2022 is predicted to be the year of solo travel. Are you thinking about venturing out on your own to spread your wings and discover new destinations, yet don’t want to be alone? Well, Luxury Gold has the answer.

Travel with us and get the best of both worlds on a luxury guided tour. Relish the freedom associated with solo travel mixed with dynamic group camaraderie, and enjoy an unforgettable journey with like-minded travelers.

According to a recent survey conducted by solotravelerworld.com, 2022 is the year for solo travel with the top reason being the urge to explore the world without having to wait for others. If you are feeling like the folks surveyed and are keen to tick destinations off your bucket list but can’t find anyone who wants to visit the same places, then read on, and follow our continuing blog series, to discover the benefits of solo travel and great reasons to travel solo with Luxury Gold.

Why travel solo with Luxury Gold?

Tick destinations off your bucket list

Are you dreaming of visiting Italy, Egypt or Ireland? Or other amazing worldwide destinations? We all have places that we yearn to see but have not because we cannot find someone to go with – or cannot find a suitable time for everyone. Also, in recent years we have not had the freedom and our bucket lists have grown! Now you are ready to get back out, so why wait any longer? With Luxury Gold you have a fantastic range of destinations and dates to choose from.

Choose to do what suits your mood

Going solo in a group tour means getting the perfect mix of situations to suit your mood. Perhaps one day you are feeling gregarious and want to wander with the crowds; have a drink, dinner and a laugh. But another time you might want to sink into the background and have some down time to yourself. As a solo traveler on a group tour, you can have the best of both worlds.

Discover a sense of self

Solo travel is good for the soul. Whether you are an experienced independent traveler, or a first time solo-er, the feelings of freedom and independence from going it alone are exciting and empowering.

Meet new people

Traveling on your own is a fantastic way to meet new people. Away from the bubble of friends and family, the opportunities for connections are enhanced on a luxury guided tour. For meeting like-minded travelers, solo travel in a group is great. Statistically, you are likely to meet some like-minded folks in any crowd, but when that crowd consists of people who have all opted to book the same tour as you, chances are you are going to have quite a bit in common.

Security in a guided tour

With everything taken care of, you can just relax and enjoy yourself, knowing all the details are covered. You will stay in luxurious hotels in great locations, meaning the sights are on your doorstep to explore easily, whenever you want. You’ll also experience exquisite dining, with lots of variety and choice. The security of a guided tour allows you to do what you want while knowing there are people looking out for you.

Small Group Sizes

A lot of would-be solo-ers are unnerved by visions of themselves amidst large families, rowdy groups and canoodling couples, but Luxury Gold is practiced at curating its groups to make sure everybody is a good fit. You will always travel in a small group of about 20 guests on average, so you can experience the comforts of a guided tour without being overwhelmed by crowds.

Great for Women Travelers

84% of solo travelers are women according to the survey. Group travel is the perfect option for solo travel for women. Experience all of the freedom, whilst feeling safe and secure, and enjoy meeting the fellow female travelers amongst your group.

A Personal Service

With Luxury Gold you have your Traveling Concierge and Well-Being Director with you on every tour. Hugely experienced and exceptionally friendly, they take time to get to know the needs and wants of every traveler, so you’ll get personal attention and a personalized experience.

Travel consciously and sustainably

According to the survey, 37% of solo travelers want to travel sustainably. We are proud to include MAKE TRAVEL MATTER® Experiences on all of our luxury guided tours. From the preservation of traditional arts to sustainable farming, community initiatives and cooking classes, we guarantee your visit will leave a positive and lasting impact and create unforgettable memories.

So, if you are now inspired to spread your wings and travel solo within a Luxury Gold group, visit our website for more details.

At Luxury Gold Vacations, along with all our sister brands in The Travel Corporation, we passionately believe in making travel a force for good – for people, wildlife and the planet. Through the TreadRight Foundation we support projects across the globe, including the innovative regenerative ocean farming project, GreenWave.

In honor of World Food Day 2021, we spoke with GreenWave about the systems of sustainable food production the project creates, who they benefit, and how we can all support sustainable farming on a day-to-day basis.

An introduction to GreenWave

In 2021, TreadRight invested in GreenWave as part of point 3 of The Travel Corporation’s Climate Action Plan: to invest in new technologies and nature-based solutions to remove excess carbon from our atmosphere.

While there have been many attempts to increase soil’s ability to store carbon, (known as soil organic carbon), one unintended effect is the release of nitrous oxide, (N2O), a greenhouse gas that is 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide. The largest contributor of the steadily increasing N2O into our atmosphere is agriculture. Nitrous oxide is a by-product from the use of nitrogen, largely used in farming as a fertilizer.

Bren harvesting kelp

The use of kelp as a soil additive is emerging as a tool to reduce nitrous oxide emissions and create a net climate benefit. GreenWave is a regenerative ocean farming organization studying how kelp can be added to soil to increase its carbon storage potential while decreasing harmful nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions from regenerative land farms.

By its very nature, GreenWave is tackling more than just carbon removal and demonstrating the many benefits to nature-based carbon solutions.

What does sustainable food production mean to GreenWave?

We have to think beyond relying on mother nature and focus on how farmers can grow crops that actively breathe life back into our ecosystems, so we can all make a living on a living planet. We must protect ecosystems because there are no jobs and no food on a dead planet. For GreenWave, sustainable food production means growing what is regenerative – not simply what consumers demand, collaborating and building circular economies and business models, and investing in the regenerative economy so small- and medium-sized farms and businesses can succeed.

How does your organization contribute to or enhance sustainable food production?

Kelp line

GreenWave’s polyculture farming system (the simultaneous farming of multiple kinds of crops) grows a mix of seaweeds and shellfish that require zero inputs — no fresh water, fertilizer, feed, or land — while sequestering carbon and rebuilding marine ecosystems. These crops grow with no input, simply by soaking up nutrients in the ocean, making it the most sustainable form of food production on the planet. Since our farms sit vertically below the surface, they produce high yields within a small footprint.

As a nonprofit, GreenWave’s 10-year goal is to provide training, tools, and support to a baseline of 10,000 regenerative ocean farmers to catalyze the planting of 1 million acres and yield meaningful economic and climate impacts.

How can everyday citizens do their part to support sustainable food production?

• Eat and cook more seaweed and bivalves such as clams, mussels, scallops and oysters. Get creative, invent new dishes that center these climate-positive crops. Every meal you cook increases demand for these ingredients and supports regenerative ocean farmers.
• Use seaweed and shellfish-based products to fertilize your garden. Try using seaweed fertilizers to lessen the impact of your garden. Your plants will love it.
• Support GreenWave and other organizations working towards sustainable food systems and resilient coastal communities.

What are your thoughts on sustainable food production and its role in fighting the climate crisis?

There is tremendous potential to mitigate climate change and feed the planet by moving towards replicable and scalable climate-positive food production models.

The regenerative ocean farming model works to mimic the diversity of ocean reefs by growing a mix of species that act in concert to revive ecosystems. Each crop plays a vital role. For example, it takes just 0.6 kilograms of carbon to grow one kilogram of mussels — that’s an even smaller carbon footprint than lentils! Farming seaweed in less than 0.1% of the world’s oceans could sequester the carbon equivalent of 20 million cars and produce the protein equivalent of 3 trillion cheeseburgers. Leveraging the environmental benefits of seaweed and shellfish, we can turn these farms into a climate solution powerhouse and stack benefits by growing seaweed and shellfish together while growing food for local communities.

How does sustainable food production also support healthy communities?

Bren cranking up the kelp line

Because the regenerative ocean farming industry is in its infancy, we have the chance to do this right — to create a future where climate resilience and equity drive decision-making in the new blue-green economy at sea. We can build a food system from the bottom up, ensuring that we focus on polyculture rather than monoculture, that we don’t privatize our seeds, and that under-resourced families can begin farms. As the emerging regenerative ocean farming industry matures, GreenWave’s goal is to ensure that fishermen and Indigenous communities directly affected by climate change benefit from the industry’s growth and have pathways to become leaders in the field.

If there’s one takeaway you want to leave your reader with, what would that be?

There is an alternative route, both for our oceans and for our economy as a whole. We can farm to restore, not deplete, while creating soul-filling jobs for millions of people, breathing life back into our oceans, and exploring the uncharted world of underwater tastes.

If you are interested to read more about the exciting work of TreadRight and GreenWave, click through and take a look at their websites.

As the CEO of Insight Vacations and Luxury Gold I am so pleased to announce that we have created the position of Sustainability Officer. This is a big step for us and goes to solidify our commitment to our HWTR strategy implementation over the coming years. I am so proud of the work that has already been done. Travel can and should be a force for good and as such we are formalising the role of Sustainability Officer to spearhead our efforts.

Valerie Furphy – Sustainability Officer Insight Vacations and Luxury Gold 

I started out my career as a nurse because fundamentally I am a carer. Through my work post-Masters in Public Policy with development agencies, it became clear that to raise populations out of poverty and develop in-country capacity sustainably, one had to think more broadly than focusing solely on humans.

This questioning sparked a passion for sustainability in me and it is one that I try and live by daily. I am delighted to be the Sustainability Officer for Insight Vacations and Luxury Gold because I am 100% supported in implementing our How We Tread Right Strategy (HWTR) by our CEO Ulla Hefel Böhler. I remember some years ago, I suggested that we swap the materials we use for our on-trip collateral to recycled materials, and where that wasn’t yet possible we offset the carbon used in production. Not only did Ulla say yes, but she didn’t need much convincing!

At Insight Vacations and Luxury Gold we understand that the Travel and Tourism sector is a powerhouse of global economy and a crucial part of community development and success. We are deeply committed to advancing the United Nations SDGs through our MAKE TRAVEL MATTER® Experiences because we believe travel can – and must – be a force for good. We have been in business over 100 years and it is our mission to continue that legacy. The only way we can continue to take guests on vacations that delight and inspire is to protect the people, places, and wildlife we visit.

Two years ago, we were the first brands at The Travel Corporation (TTC) to launch a ‘Global Volunteering Day’, a day when as many of our global team as possible come together to give back to the communities where we live and travel. On our inaugural Global Volunteering Day, we logged over 1,000 volunteer hours, supported grassroots organisations and connected with each other and our communities. It was a resounding success that we were ready to surpass in 2020, but unfortunately the Covid 19 pandemic had other plans for us. That said, I think the ongoing constraints of the pandemic highlight that our journey is a marathon and not a sprint. This year we’ve adapted our efforts and have logged many hours of volunteering under challenging circumstances in support of our HWTR Goal #10, to complete 30,000 volunteer hours by 2025 across all TTC brands.

Our commitment to our HWTR strategy is profound and its implementation will take dedication, perseverance, and innovation. Our culture of continuous improvement is the ideal environment in which to grow. I’m excited for what is ahead!