This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Meredith Pierce, who is based in Atlanta and works full-time in marketing. She creates travel content for social media and plans group trips on the side. This story has been edited for length and clarity.
I’ve always enjoyed traveling and posting on social media. Since I work in marketing, that kind of came naturally. I also wanted to have a record of my travels, because I don’t journal or anything like that. Creating content was a way for me to keep up with myself.
Even before I started doing travel content creation, I had friends over the years saying, “Do you have an itinerary for this place? Let’s travel together. I want to join you on a trip.” When I started posting my itineraries and things like that on TikTok, other folks were interested as well.
At the same time, it also started to become more popular for content creators to host group trips. It seemed like the stars were aligning for me to accommodate requests I’d had for folks to travel with me, and then also go to some places that may be a bit more difficult for female solo travelers. So that was what inspired me to start.
I started in 2024, and so far, I have taken people to Iceland, South Africa, and Colombia. I am taking a group to Egypt in August, and then to India and the Maldives in the spring, as well as Antarctica in 2027. The trips last anywhere from five to 10 days, typically, and anywhere from 12 to 20 people attend, depending on the itinerary and what I think is going to be best for the specific destination.
Group trips are great for solo travelers and for building community
The majority of attendees are solo female travelers in their 20s and 30s, but we get some couples, some solo male travelers, and some friends or sisters who just want to join a more social group. They come from all over the US and Europe, too.
Some of them are friends I’ve met along my travels or through content creation, others are people who said they just found me on their TikTok “For You” page and clicked “book.”
My personal philosophy is that if you want to solo travel somewhere in Western Europe, you probably don’t need a group. You don’t really need to go with me. So I really focus on places that, as a solo female traveler, you may not want to go by yourself, but you still want to go.
I try to keep it pretty affordable, so the trips typically cost anywhere from $900 to $1,600, though Antarctica is a big outlier. The price does not include airfare as people come from all over, but it includes pretty much everything else, including the fully planned itinerary.
One of my favorite memories from a trip was when we were in South Africa. We went out to the wine country near Cape Town and it was horrible weather, freezing and pouring rain. But the hot mess of the wine day ended up being everyone’s favorite day of the whole trip. We were just laughing and talking and bonding the whole time, and it gave everyone a chance to get to know each other. To have that experience with other people on other side of the world is really nice.
I think a lot of people have seen the trend of solo traveling and want to start, but don’t know exactly how to do that, so a group trip is a great way to do a solo trip without just showing up in a destination totally by yourself for the first time, which not everyone is ready for.
I also think people just in this day and age are yearning for community. A lot of folks have come on multiple trips with me because they make friends and enjoy it. I joke that it’s a “travel cult,” but people like to keep traveling together and meeting friends and building that community.
People have stayed friends with others on the trips, too. A bunch of people who went on my South Africa trip are all going on another trip together this summer without me because I can’t go.
As a side hustle, it helps fund my travel, but I think of it as a hobby
I know some folks who do make this kind of work their full-time job, but I honestly consider it more of a hobby. If I ever got to the point where I didn’t enjoy it, then I would stop doing it. It’s both for my enjoyment, but also just to kind of flex my marketing muscles in a different way and bring travel to more people, which is my ultimate goal.
I make some side hustle money doing this, which is nice. Honestly, what I mostly want is my trip covered, and any additional funds that I get for travel are exciting to me, but mostly I’m not really here to make a profit off of it. I think that’s also why people like to travel with me because they know these are trips that I’m truly excited about, not because I’m making money off them. I want to be there.
It’s not my goal to do this full time. I like doing two or three group trips per year, but my core love is still doing solo travel. I’m on a solo trip right now. I’m walking through the street in Albania with a friend I met at a hostel just going to the grocery store. That’s kind of the travel that I want to continue doing.
But hosting group trips really enables me to also see more of the world and bring those people who have followed me and engaged with me around the world too. It’s a win-win that I can bring people with me, and then also I get to travel more.
My ultimate goal is to enjoy travel day in and day out and not make it something that becomes a chore ever.
Do you have a story to share about travel or an interesting side hustle? Contact this reporter at kvlamis@businessinsider.com.
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