The Story Begins With a Room for One
The story begins with a simple case for going alone. Condé Nast Traveler opened its guide to the top United States destinations for women traveling on their own with the argument that every decision on the road belongs to you: the hotel, the dinner order, whether the afternoon goes to a museum or the outdoors, and when to call it a night. Published in May 2025, the guide rolls out fourteen destinations picked by the magazine’s editors and trusted contributors, each entry carrying picks for staying, eating and exploring, in alphabetical order.
At its heart is a claim Savannah, Georgia, was picked to embody. The best spots for a woman on her own make freedom feel easy, welcoming enough to settle into and interesting enough to keep curiosity fed, with plenty of reasons to leave the hotel. The magazine’s introduction points to Savannah’s squares, draped in hanging moss, as a signature American solo experience, alongside Nantucket’s bike lanes, Palm Springs’s colorful midcentury architecture and the mountain towns of Wyoming or Montana.
Fourteen Names, One Georgia City
Savannah closes the alphabetical roster. The full list runs from Big Sky, Montana, through Boston, Carlsbad, Cody, Johns Island, Key West, Kingston, Litchfield, Miami, Nantucket, Nashville, North Fork and Palm Springs, ending in Georgia. Alongside the city names, the introduction floats a few other solo images: a cocktail at the bar in Carlsbad, a guided Joshua Tree hike, or a Kingston weekend built on galleries and good food.
What the Guide Promises
Each destination pairs a first-person contributor account with lodging picks. In Big Sky, Jessica Chapel writes of Cowgirl Up Week, the September gathering at Lone Mountain Ranch that draws women from around the world for horseback rides, a guided Yellowstone excursion and an end-of-season rodeo; her group keeps a chat called “Cowgirls Forever,” filled with travelers from Florida to Connecticut, ranch-owning local women and new mothers. Boston’s entry, by Kat Chen, remembers a houseboat Airbnb in the Charlestown marina and a city walkable enough to cover Cambridge on foot. Cody’s, from Londoner Charley Ward, praises a town founded by Buffalo Bill where most attractions sit within a 10-minute stroll and the Buffalo Bill Center of the West is vast enough that one ticket covers two consecutive days.
Johns Island, forty minutes outside Charleston, gets a resort profile: The Dunlin, with 72 cottage-style rooms across 2,000 acres and 20 miles of waterfront hiking trails, in a setting the entry calls the second most bioactive habitat on earth after the Amazon. Kingston’s contributor notes a rainbow crosswalk near the main street and how safe and queer-friendly the Hudson Valley town felt.
Why It Matters for Trip Planners
For those involved, the stakes are practical. A woman traveling alone weighs walkability, a friendly bar stool and a square to wander at dusk before she books anything, and the guide is built around exactly those judgments. Its concrete takeaway: fourteen named destinations, one Georgia city among them, each published in May 2025 with specific places to stay, eat and explore attached.
