We were lucky to catch up with Arden Joy recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Arden, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

The idea for Girls Who Travel wasn’t an idea at all. It was a question I asked when I was first wanting to set out and travel on my own: how can I, as a woman, travel the world safely and connect with other travelers like me?

In 2011, that question went out into the void. There were no Facebook groups to meet people, no Tiktoks to get tips from, no Instagrammers to follow for advice. So as scary as it was, I took the leap and started traveling without all those things. My experiences – seeing how big the world was and just how capable I was of navigating it – was life changing. We know now that the vast majority of women find traveling to be incredibly empowering but at the time I only had a hunch that there were plenty of other women like me who could benefit from the power of travel but were being held back because they couldn’t find the resources they needed.

So I started writing about it. I created a blog called Girls Who Travel and began to document I had learned. Through that, I started to find community which I quickly realized was the key to giving others the tools they needed. The world was too big for me to write about alone but together we could combine our knowledge and help each other explore. So I invited other travelers to write for my blog and eventually that grew into an even bigger community with even more people wanting to participate until it became clear that this was more than a question I had asked back in the day, it was a movement.

Today, Girls Who Travel has over 87,000 members worldwide and 30 volunteers around the globe. We still have our blog but now we also offer so much more including courses, meet up events, and group tours.

Arden, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

The mission of Girls Who Travel is to “radically redefine travel to be inclusive, sustainable, and empowering.”
Our mission is unique and powerful, unlike any other travel community out there, which is why we were named one of the top Facebook groups making an impact by Meta and our work has been featured on television, print, and radio. Most of us think of travel as only “passports and plane tickets” but when we limit our definition to those two things, then we limit our ability to travel. There are so many reasons that women may not be able to hop on a plane. For instance, 52% of women say they can’t afford to travel, 36% of countries are unsafe for LGBTQ+ travelers, and 51% of women do not receive paid time off.

Instead, Girls Who Travel empowers women to see the world on their own terms, whether that means jetting off to the other side of the world or exploring a new neighborhood down the street. We focus on the magic of seeing the world as a tourist no matter where you are and treating the world – near and far- with respect to ensure it will be here for all travelers. We do this by offering everything from courses to teach safety for women travelers to networking spaces to help find that job to fund your travels to a travel themed book club that takes our readers somewhere new each time we meet. And of course tours! We offer a limited number of small group tours that focus on sustainability and giving back to the people that our welcoming us into their lives. Our community is so excited about being able to travel with a trusted group of women that our tours usually sell out in a matter of hours!

I am so proud of all that Girls Who Travel has accomplished. I can confidently say GWT has helped shape the travel industry and the discourse around travel for women. None of this was my plan but it certainly has been my dream to help empower women to live life to their fullest and I know I am achieving that each day.

Do you have any insights you can share related to maintaining high team morale?

My advice is to trust your team and to support them, not micromanage them! It is really hard to relinquish control – never more so than when you are handing over control of something you built from the ground up. But you must – you absolutely must – let go. You WILL maintain high morale if you are a cheerleader rather than someone getting on the field and taking the ball because you want to done the exact way you want it done. Communicate your vision and then let your team bring it to life. One of the absolute best things about having a team is that you get to bring in new perspectives and fresh ideas that will invigorate your business. Make room for that, invite it, celebrate it and the rest will come.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

It’s pretty hard to run a travel group when the entire world isn’t traveling because of a pandemic. Thankfully, having a mission that focuses on redefining travel gives you room to pivot. The minute lockdowns began, my team and I sprang into action and started looking for new ways to help our community explore the world even if it meant not leaving the house. And we sure did deliver! We connected with tour guides around the world who took us on virtual tours from Chernobyl to Japan, we hosted global gift exchanges to allow people to get a bit of travel sent to their doorsteps, we played online games like a scavenger hunt that included building a famous landmark out of food and we hosted movie nights where we all logged in and watched something around the world together! Our community was able to come together, feed their wanderlust, and find hope in a dark time to thanks to the creativity and passion of the Girls Who Travel team.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.girlswhotravel.org
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/girlswhotravel
• Facebook: https://facebook.com/groups/girlswhotravelgroup
• Other: You can learn more about me and my projects including my books at ardenjoy.com