Last updated on June 2nd, 2025
Inspiring solo travel for women for 30 years
Welcome to JourneyWoman: The first solo travel website in the world
Welcome to JourneyWoman, the world’s largest and most trusted resource for female solo travel. Founded in 1994, we are the world’s original solo travel publication for women, founded in Toronto, Canada by the late Evelyn Hannon in 1994. Evelyn is regarded as the first travel writer to focus on women’s solo travel and influenced significant change in the travel industry. Evelyn inspired a sisterhood of women, a grassroots movement, to inspire women to travel safely and well, and to connect women travellers around the world. She passed away in 2019, but her legacy lives on.
In 2019, JourneyWoman was acquired by family friend Carolyn Ray. Carolyn aspires to help women live the life of their dreams by embracing conscious, sustainable travel that empowers ALL women – from traveller to community. Carolyn combines her passion for travel, women’s empowerment and experience as a marketing executive and entrepreneur to create the world’s largest resource for women who love travel. In 2023, Carolyn was recognized by TravelPulse as one of the most influential women in travel. At age 50, after a successful career, Carolyn sold everything she owned to travel the world and now lives simply for most of the year, travelling for months at a time to lesser-known places in the low season. Read more about Carolyn’s story in “From High Heels to Hiking Boots: How I Reinvented My Life to Travel Full Time”.
What makes JourneyWoman unique
At JourneyWoman, we celebrate women’s wisdom and the joy of discovery that purposeful travel brings. Together, we are inspired to make our world a safer and more inclusive place. With over 55,000 subscribers, we are the original solo travel publication for women in the world, co-created with and representing the voices of mature women for over 30 years.
- Our writers include professional accredited travel writers, not paid influencers. We only write about places we have been to and products we use ourselves.
- We focus on sustainable travel – longer stays, off-season travel, less-travelled places
- We seek to inspire and support women-owned businesses and entrepreneurs through our award-winning editorial features, Women’s Travel Directory and Women’s Speaker’s Bureau
- For our 30th anniversary in 2024, we launched a new book profiling 30 women in travel: “Never Too Late: How Women Travellers 50+ Are Making the Rules”, and the JourneyWoman Awards for Women Over 50
- In 2025, we conducted a global study to raise awareness of women over 50 in travel, called “Invisible No More: The Ageless Adventuress” to help the travel industry adapt to and better serve older women
JourneyWoman CEO Carolyn Ray in Budapest, April 2025, exploring Eastern Europe / by Carolyn Ray
“When our mother started JourneyWoman over 25 years ago, she unknowingly became the world’s first female travel blogger and built a sisterhood of women travellers,” said Evelyn Hannon’s daughter, Erica Ehm, Founder and CEO of Ehm&Co. “Not only does Carolyn share many of our mother’s values, we believe her passion for travel and her strategic mindset will enhance Journeywoman’s brand as a trusted source for women. We can’t imagine anyone better suited to extend our mother’s legacy.”
What is a JourneyWoman?
Being a JourneyWoman is a mindset. It’s not just about age or experience. As JourneyWomen, we take the first step into the future, with curiosity as our compass, seeking authenticity in every experience and being intentional about where and how we spend our hard-earned travel dollars. We know the world is watching — and learning — from us.
At JourneyWoman, we embrace four guiding principles: We Seek, We Learn, We Teach, We Act
We seek
We seek real life, not perfection. Significance, not simplicity. We pursue the wisdom of history, the beauty of culture, and the wonder in our world, found in moments both expansively big and surprisingly small. We are aware and accountable for the impact of our decisions on our shared earth and recognize that travel is a privilege, not a right.
We learn
We are curious. We get off the bus. We walk. We ask questions. We know travel isn’t about counting countries or marks on a map. We bring our whole, authentic selves to every encounter. We respect the world as it is and ask how we can contribute rather than impose our beliefs. We make every effort to support women-owned businesses when we travel.
We teach
We are teachers, role models and mentors, and we share our stories with intention and purpose. We learn from one another, respecting the diversity of our human experience. We seek to empower women and girls and contribute to local communities – when invited – through our actions and volunteerism.
We act
We advocate for positive change in ourselves and in others. We know that as women, we are travel’s most influential decision makers. We use our voices to inspire others to fulfill their purpose. We speak out when we witness inequity and influence others to treat each other and our world with love, gratitude and respect.
The late Evelyn Hannon, the Original JourneyWoman, recognized as the world’s first solo travel writer for women.
Carolyn and Evelyn’s daughter, Erica Ehm (R), with Evelyn’s iconic red boots and the original JourneyWoman newsletter circa 1994, announcing the transition of JourneyWoman to Carolyn in August 2019.