Women are lonely. Not in the way that makes headlines – not isolated shut-ins or friendless – but lonely in the quieter, more insidious way that creeps in when you realise you haven’t made a new memory with someone you love in months. Maybe years.
It turns out the antidote, for a growing number of women, is a plane ticket – and company. The retreat industry has long been the domain of the solo seeker: someone stepping away from their life to find themselves. But something has shifted. Women are increasingly bringing the people they love most with them – and nowhere is that more visible than in the rise of mothers and daughters travelling together.
Chelsea Ross has had a front-row seat to this evolution. The founder of Goddess Retreats in Bali has been running women-only retreats since 2003 – arguably before the category even existed.
“I was probably the first one to do women’s only surf and yoga retreats. At that time, yoga retreats had sort of started getting a bit established, but definitely retreating as a general kind of holiday in what it is now, just that didn’t really exist,” she told Travel Weekly.
What started as almost entirely solo female travel has transformed dramatically, particularly since 2020. “It really was like 90 per cent solo travelers… but now we have multiple, multiple groups,” Ross said. “I really noticed a big jump after 2020 in women traveling together with family… the consistency of it has been growing since 2020, so six years.”
The reason, she believes, comes down to something simple. “When was the last time you went out and created new experience together? We stopped making new memories together… it’s so fun to be around real people talking in real time, sitting by the pool having a chat.”
Mothers and daughters: a growing market
Mother-daughter bookings now account for almost 12 per cent of Goddess Retreats’ annual revenue, with friends travelling together making up an even greater share – and once they come, they tend to return.
“A lot of them are repeat clients. They repeat come back with their mothers and daughters,” Ross said, pointing to a group of nine who began as a single mother-daughter booking before snowballing into nieces, twin daughters and friends across two private villas.
Ross identifies three distinct strata of mother-daughter travellers: older mothers in their 70s and 80s travelling with daughters in their 40s and 50s; mothers in their 40s and 50s with daughters in their 20s and 30s; and younger mothers bringing teenage daughters. Each dynamic brings its own motivation, but the thread running through all of them is the desire to reconnect at a new life stage – graduations, empty nests, retirements, milestone birthdays.
What makes the retreat format work particularly well for these groups, Ross says, is that it strips away the roles women so often carry. “It allows them to be just themselves. They’re not stuck in the mum role or the daughter role. They can just be themselves and kind of meet and travel as adults together.”
The structure also allows for both togetherness and independence, with customisable packages meaning a daughter can be surfing while her mother opts for Ayurvedic treatments – before reuniting for shared meals, yoga and workshops.
Retreat vs holiday: how to identify what your client really needs
Here’s where it gets useful for advisors. Ross is unequivocal: a retreat is not a holiday with a cold plunge. “A retreat has become a word that is a very broad umbrella, and is often just used as a holiday that has a cold plunge. But it’s not that – retreats are an emotional and physical journey.”
The tell-tale sign that a client is retreat-ready, she says, is transition.
“Usually they are in a space of transition – transitioning in and out of a relationship, a job, moving, milestone birthdays. It’s not just to get away. There is something happening in their life that they want to change themselves, so that when they come back to their life, they’re different.”
For mothers and daughters specifically, that transition might look like a daughter leaving home, a mother retiring, or simply two women wanting to meet each other differently now that the shape of their relationship has changed.
Clients who just want a holiday are looking to escape without necessarily wanting to come back changed. Both are valid – but reading the difference is what allows advisors to match clients to the right experience, and build the kind of loyalty that brings groups of nine through the door.
The transformational element
Ross is careful not to oversell the intensity. Goddess Retreats offers everything from surf and fitness to Balinese healing ceremonies and quantum healers – but guests find their own depth.
“You can go as deep as you want,” she said. “You don’t have to break down in tears over breath work to make a transformation. There are other ways too.”
What consistently surprises guests, she adds, is how much of the transformation happens simply through being in a room – or by a pool – with other women. “The groups themselves are actually some of the most beautiful healing pods. The women start talking to other women, and the stories they share amongst themselves have incredible healing power.”
It is this, perhaps more than any single workshop or treatment, that keeps guests coming back – and bringing others with them.
