Ladies, I have a very important question for you. When was the last time you went on vacation where you weren’t responsible for anybody else’s happiness? No husband asking where his sunglasses are, no kids complaining that they’re hungry 14 minutes after breakfast, and absolutely nobody standing in the middle of a beautiful European city asking, “Can I have McDonald’s?” I’m talking about a vacation where your biggest responsibility is deciding whether you’re having a margarita, a mojito or a mimosa. And the correct answer is yes, all of them!
Girls’ trips are one of my absolute favorite kinds of travel. There is something magical about getting your favorite women together, packing entirely way too many shoes and leaving your everyday responsibilities behind. A girls’ trip is not just a vacation. It’s therapy, it’s friendship building, it’s an emotional support vacation with cocktails. And depending on which friends you invite, it may also require a signed confidentiality agreement.
Every Girls’ Trip Has Its Characters
You know what I’m talking about. There’s the planner, with the spreadsheet, the dinner reservations and everyone’s confirmations. That’s totally me, by the way. I’m the one who always plans trips for my girlfriends. I love them to death, but in my group, if I don’t make it happen, it doesn’t happen. I’ll throw out an idea, everyone says it’s a great idea, and that’s all I hear. So I guess it’s on me! (Since I plan vacations for a living, I could happily sit back and follow someone else for once. That’s very rare.)
There’s the overpacker, who’s going away for four days and has packed enough clothes to survive three seasons and a royal wedding. Also me. There’s the one who announces she’s going to bed early. Mine happens to be my best friend, and we are completely opposite, which is hysterical. She does the Irish exit at like 7 p.m., and I’m usually the one dancing on tables at midnight. And then there’s the friend who says she’s just going to have one drink. Famous last words.
But here’s the beautiful thing about a girls’ trip: it isn’t really about the destination. A great destination will always enhance the experience, but it’s about the people you’re experiencing it with.
Why Every Woman Needs a Girls’ Trip
Men, if you’re reading, this is why your lady needs a girls’ trip. Women are really good at taking care of other people. We’re so busy planning parties, managing schedules, taking kids to and fro, making lunches and celebrating everybody else’s stuff that we forget about ourselves. But when it comes to doing something for ourselves, suddenly we’re experts at making excuses. I can’t leave the kids. Work is crazy. Maybe next year. Ladies, next year has been getting an awful lot of promises. Sometimes you need to stop waiting for the perfect moment and just book the trip.
As a travel advisor and the owner of Fabulous Adventures Travel, I travel a ton, an absolute ton. But my favorite trips are the ones with my girlfriends, because of all the chatting, laughter, shenanigans and memories. You just can’t get those moments with anyone other than your girlfriends. And nobody’s asking you what’s for dinner (unless it’s the friend who insists on knowing where you’re eating six hours before mealtime. We all have one of those).
Girls’ trips aren’t just for your college friends or your lifelong besties, either. Look at your sisters, your mother, your daughters, your cousins, your coworkers, your neighbors and women you’ve met through shared experiences. Some of the best friendships begin when people travel together, and you find out a lot about people when they travel. You might arrive as acquaintances, but by the time you leave, you’ve done all the things together, and there’s something special about those memories.
Ten years from now, you won’t remember what you ordered for dinner. But you’ll absolutely remember when your friend got on the wrong tour bus in Italy. On our girls’ trip to Nashville, I signed everybody up for a line-dancing class. I am a dancer, so I was howling while my friends bumped into me and went the wrong way. I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so hard. Those are the moments worth making.
And you don’t need a special occasion. You don’t need a birthday, a divorce or someone getting married, although let’s be clear, all three of those are excellent reasons. Sometimes the reason is simply that you miss your friends, and that is reason enough. Just take the trip. (I’m going to keep saying that.)
The Best Girls’ Trip Destinations
Not all girls’ trips are created equal. Some groups want shopping and sightseeing, some want luxury spas and five-star restaurants, and some want to dance until two in the morning and spend the next day recovering at the pool. (That would be me.) No judgment. There’s a destination for all of you.
Nashville, Tennessee: The Classic Girls’ Trip
If cowboy boots, country music, rooftop bars and questionable dancing sound like your kind of weekend, Nashville is for you. We spent a day shopping in 12 South, and it was phenomenal. You can even design your own custom hat there. (We didn’t, but we saw it.) For brunch, we did the Girls Just Want to Have Fun brunch at Hampton Social, where there’s a massive DJ playing music as loud as can be, and you sing at the top of your lungs and dance. You can’t have any more fun than that.
Broadway is not for the faint of heart. You might arrive wearing cute little boots and leave wondering why your feet have filed a formal complaint, because Broadway is nonstop bars, music and dancing. It is so much fun. My tip: don’t spend the entire trip there. Do some TikTok looking for restaurants (I know I always tell you not to), take an Uber off the beaten path, explore the neighborhoods, book a memorable dinner and give yourself some time to discover the city behind the honky-tonks. There’s really good food in Nashville. My full Nashville travel guide has where we ate and stayed.
Broadway, Nashville: nonstop bars, music and dancing.
Charleston, South Carolina: Southern Charm With a Side of Champagne
Charleston is perfect for the group that loves beautiful hotels, amazing restaurants, shopping and a little Southern sophistication. Picture yourselves wandering down cobblestone streets, taking photos in front of pastel-colored houses and stopping for rooftop cocktails. You can book a harbor cruise, explore the historic district or spend an afternoon at the beach. It’s super classy and super charming, and it’s the kind of place where you wear a cute sundress every day and call it a vacation wardrobe.
Scottsdale, Arizona: For the Spa Girls
This one is for the spa girls, the ones who just want to chill and have nobody speak to them. If your group needs some serious relaxation (and let’s be honest, ladies, we all do, with a side of shenanigans), Scottsdale is fabulous. Think luxury resorts, beautiful desert scenery, incredible spas and poolside cabanas. Start your morning with yoga, spend the afternoon at the spa and finish with an incredible dinner. Or skip yoga. My best friend would be very angry if that happened, but I won’t tell anyone. Scottsdale is particularly great for groups that want to feel pampered without having to plan 100 activities.
Paris, France: For the Fabulous and Slightly Extra
This one’s across the pond, and it’s for the fabulous and slightly extra, which would be me. Imagine sitting at a little Parisian cafe with a fresh croissant on the table and the Eiffel Tower in the distance, surrounded by your favorite gal pals. Does life get much better than that? Paris is wonderful for shopping, museums, food, tours, champagne tastings and simply wandering through the beautiful neighborhoods.
One of my favorite things to do in Paris is a private Seine river cruise. Imagine your girlfriends together on a boat, cruising past the Eiffel Tower as the city lights come on, with champagne and some cheese and crackers. That is a true girls’ moment. My Paris travel guide has more ideas.
The Caribbean: Sun, Sand and Absolutely No Responsibilities
If your idea of the perfect girls’ trip involves turquoise water, warm sunshine and someone bringing you your favorite drink, the Caribbean is calling. Aruba, Turks and Caicos, Jamaica and the Dominican Republic can all make fantastic girls’ trips. All-inclusive resorts are especially popular because they’re so easy: everybody’s right there in one place, everything’s paid for, everybody knows how much it’s going to cost, and you can relax by the pool or the beach. (Choosing an island? Here are the Caribbean islands I’d book instead of the obvious ones.)
Why a Cruise Might Be the Ultimate Girls’ Trip
A land trip is great, but that brings me to my favorite way to do a girls’ trip: cruising. You only have to unpack once. You and your girlfriend get your shenanigan cabin, and you visit multiple destinations. The restaurants, the entertainment, the pools and the bars are all right there on the ship, and nobody has to volunteer to be the designated driver. That’s perfection.
But here’s what I love most about cruising with a group of women: you can travel together without having to do everything together.
Girls Gone Cruisin’: together, but never required to do everything together.
How Girls Gone Cruisin’ Started
A few years ago, we were planning a yoga retreat for my best friend, and it didn’t go through, for many reasons. But we had some extra cabins, so I started asking my girls if they wanted to come on the cruise, because I had a smoking deal for them. And I did have a smoking deal! We ended up with about 20 women that first time, and I decided we were going to give this a name. We called it Girls Gone Cruisin’, because hey, why not? It’s about shenanigans and the fun and everything else we’ve talked about.
Here’s how we do things on Girls Gone Cruisin’. We make a schedule and share the itinerary, and you join or don’t join. We don’t care. It’s your money; you paid to get on the ship. Want to sit in the hammock on your balcony the whole time? (We sail Virgin Voyages, so yes, there’s a hammock.) Sit in your hammock the whole time. We will miss you, that’s for sure. But there are always options: go to the gym with a bunch of us, join a yoga class or a painting class, or come have drinks with us at cocktail hour in our cabin. It’s a you-do-you trip, and it’s brilliant.
Good to know (checked October 2026): on Virgin Voyages, the balcony hammock comes with Sea Terrace cabins, Virgin’s balcony category. Insider and Seaview cabins don’t have a balcony, so no hammock. Ask us which cabin fits your crew.
On one of our Girls Gone Cruisin’ sailings, we went to Grand Turk, we had a catamaran, we did painting and we had a private show with a magician. It was so much fun.
Coming Solo or Bringing Your Crew
If you’re solo and you want a girls’ trip but don’t have anyone to go with, call us. Fabulous Adventures Travel will help get you on Girls Gone Cruisin’. And if you do have someone, bring her! A small group, a big group, I don’t care. You all go together, and you don’t have to do the work, because we’ve already figured it out for you. Have your own little pod or join ours. Our big pod, I should say, because there’s a lot of us. See the next Girls Gone Cruisin’ sailing.
Come solo or bring your crew. Either way, you’re part of ours.
My 5 Rules for Planning the Perfect Girls’ Trip
I have planned enough girls’ trips to know that the difference between a fabulous girls’ getaway and a group chat disaster usually comes down to a few simple things.
1. Talk About the Budget Before You Talk About the Destination
This is a big one. One friend’s idea of a girls’ trip may be a luxury resort with private cabanas and champagne service, and another friend’s idea might be splitting a hotel room four ways and bringing snacks from home. Neither is wrong, but you need to know that before you start planning. And don’t just talk about the price of the hotel or the cruise. Talk about the entire trip: flights, meals, activities, excursions and spending money. Nobody wants to spend their vacation quietly panicking every time the dinner bill arrives. Budget, budget, budget. 1,000%.
2. Don’t Try to Do Everything Together
It is so good to have your girls around you, but have some me time too. Find your quiet moments, because as women, we do not get quiet time often. This isn’t the buddy system. Put your earbuds in and tell everybody, don’t talk to me. (That’s what I try to tell people, but it never works, because when you’re running the girls’ cruise, everyone talks to you. I need a vacation from my girls’ trip.)
3. Don’t Overschedule
You don’t need a color-coded itinerary that begins at 6:15 in the morning. If all of a sudden everyone’s exhausted and wants to sleep in and miss breakfast, awesome. Maybe three people go to breakfast, or one. I don’t get upset about that, and you shouldn’t either. Go with the flow. This is your me time and your time with your girlfriends.
4. Be Careful About Room Assignments
Oh, this one’s big. Really, really big. Being best friends doesn’t necessarily make you compatible roommates. Does she snore? Does she set seven alarms? Does she need complete darkness to sleep? Does she spend two hours in the bathroom getting ready? These are important questions, ladies. You probably know some of the answers going in, but you need to know them before you’re sharing a cabin on a ship. Decide amongst yourselves who works best with whom.
5. Pick the Right People
This is the secret ingredient. The perfect girls’ trip isn’t about bringing the most people. It’s not a fourth-grade field trip. It’s about the right people: the friends you can laugh with when you don’t do things perfectly, the ones who are happy to try something new, the ones who don’t let a delayed flight ruin the entire vacation. Because here’s the truth about travel. Things happen. Flights get delayed, weather changes, reservations go wrong. But when you’re traveling with the right group of people, those little mishaps turn into funny stories at a bar.
What’s Worth the Splurge
I’m a big believer that you don’t have to spend a fortune on every part of your vacation, but choose one experience that makes the trip unforgettable. Maybe that’s a private boat charter in the Caribbean. A private boat charter, wherever you are, is one of my favorite ways to spend money. Anything private, splurge on it, because that is where you’re going to get your money’s worth. Picture your girlfriends on a beautiful boat cruising through turquoise water, music playing, sunshine everywhere. Or maybe it’s a private cooking class in Italy, a private spa day or a private driver for your group.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve looked for a spa that will shut down just for my girls. That is a hard find, because a lot of places won’t, but sometimes there’s a way to have just your little group moving through the spa. My philosophy is simple: spend your money on the things that are going to be worthwhile and memorable, that one experience where you all agree it was worth every extra penny. This is where a good travel advisor comes in, because we know the little extras in each city, the private things, that make a trip.
How to Get a Group Trip Off the Ground
I get asked this all the time: I want to plan a group trip, but I don’t really know how to start. Every time I mention it, everyone says it sounds great, and then when I ask where they want to go, it’s crickets. Whether it’s a girls’ trip, a birthday, an anniversary or a reunion, my answer is the same. Pick the date. You can put a poll out there asking what dates or what time of year works for everybody, but once you pick that date, the ball gets rolling. Someone has to make that decision. (I’m always that person.) Then see who comes. Hopefully everybody does, but if they don’t, you’ve still got a solid plan, and you keep pushing it until everyone decides to go.
And if you’re struggling to get everyone organized, that’s what we do at Fabulous Adventures Travel. Group trips are one of our favorite things: Girls Gone Cruisin’ every year, birthdays, radio cruises, holiday cruises, and group trips that aren’t cruises at all.
When Did You Last Make a New Memory?
Think about your favorite memories with your girlfriends: the ones that still make you laugh, the stories that come up every time you’re together, the pictures you look at and think, oh my gosh, remember that? Now ask yourself something. When was the last time you made a new one? Life gets busy. People move away, careers get demanding, families grow. Don’t let it turn into months and years. Take the trip.
If you’d like help planning it, my team at Fabulous Adventures Travel would love to plan your girls’ trip, or any trip at all. And I can’t wait to hear all the stories. Want the whole conversation? Watch the girls’ trip episode.
