Solo Adventure Holidays: 6 Trips Worth Taking on Your Own

Picture yourself crunching across a glacier in crampons, or watching the sun come up from the top of North Africa’s highest mountain, with a group of people who were strangers on Friday and are swapping photos by Sunday. That’s what good solo adventure holidays feel like. You book alone, you travel with a small group and a guide, and nobody cares whether you came with a partner.

It’s also far more normal than you might think. Intrepid says over half its travellers go solo, KE Adventure puts its figure above 50%, and Much Better Adventures says around three in four of its guests book on their own.

So you won’t be the odd one out.

Below are six trips we’d happily take alone, who runs them, how room sharing works and how fit you need to be. Prices were checked on the companies’ own sites in October 2026, so treat them as a guide.

What makes a good active adventure for one?

An adventure holiday for a solo traveller is really a small group tour with something active at its heart: hiking, trekking, kayaking, a game drive or a glacier walk. The company sorts the guide, the transport, the hotels or huts and most of the meals, so all you have to do is turn up with the right boots. Groups usually have 8 to 16 people.

The best trips get these things right:

• A fair deal on rooms. Either a free room share with someone of the same gender, or your own room at a modest extra cost.
• A good mix of like-minded people. Lots of other solo travellers, plus couples and friends, so groups gel quickly.
• Free time built in. A spare afternoon or a whole free day, so you can explore at your own pace.
• A clear activity grade. You should know before you book whether a day means a gentle 8km or a 1,000m climb.
• Safety you can see. Qualified guides, a local leader who meets you on arrival, and a clear plan if the weather turns.

If you’d rather swap hiking boots for a sun lounger, our guide to singles holidays covers the gentler end of solo travel.

Six adventures worth travelling solo for

These are real trips running now, picked because they work brilliantly for one person. Some fit into a weekend, one takes a week or more, and every one is sociable and properly exciting.

1. Glaciers and the Northern Lights in Iceland

Iceland still tops most bucket lists, and for good reason! On Exodus’s five day Iceland Northern Lights trip you’ll walk on the blue ice of the Falljokull glacier with crampons and an ice axe, stand behind the curtain of Seljalandsfoss, watch icebergs drift through the Jokulsarlon lagoon and wash up on Diamond Beach, and sleep in countryside hotels far from the glow of Reykjavik, where your guide watches the forecasts for the Northern Lights.

It’s graded Activity Level 2, so easy to moderate.

Checked October 2026: land only from about £2,027 for the December 2026 departure, with an optional single supplement of roughly £405 to £591 depending on the date.

2. The Tour du Mont Blanc in a long weekend

Can’t take a fortnight off? Much Better Adventures runs a hut-to-hut weekend on the Tour du Mont Blanc, the classic trek that loops through France, Italy and Switzerland. You’ll hike high balcony paths below the glaciers and sleep in mountain refuges with the rest of your group, which is about the fastest way there is to make new friends. It starts from about £917 for three nights, excluding flights.

3. Climb Mount Toubkal in a weekend

This one’s a real thrill, and you’ll be standing on top of North Africa by breakfast! You’ll fly to Marrakech, head up into the High Atlas with Berber guides from the village of Imlil and spend a night in a mountain refuge at 3,200m before a pre-dawn push to the 4,167m summit of Toubkal, the highest mountain in North Africa. Mules carry your bag, and groups are capped at 14.

Much Better Adventures listed it from about £423 for three nights (flights extra) in October 2026. The riad rooms are twin share unless you pay a small extra charge for a private one, and the refuge is a shared dorm whatever you book.

4. The Inca Trail to Machu Picchu

Few treks are as famous. Intrepid’s seven day Inca Trail Express follows the ancient stone paths of the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu, with nights camping on the trail and a group of no more than 14. It’s listed from £752, excluding flights. Solo travellers share with someone of the same sex at no extra cost, or you can pay to have a room to yourself on most trips.

5. A safari in South Africa

Spotting the Big Five from an open game vehicle is pure joy, and it’s an experience many people would rather share. Just You is built entirely around solo travellers and guarantees every guest a room of their own. Its 14 day Experience South Africa tour starts in Cape Town with Table Mountain and the Cape Peninsula before heading north for game drives near Kruger National Park.

It’s priced from £4,199 with flights included (checked October 2026). There’s also a 10 day safari based at a boutique lodge in the bush, from £3,999, with a maximum of 20 people.

Our Just You review covers the whole experience from booking to the last night.

6. Walking round the Grand Combin in Switzerland

Switzerland gives you big mountain scenery a short flight from home. KE Adventure’s eight day Secret Switzerland walk is a full circuit of the Grand Combin massif, and it’s graded Challenging, so you’ll want plenty of hill days in your legs first. It’s listed from £1,995 without flights.

More adventures to explore by yourself

Not quite your thing? These trips also turn up again and again on solo travel lists, and all of them were on sale in October 2026:

• Island hopping in the Galapagos with Much Better Adventures
• Machu Picchu and Lake Titicaca on a ten day singles departure sold through TourRadar
• The Caucasus mountains of Georgia, with high peaks and deep canyons
• A Guatemala volcano challenge, climbing three or five volcanoes depending on the trip
• Hiking in the Rockies of Canada, another Much Better Adventures favourite
• New Zealand’s South Island with Active Adventures, mixing hiking, biking and kayaking
• Kayaking and wild camping in Norway’s fjords, which you can do in a single weekend

Which companies run solo adventure holidays?

Every company below welcomes people travelling solo. The table shows what each one told us on its own website in October 2026; click a heading to sort it.

See Just You’s solo tours

Solo-ish trips for solo travellers only

G Adventures’ Solo-ish range is only open to solo travellers, and every trip has a female Chief Experience Officer as the leader. The first three days are planned to turn strangers into a crew, and each trip has a dedicated “Me Day” to go off and do your own thing. There’s a discounted My Own Room add-on if you’d rather not share.

Much Better Adventures

If your diary’s tight, Much Better Adventures is the one to look at, because so many of its trips are long weekends in Europe and Morocco. Most guests on its solo trips are in their 30s to 50s.

KE Adventure and Flash Pack

KE says that on 99% of its trips there’s no compulsory single supplement if you’re happy to share, and it pairs you with someone of the same sex and, where it can, a similar age. Flash Pack goes the other way, grouping solo travellers by age, so it’s worth a look if you’re in your 30s or 40s. We cover it in more detail in our guide to holidays for singles under 40.

How does the single supplement work?

Here’s the good news. Most of these companies don’t force you to pay extra just for being on your own. They’ll put you in a twin room with another solo traveller of the same gender, and you pay the same as everyone else. If there’s no one to pair you with, the better companies give you the room to yourself at no extra cost.

Want a room to yourself every night? You’ll usually pay a supplement, and on the Iceland trip above that’s a few hundred pounds.

One catch catches people out. Mountain huts, refuges, camping, homestays and overnight trains are often shared whatever you’ve paid, simply because single rooms don’t exist there. If that bothers you, pick a hotel-based trip, or a company like Just You where your own room is guaranteed.

How fit do you need to be?

Every serious company grades its trips, and it’s the most useful thing to read before booking. Exodus’s Iceland trip is Level 2, easy to moderate, while KE’s Swiss circuit and Patagonia trek are rated Challenging. Be honest about your fitness and how much walking you do now. If a trip has back-to-back days of six or seven hours on foot, try a few long hill days at home first, in the Lake District or Snowdonia say, and see how your knees feel on day two.

Older and less sure of your fitness? Our pick of solo holidays for the over 60s includes gentler walking and touring trips.

Your adventure packing checklist

Most companies send a kit list, but these are the bits people forget.

Is your money protected?

Check before you pay. Holidays sold with flights from the UK should be ATOL protected, and many operators are ABTA members too: Exodus, for example, lists ATOL 2582 and ABTA Y0751. Some land-only specialists use other schemes, such as ABTOT, which protects Much Better Adventures bookings. If a company can’t say clearly how your money’s protected, book elsewhere.

Our solo travel FAQs cover more everyday booking questions.

Your questions about adventure trips on your own

Whichever trip grabs you, you’ll come home with stories and probably a few new friends. For more ideas, from singles tours to deals, have a look around Holiday Alone.