I've lost count of the number of messages I get that start the same way. Some version of: "I love the look of this trip, but I don't have anyone to come with me." Sometimes it sounds apologetic. Sometimes like they've already talked themselves out of it before they've even asked.
Here's what I tell them every time: over 90% of our guests travel solo. Not in spite of it. Because of it.
That number still surprises people. It surprised me too, the first few years. But after seven years running trips across thirteen destinations — with hundreds of guests — I've stopped finding it surprising and started finding it obvious. Solo travel and trail running holidays are, it turns out, a near-perfect match.
This is my attempt to explain why.
The problem with waiting for someone to come with you
And why most people wait too longWe've all been there. You find the trip. You spend twenty minutes reading about it, looking at the photos, imagining yourself on the trail. You close the tab, thinking you'll bring it up with a friend. The friend is interested but not sure about the dates. Or the cost. Or the running side of things. Or all three.
A few weeks later the departure is full. You wait until next year. Next year the same thing happens.
I'm not exaggerating when I say this is the most common story I hear from people who eventually do book — and they always tell it the same way, with the same slightly rueful tone. "I wish I'd just gone sooner."
The people waiting for the right moment, the right companion, the right alignment of everyone's diaries — they're the ones who don't go. The people who just go? They have the trip of their lives.
What actually happens when you arrive alone
It's not what most people imagineThe thing most people are picturing — arriving at a hotel knowing nobody, spending five days on the periphery of other people's friendships, eating dinner alone — bears no resemblance to what actually happens.
What actually happens is this. You arrive. Within about twenty minutes of meeting the group, you're deep in conversation with someone about trail shoes, or their last race, or the view from the ridge you just ran. Because everyone in the group is a runner. Everyone made the same slightly mad decision to spend their holiday running up mountains in a foreign country. And everyone arrived on their own too.
The common ground is instant. The barriers that normally take weeks to come down — they're gone by the end of Day 1.
"What a treat to share it with you all. I'll be living off these memories for a good long time. And maybe there's an ultra in me somewhere..." — Guest, Mallorca May 2026
I've watched this happen on every single trip we've run. People who were strangers at the airport are sharing a beer at a clifftop bar by Tuesday evening. By the end of the week they're making plans to run together at home. By the following year, some of them are booking the next trip as a group.
Last week I got a message in our Mallorca group WhatsApp — sent the evening after the trip finished, unprompted: "Same time next year — we can meet in the middle. Nepal." These were people who had never met before that Saturday morning.
"Exceeded my expectations. I was nervous about coming alone but within an hour I felt completely at ease. The group dynamic was extraordinary."— Guest · Mallorca May 2026
Why solo travel works better on a trip like this
Something I've noticed over seven yearsHere's something I've observed over the years. When couples or established friend groups join our trips, they sometimes have a slightly different experience to the solo travellers. Not worse — just different. They have their own person to retreat to in the evenings. Their own frame of reference for the trip.
Solo travellers don't have that option. They have to be present. They have to engage. They have to be open. And almost universally, that turns out to be the best thing about the whole experience. They come back more themselves, somehow. More confident. More connected. With five new friends and a phone full of photos and a list of places they now want to run.
Trail running lends itself to this in a way that most holidays don't. You're side by side with someone for four or five hours. You're breathing hard, watching your footing, too tired for small talk but not too tired for the real stuff. Friendships form fast on trail. They always have.
Who actually comes on our trips
The honest pictureOur guests are not — for the most part — young gap-year travellers looking for a party. They're mostly in their thirties, forties and fifties. Many are at a point in their lives where their close friends have different priorities, different schedules, different fitness levels. The group that would have jumped at this kind of thing ten years ago now has mortgages and children and complicated diaries.
So they go alone. And they find a room full of people who are exactly like them — who have also decided that a week running trails in the mountains is worth more than a week on a sun lounger, and who have also decided not to wait for permission from anyone else's diary.
On the practical side: all our trips are twin share as standard. Solo travellers are paired with another solo traveller of the same gender, and in seven years I can count on one hand the number of times that's caused any awkwardness. People tend to be remarkably relaxed about it once they've spent five hours running a mountain together. Private room upgrades are available on most trips if you prefer your own space.
"90% of our guests arrive alone. By day two, you'd never know it. That's not an accident — it's what shared challenge in extraordinary places does to people."— Charlie Knights · Founder, Pure Trails Adventure
The only question worth asking
My honest steerI've stopped trying to persuade people to come on their own. Not because it doesn't work — it works every time — but because I've realised the people who need persuading aren't ready yet, and the people who are ready don't need persuading.
The only question I'd ask anyone sitting on the fence is this: if the trip was full tomorrow, would you regret not going?
If the answer is yes — book it. Come alone. The group is waiting for you.
Going alone on a trail running holiday isn't a compromise. For most of our guests it's the single best thing about the experience — the unexpected friendships, the shared challenge, the freedom of not having to negotiate anyone else's pace or preferences. It's the only way most of them would have it.
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Small groups · Expert guides · Solo travellers welcome on every trip