Woman who prefers to travel solo without husband visits 47 countries in eight years to ‘collect as many experiences’ as she can

A woman who prefers to travel solo without her husband has visited 47 countries in the last eight years as she wants to “collect as many experiences” as she can.

Kiersten Drynan, 58, met her husband of 35 years, Jim 62, at church, before they settled down and had four children – Jake, 32, Paige, 29, Tate, 25 and Peyton, 23.

Having always loved travelling after visiting the UK as a teenager, Kiersten, who lives near Toronto, Canada, said she “just didn’t have the means” to embark on costly excursions while raising a family.

However, after spending a week in Paris with a friend in 2017, before jetting off on an organised group tour around Europe with her youngest daughter, Kiersten caught the travel bug and “loved every second”.

As her husband is more of a “homebody” and Kiersten opts for group tours which are “safe and family-orientated”, she said Jim was “totally fine” with her travelling solo – and he is her “biggest champion” for her adventures, which have taken her to Japan, Morocco, South Africa and Argentina, to name a few.

Kiersten, who retired from a 32-year career in teaching in 2022, currently works a few weeks a year as a supply teacher but uses the rest of her downtime to travel, and she hopes to cross off the rest of her bucket list in future.

“There’s a quote I really like to live by, which is ‘in a few years from now, you won’t remember how much it cost but you will remember how alive you felt’,” Kiersten told PA Real Life.

“For women like me, it’s definitely difficult to take the first step and there’s a lot of anxiety that comes with it – but I’m really glad I did it.

“If you’re too afraid to take that step, there’s so many memories that you’re never going to have.

“I’m just trying to collect as many experiences as I can.”

Kiersten said she “never had any money to travel” when she and her husband were raising their four children, and the family opted for excursions they could drive to, such as skiing holidays or camping trips.

“I went to England when I was 13 with my grandfather and it was so interesting,” Kiersten said.

“I always wanted to travel more, but I just didn’t have the means.”

In the summer of 2017, Kiersten said one of her friends took part in a study programme in Paris, and she was invited to stay with her for a week.

The trip then inspired Kiersten to take her youngest daughter, Peyton, on an organised group tour around Europe the following summer.

They visited 10 countries over the course of two weeks, and Kiersten said she “loved every second of it”.

“I liked it so much that I talked my husband into doing a UK and Ireland tour the next summer,” she said.

“I knew he didn’t love flying, but this time he also didn’t enjoy packing up every day and moving from place to place.”

During that trip in particular, Kiersten said her husband noticed the organised tour was “safe and family-orientated”, and single travellers were “welcomed” and “included”.

When Kiersten wanted to embark on another travelling tour, she said her husband was “totally fine” with her going alone.

“He likes to be at home looking after our children, even though they’re all grown up, but if anything comes up for them, making sure the lawn is mowed – he’s more of a homebody than me,” Kiersten said.

“I’m fully independent in what I do, and my husband is my biggest champion for that.

“He encourages me to go for it.”

Kiersten’s travel plans were temporarily scuppered by the Covid-19 pandemic, but in 2022 she could set off once more.

“I was retiring at the time so I said to my husband that I was thinking of putting two European tours back to back, so I would be gone for around 40 days,” she said.

“I was viewing it as a retirement gift to myself.

“My husband missed me, of course, but it was amazing – it lasted all of July and halfway into August.”

Kiersten has since embarked alone on “double-up tours” several times, and she has visited 47 countries since 2017, including Japan, Morocco, South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Argentina – as well as “some 40 European countries”.

“It’s hard to pick a favourite,” she said.

“In South Africa, I felt so alive out on safari, but in Morocco the people were so friendly.

“In Switzerland, you’re looking out at the most beautiful scenery but my heart loves London because I’ve been there many times.

“Paris is beautiful but the cherry blossoms in Japan were amazing.”

Along the way, Kiersten has gained a host of experiences, from tripping on some medieval steps in France and falling into a hot spring to accidentally upgrading to a luxury suite in Morocco with two bathrooms.

Recalling a “hilarious” moment from her adventures, Kiersten said she was “attacked” by a coati, a mammal which is a member of the raccoon family, in Argentina.

“I was just eating a popsicle and it wanted the popsicle – all of a sudden it started running towards me,” she recalled.

“A man started yelling at me in Portuguese or Spanish, I didn’t know what he was saying.

“Everything sort of went in slow motion and I screamed, jumped up and threw the popsicle at the coati.

“It grabbed the popsicle and ran off into the bush.

“Every once in a while, I’ll search online to see if anyone has posted a video of it, because I really wish it had been captured.”

When embarking on her solo travels, Kiersten said she will “always keep safety in mind” and she prefers to book her excursions through travel companies which organise group tours.

Occasionally, she will stay in places on her own for a few days, either before a tour starts or after it finishes, but she is always “cautious about safety”.

“When I’m completely by myself, I don’t stay out late, I don’t go out after dark,” she said.

“If I want to see the most that I can out of a country or place, having a tour leader or a guide will make sure we hit all those important spots – even some you’ve never heard of that turn out to be really cool.”

Kiersten said she has embarked on 11 international tours so far through Expat Explore, a tour operator based in the UK.

New data from the operator shows a 20% yearly rise in women over 45 joining their tours, and almost a third of women who travel alone are married.

Kiersten has made about 70 new friends from the tours, and she keeps in touch with them via Facebook.

Looking ahead, Kiersten plans to visit Egypt, Jordan and Peru next year.

She also keeps a bucket list of places she hopes to visit in future, which includes Chile, Costa Rica, Iceland, Thailand, Australia and Madagascar.

To find out more, visit: expatexplore.com.