The Rise of the Solo Traveler: New Opportunities for Vacation Rentals

Hal Conick
10/13/2025

When Lauren Knight began writing about her international travels in 2010, people quickly grew interested in how she planned her trips. Couples, mother-daughter teams, and groups of friends all wanted to know, messaging her to ask for help. So, too, did a group of travelers who wanted to explore the world by themselves.

“Instead of waiting for people to want to travel with them, they said, ‘I’m just going to go. I don’t want to wait,’” says Knight, who now owns and operates Open Invite Trips, which helps people plan their trips.

In 2020, Knight noticed a shift. Solo travelers had always been part of Knight’s clientele, but Knight saw an influx of solo travelers wanting to explore the world as it began to open again after the pandemic.

“Post-pandemic, people feel more confident because they have work schedules that allow them to have flexibility,” Knight says. “They might not have been able to take time off before, and now they can go and work remotely for three months. That’s more of my clientele now: people who want to not just go on a trip but want to simulate life in a different place.”

This segment of solo travelers is a growing market for vacation rental managers to serve, and it’s poised to grow bigger. According to Infinity Business Insights, the solo travel market is expected to grow 9.1% each year between 2023 and 2030, with millions more travelers taking trips on their own.

Before vacation rentals can truly serve solo travelers, it’s important to understand who they are and what they’re looking for from their travels.

Know Solo Travelers

Alex Alioto has noticed that a greater number of solo travelers were booking in the months after the pandemic. Alioto, founder and head of growth of Whimstay, an online travel agency (OTA) that specializes in last-minute deals, sees the pandemic as a trying time but also a time when people learned to enjoy their own company. Travelers realized that they didn’t have to painstakingly plan trips with others to see the world.

“Solo trips are a lot easier to plan, and they allow travelers to pursue interests without group compromises,” Alioto says. “That’s a big one, and so is wellness—deep relaxation, developing a new interest, meeting new people.”

That’s backed up by American Express Travel’s 2024 Global Travel Trends Report, which found that two-thirds of solo travelers are taking trips centered around self-love and treating themselves.

Many of these do-it-myself travelers tend to be younger, Alioto says. The American Express report found that 76% of millennials or Gen Zers were planning to take a solo trip compared with 69% of all travelers. These numbers are in line with Whimstay’s, which show that 74% of Gen Z and millennial travelers are planning on solo trips in the coming year.

These younger travelers tend to want shorter, quicker trips to new places, often entailing multiple trips to new places each year. American Express found that 57% of solo travelers said that their trips were likely to be for a quick weekend getaway versus a longer trip, 29% plan to go to a new city when they travel solo, and 60% plan to take two or more solo trips in a year. Similarly, numbers from Whimstay’s marketing team found that 66% are looking at a short getaway versus a longer vacation, while about a third of travelers said they’d prefer traveling solo to a new city.

And a growing number of solo travelers are women. According to tourism market research firm Future Partners, 40% of women travelers are interested in traveling solo in 2025, up from 32% the previous year. Now, some platforms provide invite-only home-sharing for women solo travelers, such as GoLightly. Even married women are traveling solo more often, with educational travel company Road Scholar finding that 60% of its solo travelers in 2022 were married women. In surveying Gen Z women on the Whimstay platform, Alioto says that 61.3% are interested in traveling solo when going abroad.

As solo travel became popular during the pandemic, Melanie Brown, vice president of data analytics and insights at short-term rental data company Key Data, said that the hotel world lost some of its market share and the vacation rental market gained some.

“People were finding about finding out about vacation rentals for the first time,” Brown says. “Some people had never heard of a short-term rental. Solo travelers had traditionally, as with everybody else, leaned more toward hotels and hostels. After the pandemic, they started learning more about short-term rentals and moving more toward them.”

With growth expected in solo travel, vacation rental managers can continue to win over solo travelers for years to come. Here are some steps they can take to help ensure that they’re appealing to this growing sector of guests.

Ensure Properties Are Safe

Safety features may not be the first thing solo travelers look for in a listing, but they’ll notice their absence their whole stay.

Most solo travelers, Knight says, are probably like she was when she started: A little Pollyannaish, figuring that most places will be safe. It’s hard to advertise how safe a place will be, she says, but it’s important to have the basics right to win return guests. Windows must be secure, and locks sturdy.

Especially since so many solo travelers are women, Brown says that it’s important to highlight safety features, such as smart locks, video doorbells, and the neighborhood profile within the listing. Alioto agrees, saying that there should also be keyless entry for those who arrive after hours, and ways to easily reach staff or others for emergencies.

“It’s important not to try too hard to attract female travelers,” Brown says of highlighting safety features in listings. “If we think about a random listing saying in all caps: “Fellow female travelers, welcome!” And there’s no picture of the host? I’m not going to book that. This seems like somebody’s trying to trap me.”

It’s also important to put the minds of solo travelers at ease. If someone is traveling by themselves in a new city, Knight says that they likely have no support network. That can make simple things, like finding a place to put their bags when they arrive early, rather difficult.

“When I’m searching for a place with clients, if properties don’t have a place where they can store bags for free, like a hotel would, or if it’s really annoying to meet up with somebody to get keys or something like that, that’s a deterrent,” Knight says. “The arrival element is really important.”

Help Solo Travelers Feel Included

A large part of Knight’s business has become organizing group trips. She organized her first group trip in 2018, and it sold out almost immediately. Almost everyone who joined the group was a solo traveler. Those groups have continued to be successful in the years since.

“I’m doing a lady’s trip to Greece in a month, and I posted that I have a couple of spots available that discounted just a little bit,” Knight says. “I had six people sign up this week for a trip that’s happening in a month. If you’re solo, you have the flexibility.”

These group trips can be a way for solo travelers to know that they’ll have others to meet with in the area, important for those not up for a soul-searching solo trip. For vacation rental managers, this doesn’t have to mean having groups of solo travelers stay at properties, but perhaps linking travelers together with other travelers—or even locals—in the area during their stay.

Creating or recommending social spaces is an idea that vacation rental managers could use, Alioto says. This seems like an idea straight out of hostels, he acknowledges, but believes that having a café, rooftop lounge, or communal space where solo travelers can meet others would attract visitors.

Some companies operate group trips that appeal to solo travelers, such as Go Ahead Tours and Flash Pack. Vacation rental managers may be able to partner with these companies or create their own partnerships with local businesses and groups to help solo travelers feel more social on their trip.

Whether or not vacation rental managers find groups for solo travelers to join, Brown says that they should invest in an experience guidebook of the local area. They can even craft guidebooks specifically made for solo travelers, she says, as the activities available may be different.

“Have a range of activities or recommendations,” Brown says. “Some romantic restaurants, but also somewhere with a lovely bar that a solo person could go sit at and get a drink.”

The guidebook could get into the nitty-gritty of the neighborhood, Knight says. Where do locals go and what do they do? Perhaps hosts can even entice solo travelers by having a welcome basket with items from the neighborhood—coffee, treats, and other items to connect them with the local area.

“Connect them so they can kind of jump start simulating being a local there,” Knight says. “Because if you are doing a short-term stay, part of that is that you want to cook your own meals. You want to know where the grocery stores are and maybe even have reusable totes from that store. That can make them feel like they’ve already got a life that they’re transplanting into.”

Modernize and Localize Properties

At Whimstay, Alioto says that they work under the assumption that most solo travelers are digital nomads, working remotely as they travel. This makes it imperative for vacation rental managers to ensure that properties are modernized with good Wi-Fi, office space, and a place that feels both like home and a property that’s part of the local area.

When Knight looks for a property to stay in a new city, she wants a place where she can form an emotional connection. “I’m not going stay in some small, sterile apartment for four nights,” Knight says. “That’s boring to me and feels disconnected, like a hotel.”

Vacation rental managers should work to ensure that their properties feel interesting and lively. If it’s an apartment in Paris, Knight says she’d rather see local character features of the city rather than furniture that clearly came from IKEA.

“Sometimes, trying to appeal to everyone with a sterile style actually appeals to nobody,” Knight says. “It needs to have charm.”

Improve Marketing and Data Capabilities

One of the best opportunities for vacation rental managers to improve their solo traveler base is through improving their marketing and data capabilities.

Property management systems do have fields for group size, Brown says, but most managers don’t fill in that field. “It’s a tricky thing, because a lot of times it’s one person booking your rental, and you don’t necessarily know how many people they will have,” Brown says. “But I’d encourage property managers to start thinking about how to better collect that data for themselves so they can see how it grows and changes over time.”

When property managers have a better incoming data stream, Brown says that they should work to understand what group size they want to attract to each property type. Most know intuitively that two-bedroom properties are for small groups or couples, houses are for larger groups, and one-bedrooms are for solo travelers. But Brown says that truly knowing the dominant group sizes via data can help better understand their properties are what guests are looking for during their stay.

For long-term marketing to solo travelers, Brown says that search engine optimization (SEO) is a big opportunity to appeal to solo travelers. This might mean creating landing pages featuring properties that would work well for solo travelers, as one of her clients in Colorado has been doing, or pages dedicated to what activities solo travelers can do in a particular area.

Influencers may be a powerful marketing tool to appeal to solo travelers, Alioto says, as data from Whimstay shows that 81% of solo Gen Z women travelers have been influenced by the travel of others, whether that be historical figures or social media influencers.

“I think that influencers are going to be an essential part of how people travel, get their referrals, and make their decisions for moving forward,” Alioto says.

Highlight Positive Guest Reviews

Perhaps more powerful than marketing and influencers are positive reviews from other solo travelers. According to Knight, reviews give solo travelers an idea of what to expect on their stay, especially when there are many positive reviews and guest-taken pictures.

“I look at their photos and I can get a better idea of the place than when I see professional shots,” Knight says. “I try to let our clients feel good about using user-generated content to guide them. Reviews are a huge deal.”

If the reviews of other solo travelers talk about how relaxed and safe they felt at the property, Knight says that it’s a good idea to highlight those reviews in the listing to broadcast the safety of the property.

Reviews are also a powerful tool for gathering feedback from travelers, Brown says, such as what went wrong or went awry during their stay. Property managers should encourage guests to leave feedback, even if it isn’t all positive. But feedback is only a powerful tool if vacation rental managers use it to fix the problems guests encountered.

“It’s an end-to-end process, because by the time you’re getting a bad review, the expectations were set wrong from the listing and from the booking experience,” Brown says. When that happens, she says that property managers should look at how they represented the property, what the guest’s experience and complaints were, and how they can better align the experience for the next guests.

The Future of Solo Travel

One big reason solo travel has been growing, Brown says, is the experience people gain while traveling alone.

“The experience is something that everybody has called out since COVID,” Brown says. “Credit card companies and hotel chains advertise it now— everybody knows that people are seeking experiences. So, how do property managers give that experience to solo travelers?”

One important part of the solo traveler experience is flexibility. To appeal to solo travelers, Alioto says that property managers should consider offering last-minute deals or bargains for a shorter stay. Alioto built his business based on the expiring inventory model, such as Nordstrom Rack or Priceline for hotels. That isn’t common in the vacation rental industry, he says, but it’s something that he’s seen win over solo travelers at Whimstay.

“Make sure you’ve got a last-minute strategy,” Alioto says. “What our solo travelers are doing is, without any intention to travel, looking at our site on a Wednesday, seeing a trip that’s a good value, and saying, ‘OK, now I’m going.’”

The stigma is gone from solo travel, Knight says, and the process of leaving home for somewhere else is much easier. When Knight used to live internationally, some people would look at her like she was traveling to the moon. Now, it’s not such a big deal. The modern traveler’s curiosity for traveling solo and seeing the world has been piqued by social media, she says, and people want to spend their money to have the experience of traveling solo.

“I think solo travel is going to continue to grow,” Knight says. “It’s more of a priority now than a generation or two generations back. The culture shifted, and I think that people are going to seek out those opportunities to be more connected to the people they care about and the world they want access to.”

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