• Meet 7 women over 40 who are still racking up passport stamps — from a 36-year-old corporate escapee turned two-decade nomad to a retiree who visited all 196 countries on Earth, these are real itineraries from real women, not 20-something influencers doing yoga on cliffs.
• Proof that the “right time” to start traveling doesn’t exist — one blogger didn’t launch her site until she’d spent 16 years running an Italian restaurant; another didn’t take her first solo trip until she was widowed after 31 years of marriage. Age isn’t the obstacle here — hesitation is.
• Real logistics, real fear, real wins — these women write about broken legs, anxiety disorders, and being rescued by police, not just sunset cocktails. If you want the unfiltered version of “how do I actually do this,” these are the accounts to follow.

There are two kinds of travel days: the ones where you’re actually going somewhere, and the ones where you’re stuck at your desk, in a waiting room, or on the couch with a bag of chips, dreaming about somewhere else. NextTribe exists for both. We’re here to get you on a real trip, but we’re also fully in favor of the fantasy trip — the one you take at 11 p.m. by scrolling through someone else’s photos of a Moroccan souk or an Antarctic ice floe and thinking, I could do that. I should do that. Why haven’t I done that?

That’s the job of a good travel influencer: to be the friend who’s already been there, already made the mistakes, and is generous enough to hand you the shortcuts. The trouble is, most of the women dominating that space are decades younger than us, doing headstands on cliff edges in bikinis, and about as relatable to a 55-year-old planning a trip to Portugal as a teenager’s skincare routine.

NextTribe creates small group travel experiences for women 45 and over. If you’re ready to stop waiting and start going, we’d love to have you along. Check out all our trips here.

So we went looking for the women who are actually doing this at our stage of life — reinventing themselves, traveling solo after loss, chasing wine regions instead of nightclubs, and proving that the best travel stories don’t require youth, just nerve. Here are seven worth following, whether you’re booking a flight tomorrow or just need somewhere to put your imagination tonight.

Sherry Ott, Ottsworld

Sherry Ott was 36 and knee-deep in a New York City corporate IT career when she did the thing most of us only fantasize about at our desks: she quit, planning to take one year off. That was 2006. She never really went back. Ott became one of the original travel bloggers before “travel blogger” was even a real job title, and she’s used the two decades since to hike the Annapurna Circuit with her father, drive a rickshaw across India, and kayak in Antarctica — all while building Ottsworld into one of the longest-running independent travel sites out there.

What makes her worth following isn’t the stunt travel, though; it’s that she also co-founded Meet, Plan, Go!, an organization built entirely around convincing other people that a career break isn’t reckless, it’s strategic. Her advice is refreshingly free of Instagram gloss: no filters, no glamour shots of hotel breakfasts, just straight talk about logistics, fear, and how to actually pull off the leap.

Find her on her website and on Instagram.

Sue Ross, Sue Travels

In 2023, Sue Ross became the first British-born woman to visit all 196 of the world’s recognized countries, closing out the list in Afghanistan and landing herself in the British press and on both BBC and ITV in the process. She hasn’t slowed down since — she’s now chasing self-governing territories too, with her count creeping past 250.

She is openly afraid of flying, yet gets on the plane anyway.

But it’s not this ever-growing tally that counts; it’s how unglamorous she is about what it costs. She’s downsized her home multiple times to keep funding trips, lives with fibromyalgia (now compounded by long Covid) and depression, and is openly afraid of flying, yet gets on the plane anyway. She travels almost entirely solo, partly because, by her own admission, most of her friends aren’t quite mad enough to keep up. Along the way she’s had her appendix out in Kathmandu, broken a leg falling off a waterfall in Venezuela, and been rescued by police on Christmas Island — good reminders that at this level, travel isn’t a highlight reel, it’s closer to an occupation, with real risk attached.

Find her on her website.

Cherene Saradar, Wandering Redhead

Cherene Saradar has the kind of resume that makes “travel influencer” sound like an understatement: she’s a nurse anesthetist by trade, which means she’s spent decades holding down a demanding medical career while also racking up more than 100 countries on seven continents. Wandering Redhead is equal parts adventure travel and unapologetic wine-region tourism, because Saradar has never met a Casablanca Valley Cabernet she didn’t want to write 800 words about.

At 41, she took six months off to travel solo through Southeast Asia and Europe, and she’s been threading that balance of steady career and relentless wanderlust ever since. If you want proof that you don’t have to choose between a serious job and a serious travel habit, she’s your evidence.

Find her on her website and on Instagram.

Annette White, Bucket List Journey

Before Annette White was checking items off a literal bucket list — eating bugs in Thailand, swimming with jellyfish in Palau, climbing a volcano in Guatemala — she spent 16 years running an Italian restaurant with her husband, Peter, and quietly managing a severe anxiety disorder that kept her from doing much of anything adventurous at all.

Bucket List Journey is a useful reminder that you don’t have to start at 25 on this career path.

The pivot to full-time travel blogging didn’t happen until 2024, which makes Bucket List Journey a useful reminder that you don’t have to start at 25 on this career path. White’s writing leans motivational without tipping into saccharine, mostly because she’s upfront that the fear never fully went away — she just decided to travel anyway. Her site is a good one to bookmark if you’re the type who keeps a literal list and needs a nudge to actually book something on it.

Find her on her website and on Instagram.

Pam LeBlanc, Pam LeBlanc Adventures

Pam LeBlanc spent decades as a newspaper journalist in Austin before turning her adventure-and-fitness beat into its own brand, and it shows — her writing has the tight, no-nonsense quality of someone who used to answer to an editor, not an algorithm.

LeBlanc isn’t chasing luxury; she’s chasing mud, mosquito bites, and the occasional case of poison ivy, whether that means open-water swimming, ski season in Banff, or an overnight in a Texas town most people only visit for beer and sausage. If your idea of a good trip involves getting a little dirty and a lot more athletic than a spa day, she’s the one to follow.

Find her on her website and on Instagram.

Charlotte Simpson, Traveling Black Widow

Charlotte Simpson and her husband spent 31 years of marriage chasing a shared goal: all 50 states. They got there. Then he died, and that first Christmas without him, she and her daughter booked a trip to Spain, Portugal, and Morocco instead of sitting home with the grief. That trip cracked something open.

Her Instagram reads like dispatches from a friend who’s figured out that grief and joy can occupy the same passport.

Simpson, a retired guidance counselor from Indianapolis, has since turned solo travel into her second act, logging more than 80 countries and all seven continents under the handle @travelingblackwidow — a name that’s equal parts dark humor and defiance. Her Instagram reads less like a highlight reel and more like dispatches from a friend who’s figured out that grief and joy can occupy the same passport. She’s candid about what’s changed with age (fewer camel rides, more caution around anything taller than she is) and unbothered by what hasn’t: the appetite for a new stamp.

Find her on her website and on Instagram.

Patti Morrow, Luggage and Lipstick

Patti Morrow built Luggage and Lipstick specifically for Baby Boomers, and she’s spent more than a decade proving that “boomer travel” doesn’t mean bus tours and early-bird specials. She’s skydived, visited more than 65 countries and islands, and survived a serious car accident in South Africa that would have sent plenty of people home for good. Instead she kept traveling, and kept writing about it.

What sets Morrow apart is the specificity of her audience: she’s not trying to appeal to 25-year-olds who wandered onto her page, she’s writing directly to women who make their own travel decisions, have the discretionary income to act on them, and have zero interest in being told to slow down. If you want a travel voice that assumes you’re an adult who can handle both a hiking trail and a good story, add her to the list.

Find her on her website and on Instagram.