Meet Doni Belau, a renowned award-winning travel expert and founder of Girls’ Guide to the World (GG2W).
Doni has dedicated her career to empowering women through transformative journeys celebrating authentic cultural immersion, safety, and sisterhood. With over 45 countries represented in the GG2W portfolio, Doni and her team curate intimate, upscale group tours that take travelers off the beaten path and into the heart of local traditions and culture.
We had the opportunity to connect with Doni, and she shared her insights on the emerging trends in women’s solo travel, offered valuable tips and hacks for solo women travelers, and delved into the profound benefits and enrichment that solo travel can bring.
Check out our interview with Doni Belau below.
What inspired you to start Girls’ Guide to the World and focus on creating travel experiences specifically for women?
Doni Belau: I had been working in politics on some high-profile political campaigns and with not-for-profits, including an NGO in South Africa I co-founded supporting kids with HIV. It was exciting, rewarding work, but every day was a battle. The part of me that appreciated beauty and loved exploring new places was unfulfilled.
So, I set my mind to figuring out how to create a job out of what I loved. I’ve always loved travel – discovering new cultures and meeting people with different life experiences than my own. I’ve also always been passionate about connecting and empowering women. With the help of an amazing life coach, I decided to unite my wanderlust and desire to bring women together into a travel company for women.
Can you walk us through how you started GG2W and how you began expanding to more countries?
Doni Belau: I started with what I knew and loved, which was Paris. Girls’ Guide began as an insider’s guide to Paris, but I found that to be incredibly difficult to monetize. So, I pivoted to organizing girls’ trips to Paris. Those were successful, so I expanded to other parts of France. Along the way, I realized what was special about the trips wasn’t necessarily the beautiful places we visited. That was a part of it for sure, but the real magic was the camaraderie and connection that developed between the women on the trip.
So we started offering trips to destinations outside France where I had some experience, like Bali and the great gardens in England. Flash forward to today, and we’re offering 65+ trips a year to more than 40 countries around the world. Even though we’re a lot larger now with a whole team of people curating, organizing, and leading trips, the trips feel very similar to the first one I did in Paris.
What were the biggest challenges you faced at the beginning of GG2W, and how did you overcome them?
Doni Belau: It was difficult to have the objectivity to realize that my initial idea of an insider’s guide to Paris was not going to be economically viable. As a business founder, you have a “never give up, solve any problem” mentality. But you also need the humility and big-picture objectivity to realize when you’re on a path that’s unlikely to succeed. In hindsight, that took me longer than it probably should have.
Then, when we were just beginning to hit our stride with our women-only trips, the Covid pandemic shut everything down. That was incredibly challenging. No one knew how long it would last. And then, when travel started to be possible again, there were complex procedures to follow; every country had different rules and regulations. Some customers wanted to travel again the moment they could, but others were more cautious.
It was a real test of patience. But we tried to make good use of the downtime by getting super organized and ready to handle a wave of new opportunity once the world re-opened. We re-designed our website, put in place a more sophisticated CRM and finance system, and did some big-picture thinking about how we communicate our values to our customers.
How has the women’s solo travel landscape evolved since you founded GG2W, and what are some emerging trends you’re seeing in this space?
Doni Belau: When we started, there weren’t really any women-only travel companies that offered more than a few trips a year. It was viewed as a niche business. However, women make 80% of the travel decisions, and over 50% of all adult women in the US are single. So there’s tremendous latent demand for great travel products that meets the needs of women.
Today, a lot of companies are starting to create women-only travel offerings. The big tour companies are discovering that it’s not as simple as just copying an existing tour and saying “This one is for women”. Women want different experiences and activities, they like different kinds of hotels, and they relate differently with one another and the people they meet while traveling. Quite frankly, they deserve a product designed with them in mind by one of their own.
I think it’s a case of “if you build it, they will come.”
What are some of the unique benefits and transformative experiences that women can gain from traveling in small, curated groups versus solo or larger tour groups?
Doni Belau: Traveling with a small group of women is a completely different experience than going by yourself, with your family, or on a large packaged group trip. Women are supportive of one another and are open to sharing their life experiences with other women in a more honest and vulnerable way than they might in a group of couples. This leads to creating a meaningful connection and lasting friendships with one another. Most of us have been on a girls’ night out or a girls’ weekend away. We know how much fun those are. This is really just an extension of that idea.
For many women, their first trip with Girls’ Guide is their first time traveling alone. Realizing that your happiness and fulfillment aren’t dependent on the availability of other people can be an empowering experience.
Can you share a memorable story or two about the deep connections and lifelong friendships that have formed among your travelers on your trips?
Doni Belau: So many stories to tell, but this one stands out … On one of our trips to Paris, one of the women had lost her husband to a long illness only six weeks before the trip. She had gone back and forth about whether she should or wanted to come as planned and, at the last minute, decided to join us.
Of course, I was concerned about her emotional well-being, and that her understandable sadness might overshadow the trip for everyone else. What developed was one of the most profound experiences of my career that recalibrated how I think about what I do.
From the very beginning, the other women on the trip embraced her. I’ve found whenever a small group of women travel together, they bond quickly. But in this circumstance, everyone sensed that it was more important than simply becoming travel buddies. She needed to know she wasn’t alone.
When we entered Notre Dame Cathedral, she lit a candle for her husband and stood at the very back of the church looking in awe at the 800-year-old masterpiece where so many have stood and prayed over the centuries. Her tears began to flow. A group of us nearby went over to her and hugged her. The vulnerability that she displayed opened our hearts to her and each other. She said, “I know he’d have wanted me to be happy.” We all felt a larger perspective on what we were really doing that week in Paris.
For the rest of the trip, I noticed she found joy and beauty in everything she saw and experienced. It was as if she had a heightened sense of how precious each moment really was. Her outlook was infectious for the rest of us; everyone felt like we could see, hear, and taste more vividly.
It was one of the most profound experiences of my career, recalibrating how I think about what I do. The more we realize that our time on earth is fleeting, the more we can be present in the moment and grateful for it.
As an expert on France, what are some of your favorite hidden gems, local traditions, and cultural experiences that you incorporate into your France-focused tours?
Doni Belau: There are so many – I could write a book about it. In Paris, or better yet, in Grasse (where perfume was invented), you can sign up for a make-your-own perfume experience.
I also love the oysters in France. Visiting Cancale in Brittany or Arcachon in the Gironde and sampling oysters directly from the farmers is an experience you won’t soon forget.
Parisians have a tremendous appreciation for art. But you don’t need to fight through the crowds at the Louvre or Musee d’Orsay. Try one of the smaller museums like Le Musée de la Vie Romantique or the Bourse de Commerce.
The Nuit Blanche in Paris, a festival of arts and culture that stretches from 7pm to 7am on the first Saturday of every October is an extraordinary experience.
The Fête de la Musique is an annual music celebration that takes place on June 21 throughout the country. Everyone is encouraged to play music outside in their neighborhoods or in public spaces and parks. There are also free concerts where professional musicians play for fun.
What are some of the most common challenges or concerns you hear from women considering solo travel, and how do you address those in your tour offerings?
Doni Belau: It’s ironic that one of the most common concerns women have before traveling with us is the thing they end up liking most about our trips. That is, “Will I like being with the other women”? Perhaps we all carry a little trauma from looking for a spot to sit in the school cafeteria. The fact that most of the women on our trips are traveling solo is a big help; everyone’s in the same boat, and no one feels like the odd gal out. We usually have a chance to speak with everyone 1:1 before they book a trip and try to reinforce the idea that everyone else is pretty much just like you.
We also do a lot of training with our trip leaders to help arm them with tools to facilitate connection in the group. Simple things like making sure the same people don’t always sit together, as well as techniques to help the more introverted women have an opportunity to share their own stories – the idea is to bond with each person on the trip as well as within the group as a whole. This is a very powerful experience.
Helping facilitate connection between the women on our trips is a core value and is something we think and care about deeply.
Can you describe your personal travel philosophy and how that shapes the overall ethos and experience of a Girls’ Guide to the World trip?
Doni Belau: Being open to new people and experiences and not sweating the small stuff. If you join one if our trips (or any trip) with a “joie de vivre” and an open mind and heart, you will have a great time. We travel to celebrate the differences between our cultures, not wish everything could be like it is at home.
Before every trip, we have a Zoom video call so everyone can meet one another. I always ask the group, “Have you ever had a week in your life where every aspect of every day was perfect?” No-one has. So, we ask them not to stress out when the inevitable small hiccups occur. It’s our job to take care of it, and we will. Plus, I encourage all my clients to remember that we are some of the luckiest people on the planet and that we have the time and money to travel somewhere that we’ve always dreamed of.
What advice would you give to women who are apprehensive about taking the leap into solo travel for the first time?
Doni Belau: Just do it. It’s freeing and rewarding to do something slightly out of your comfort zone. This is how we stay alive and stay young. 95% of the women who take the leap absolutely LOVE it, and it can be life-changing for many.
In what ways do you see the women’s travel industry continuing to evolve and innovate in the coming years?
Doni Belau: I think there will continue to be more choice. Our trips are on the luxury end of the market and just aren’t affordable for everyone. I hope to see a day when most travel companies and cruise ships get rid of the single supplement. It’s so punishing for so many women who want to travel solo (and men).
Expecting women who are over 20 to share a room with a stranger also feels strange to me. Even sisters who are traveling together need their alone time. At Girls’ Guide, we strive to hire tour leaders who are older women with gravitas who have led a life and have worked on themselves so that they can be present and available for their clients. Other larger companies might cheap out and hire a young 20-something who hasn’t traveled much and expect her to conduct a tour in a very exotic place. I believe this is unfair to the young inexperienced trip leader as well as the clients.
I also prefer to support women-owned businesses that create products for women rather than male-led companies jumping on the bandwagon simply because it’s a fast-growing travel niche. Naturally, we women understand what women want. It’s also important on our trips to facilitate connections with other women in the countries we visit.
For example, we meet and have lunch with a woman in Marrakech who has started a not-for-profit helping divorced mothers get training in the hospitality industry as they are normally shunned by their community. Learning what is happening in the lives of women in other cultures makes us all feel more connected to one another and in turn supportive of women all over the world. I hope that other companies in this space hold some of these same values.
How do you and your team ensure the safety and security of your travelers, especially for women exploring destinations solo or in small groups?
Doni Belau: In general, we won’t travel anywhere that’s not safe. That said, certain places make much more sense to visit with a group rather than by yourself, especially as a woman. Sometimes this isn’t because the place is unsafe per se, but because there are cultural differences. Traveling in a small group like ours opens up a number of destinations you might feel comfortable visiting on your own.
While the safety of our guests is of paramount importance, it’s also important to not be governed by fear. For example, some people won’t go to Mexico because they think it’s “unsafe”. While there are definitely areas of Mexico that aren’t safe, there are many fantastic places that are actually safer than some US cities.
What has been the most rewarding aspect of building Girls’ Guide to the World and empowering women through transformative travel experiences?
Doni Belau: The incredible women I have gotten to meet. I feel like the luckiest woman on the planet because I get to travel to beautiful places and share the experience with so many interesting women who have so much to offer.
Lastly, is there a specific mantra, quote, or affirmation you hold close to your heart?
Doni Belau: “There is no way to happiness – happiness is the way” – Thich Nhat Hanh.
Learn more about Girls Guide to the World at https://www.girlsguidetotheworld.com/
Emily Sprinkle, also known as Emma Loggins, is a designer, marketer, blogger, and speaker. She is the Editor-In-Chief for Women's Business Daily where she pulls from her experience as the CEO and Director of Strategy for Excite Creative Studios, where she specializes in web development, UI/UX design, social media marketing, and overall strategy for her clients.
Emily has also written for CNN, Autotrader, The Guardian, and is also the Editor-In-Chief for the geek lifestyle site FanBolt.com
