I Avoid in My First Trip After Loss?
The grief-informed travel literature is more specific about what not to do than the general travel press acknowledges. A synthesized list:
Avoid departing within three months of the death. This is not a hard rule, but bereavement researchers consistently note that the acute grief phase (typically months 1-6) involves the highest cognitive disruption and the lowest capacity for novelty management. An attempt to travel in this window often results in a trip that reinforces isolation rather than reducing it.
Avoid anniversary dates, birthdays, and death anniversaries as departure or arrival dates. These dates will carry emotional weight regardless of where you are. Adding travel logistics to them increases the chance that the date becomes associated with travel difficulty rather than memory and meaning.
Avoid destinations where the couple's history is strong. The trip you took for your 25th anniversary, the town where your spouse grew up, the city where you spent your honeymoon: these destinations have real value for later travel, as meaning-making visits. For the first post-loss trip, choose somewhere without the weight of that shared history.
Avoid tours that require advance deposit on non-refundable terms. Grief is unpredictable. You may book a trip for six months from now feeling certain you will be ready, and you may not be. Choose operators with flexible cancellation policies. Road Scholar, Soaring Spirits, and OAT all have policies worth reviewing before booking.
Avoid group tours with mandatory group emotional processing. Some wellness retreat formats require participants to share personal narratives in group settings. This can be deeply valuable in a therapeutic context you have chosen. It is inappropriate when embedded in a tour as a structural expectation.
Avoid high-stimulation environments for the first trip. Times Square, Las Vegas, Carnival cruise ships: high-energy, high-stimulation environments amplify isolation for grieving travelers. Save the stimulation for later. The first trip should trend quiet, beautiful, and slow.
Bottom Line: The 2026 Widow/Widower Travel Decision
The widowed travel market in 2026 is at a turning point. The demographics are not subtle: more than 11 million widowed adults in the US, nearly a million new ones each year, the majority of them women, the majority of them with disposable income and deferred travel desire. The infrastructure is finally catching up, but only if you know where to find it.
The operators doing it right are Soaring Spirits International (bereavement community + AmaWaterways travel partnership), Modern Widows Club Travel Club (widow-specific community travel), Road Scholar (structural solo accommodation + bereavement-aware editorial voice), and OAT (small-group adventure travel for over-50 solo travelers). The cruise lines with the most honest single supplement policies are Viking, Cunard, and select Oceania departures.
The grief-informed itinerary framework is not complicated: slow the first two days, one anchor experience per day in the middle, opt-in evenings only, private room always, no anniversary dates, no mandatory sharing. It is a structure that respects where you actually are rather than where a cheerful travel brochure assumes you should be.
If you are not sure where to start, Travel Anywhere builds custom itineraries around your specific timeline, pace, and emotional bandwidth. You can describe where you are in the grief process, what kind of environment you want (quiet, structured, adventurous, restorative), and what your budget looks like, and it will return an itinerary that fits your actual circumstances rather than a generic solo travel bucket list. It takes three minutes and it respects the complexity of what you are navigating.
Your first post-loss trip is not the trip of a lifetime. It is the trip that makes the rest of them possible.
FAQ: Widow & Widower Travel in 2026
How soon after the death of a spouse should I travel? Most bereavement counselors and grief-informed travel advisors suggest waiting at least three months before attempting any significant trip, and six months before planning a trip that requires complex logistics. The acute grief phase typically runs three to six months and involves significant cognitive disruption. That said, timing is individual: some widowed travelers find that a short trip to a familiar, comfortable destination at two months provides needed perspective, while others are not ready for 18 months. Trust your own timeline; ignore external pressure about when you "should" be ready.
What is Camp Widow and is it a travel program? Camp Widow is a weekend immersive event run by Soaring Spirits International (SSI) for widowed people, with events in multiple US cities and in Canada (Calgary scheduled for September 2026). It is not a travel tour in the traditional sense - it is a structured community gathering specifically for widowed people. However, many participants travel to attend Camp Widow events from other cities or countries, and SSI's partnership with AmaWaterways has created travel experiences connected to the SSI community.
What is a single supplement and how do I avoid paying it? A single supplement is an additional charge imposed by tour operators and cruise lines when a room or cabin is occupied by one person instead of two. Standard supplements range from 25% to 100% of the base per-person rate. To avoid it: book with operators that offer "Singles at No Extra Cost" programs (Road Scholar), book solo-specific cabins that have no supplement structure (Viking, Cunard), or choose small-group land operators like OAT that routinely waive supplements on select departures. Always ask about the supplement policy before booking anything.
Are there travel groups specifically for widows rather than general solo female travel groups? Yes. Soaring Spirits International's travel programming and Modern Widows Club's Travel Club are both widow-specific. The distinction matters because the shared bereavement context creates a different group dynamic than general solo female travel groups, where the organizing principle is gender or age rather than loss. For many widowed travelers, being in a group where no one needs to explain why they are traveling alone is itself therapeutic.
Is solo travel after loss more healing than group travel? It depends on timing and prior experience. Bereavement research generally supports the idea that structured group travel with bereavement-aware peers is more beneficial in the first year post-loss, when decision-making bandwidth is lowest and social isolation is highest. Solo travel - genuinely independent - becomes more viable and often more deeply restorative at 18 months or beyond, particularly for travelers with some prior solo travel experience. The Travel Psychologist notes that solo travel provides "uninterrupted time to process emotions at your own pace," which is valuable but requires a baseline capacity for self-directed logistics that grief temporarily reduces.
What destinations work best for a first trip after spousal loss? The grief-informed travel literature consistently recommends: small cities or towns over large capitals (lower stimulation), beautiful natural environments over culturally dense urban itineraries, familiar language or culture for the first trip (reduce cognitive load), and destinations without strong associations with the deceased or the couple's shared travel history. Specific destinations that appear frequently: Portugal (Porto or Alentejo region), New Zealand's South Island, coastal towns of Wales or Scotland, Iceland's Ring Road segments, and Japan's Kyoto or Nara (counterintuitively, despite being culturally unfamiliar, Japan's orderliness, beauty, and personal-space culture suit many grieving travelers very well).
Does Travel Anywhere support grief-informed itinerary planning specifically? Travel Anywhere allows you to describe your travel context in natural language, including pacing needs, emotional bandwidth, and the kind of environment you are looking for. It returns custom itineraries that match those parameters. It is not a grief therapist, but it is a planning tool that does not assume you are a couple or that you want a packed schedule.
Ready to make this trip happen? Travel Anywhere plans and books everything — start to finish. Begin at travelanywhere.chat.
Sources
- US Census Bureau. "Love and Loss Among Older Adults." Census.gov, April 2021. https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2021/04/love-and-loss-among-older-adults.html
- Soaring Spirits International. Organization website and Camp Widow program information. soaringspirits.org. Accessed May 2026.
- Modern Widows Club. Travel Club page. modernwidowsclub.org/clubs/travel-club. Accessed May 2026.
- Road Scholar. "Solo Travel After Loss." Blog post. roadscholar.org/blog/solo-travel-after-loss. Accessed May 2026.
- Road Scholar. "Singles at No Extra Cost." roadscholar.org/special-offers/singles-at-no-extra-cost. Accessed May 2026.
- The Travel Psychologist. "Grief and Travel: A Guide to Using Travel to Heal." thetravelpsychologist.co.uk. Accessed May 2026.
- The Travel Psychologist. "The Grieving Journey: Travel and Healing After Bereavement." thetravelpsychologist.co.uk. Accessed May 2026.
- AARP. "Moving Through Mourning: How Travel Can Help Those Dealing With Grief." aarp.org/travel/travel-tips/grief-travel. Accessed May 2026.
- Psychology Today. "Why You Should Vacation While Grieving." Becky Steinberg, MD. psychologytoday.com, February 2012.
- Gitnux. "Widowhood Statistics: Market Data Report 2026." gitnux.org/widowhood-statistics. Accessed May 2026.
- Bowling Green State University, National Center for Family and Marriage Research. "Widowhood: Decades of Change, 1940-2018." Carlson & Schweizer, 2020. bgsu.edu/ncfmr.
- Eterneva. "Grief Travel: How Vacations Can Help to Cope With Grief." eterneva.com/resources/traveling-while-grieving. Accessed May 2026.
- JourneyWoman. "7 Tips to Take the First Step into Solo Travel After Loss." journeywoman.com. Accessed May 2026.
- Flash Pack. "A Healing Journey: Travel and Coping with Grief." flashpack.com. Accessed May 2026.
Rachel Caldwell — Editorial Director, TravelAnywhere
Rachel Caldwell is the Editorial Director of TravelAnywhere. She leads the editorial team behind every guide on travelanywhere.blog, focusing on primary research, honest budget math, and recommendations the team would book themselves. Last reviewed May 3, 2026.