Is Group Travel for You? Here's How to Tell.

Who Our Trips Are Actually For -

People ask us this constantly, usually trying to work out if they'll be the odd one out, and I get it - there's something nerve-wracking about signing up for a week away with strangers when you have no idea who those strangers will be.

The short answer is you won't be the odd one out, but the longer answer is worth unpacking because there are definite patterns in who books, and understanding those patterns might help you work out if this is your kind of thing.

Most people who come on our trips are solo travellers who've stopped waiting for their friends' annual leave to magically align with their own, who've been in WhatsApp groups called "Girls Trip" for the better part of a year with absolutely zero progress, who've watched everyone else's holiday allowance get eaten up by weddings and family obligations and last-minute work emergencies.

You've realised that if you keep waiting for the perfect group to materialise, you'll never actually go anywhere, so you've stopped asking permission and started booking flights. It's not that you don't have friends - you absolutely do - it's just that coordinating five people's schedules, budgets, and holiday preferences has become impossible, and you're not willing to sacrifice another year of travel or doing something for yourself for it.

You're at that stage of life where you've built a career, possibly bought a place, maybe have a family. A bit more responsibility than you had ten years ago, a clearer sense of what you want from life, and absolutely zero interest in holidays that feel like another thing you need to survive.

You've also done enough travelling to know exactly what you don't want anymore. You don't want the fifteen-person hostel dorm where someone's alarm goes off at 4am and three different people are having whispered phone conversations in various languages throughout the night (or worse!!).

You don't want to change cities every two days, living out of a rucksack and never quite knowing which adaptor plug you packed where. You don't want to come home so completely exhausted that you need three full days just to feel like a functioning human again, wondering why you spent all that money and annual leave to feel worse than when you started.

You still want adventure - you're absolutely not done with new places and brilliant food and experiences that push you slightly out of your comfort zone - you just want to actually enjoy it instead of treating it like some kind of endurance test you need to survive.

And you're at that particular stage of life where priorities have shifted in ways you didn't necessarily see coming. The Instagram photo at the landmark matters significantly less than the two-hour lunch where everyone's laughing so hard they can barely breathe and nobody can quite bring themselves to be the first person to leave. The idea of ticking off five museums in one day sounds genuinely awful compared to spending the afternoon reading by the pool with a cold drink and zero guilt about "wasting" the day or being "on call" for work, partners or the kids.

You'd rather stay somewhere beautiful for long enough to actually feel relaxed and settled than race through ten different places and remember none of them with any real clarity.

Quality over quantity isn't just something you say anymore - it's genuinely how you're making decisions about travel, about how you spend your time, about pretty much everything.

You're in your 30s or 40s, which means you're old enough to afford decent accommodation and good food without having to choose between eating well and having a proper bed, and young enough to still want boat days and canyon hikes and experiences that feel slightly outside your normal routine or comfort zone.

You're also - and this matters - normal!

There's no forced bonding, no trust falls, no "right everyone in a circle, tell us three interesting facts about yourself" energy (erghk!) that makes everyone want to immediately fake an emergency and leave.

Just people who like travel and good conversation and days that feel thoughtfully planned without being so structured that there's no room to breathe. By the end of the week it usually feels more like you've been away with mates than with a group of strangers, but without any of the manufactured "we're all bonding now" awkwardness at the start.

If any of that sounds familiar, if you've found yourself nodding along while reading this, you'd probably fit right in.

Our trips this year:

We've got three trips for summer 2026 - Montenegro in July, Albania in August, and Italy in September.

Montenegro and Albania are part of our Explore collection: active, scenic, thoughtfully paced adventures that give you variety without exhausting you. Italy's a Stay trip: one beautiful base, slow mornings, brilliant food, and proper time to switch off.

All three are built around the same philosophy - small groups (usually 8-12 people), great accommodation, incredible food, and enough space in the schedule to actually enjoy where you are instead of racing to the next thing. No forced bonding, just genuinely good travel with people who get it.

If you're curious, have a look at the upcoming trips. And if you're still not sure whether it's your thing, just ask - we're always happy to talk it through properly.