Olivia and Other Lesbian Travel Options
Updated: 5 days ago
There's no shortage of LGBTQ+ travel anymore. There's a shortage of it that isn't built for gay men.
If you're a lesbian or queer woman who has gone looking, you already know how this goes. You find a company that describes itself as LGBTQ+ travel, you click through the photos, and by the third gallery you've worked out that "everyone" means men. The programming is built around them, the marketing is aimed at them, and you're welcome in the way you're welcome at someone else's party.
None of that is anyone's deliberate exclusion. It's a market that grew where the money went first, and gay men were the demographic the travel industry noticed and courted a generation ago. The effect is the same either way: a category that says LGBTQ+ on the label and delivers something narrower in the box, and a lot of women who conclude there's nothing for them and stop looking.
So this is a guide to the companies that are actually built for you. All three are independent operators you book directly, not through me, and I don't earn anything from sending you their way. What each one does, who each one suits, and where all three stop being the right answer.
Olivia
Olivia is the name everyone lands on first, and with reason. They've been running trips for lesbians and LGBTQ+ women for over 35 years, and in that time they've taken roughly 350,000 women traveling. Nothing else in this space has that kind of history behind it.
What they actually run
Four formats, and they're genuinely different products rather than variations on one.
Their large cruises are full-ship or large-block charters, which is the format Olivia is best known for and the one that produces the atmosphere people talk about. Their resort trips take over properties in places like Cancún, Punta Cana, and Cabo, so you get an all-inclusive week where the whole property is your community. Their riverboats are the small end, running European rivers with a few dozen women rather than a few thousand. And their adventure trips go further afield, the Galápagos and the Sea of Cortez among them.
Entertainment is part of the product rather than a bonus. Olivia books serious lesbian talent, and over the years that has meant names like the Indigo Girls and Lily Tomlin. If you've ever wanted to watch a headline act on a ship where you're not the only queer woman in the room, that's the thing they sell.
The programming is the real differentiator
Olivia runs sub-programs inside their trips so that a 5,000-person sailing doesn't feel like 5,000 strangers. Gen-O is for younger travelers. OWLs, for Older Wiser Lesbians, sits at the other end. Olivians of Color, Olivians in Uniform for military and first responders, and a dedicated Solos program all run alongside. There's a Trans and Nonbinary program. There's one called Later in Life Lesbians, Yay!, for women who came out later. There's even 12-Step support onboard.
A company that has thought about a woman who came out at 55, a woman traveling alone for the first time, a trans woman wondering whether she'll be welcome, and a woman who needs a meeting on a cruise ship has thought about more than the party. That breadth doesn't exist anywhere else in this market.
They also run payment plans and a loyalty program, which tells you something about how much of their business is repeat.
Who it suits
The thing a full takeover actually buys you is that you stop reading the room. On an ordinary cruise, even a welcoming one, some part of your attention is spent noticing who else is at the pool and adjusting accordingly. On a chartered ship that part of your brain switches off on day one and stays off for the week, and most people don't realize how much energy it was using until it stops.
Olivia is for the traveler who wants scale and community. If the appeal of a trip is being surrounded by hundreds or thousands of queer women for a week, nothing else comes close. It's also unusually strong for solo travelers, because the Solos programming means arriving alone is normal rather than something to manage.
If crowds are what you're traveling to get away from, this is the wrong end of the market for you, and the next two are smaller.
Diva Destinations
Diva Destinations is UK-based and has become the reference point for lesbian and LGBTQ+ women's travel in Europe. They're an IGLTA member, and they run smaller group trips than Olivia does.
What they actually run
They currently list departures out to 2029, and the range is wide: Morocco, Thailand, Iceland, Japan, India, Egypt, Argentina, Croatia, Costa Rica, Ecuador and the Galápagos, an African safari, an Alaska cruise, a Mediterranean cruise, the Swiss Alps, and an Antarctic journey. There's a Lesvos trip. And they run a Provincetown Women's Week departure for travelers who want the American side of things.
Who it suits
Over 80 percent of their travelers are solo, and over 50 percent are rebookers. A company where four in five people arrive alone has necessarily built its trips around that, so the social structure does the work instead of leaving you to. And a rebooking rate above half means people who've been once keep going back.
Smaller groups change the trip in ways that are easy to underrate. You end up knowing everyone's name by the third day rather than a handful of names by the last. The itinerary can go places a ship cannot. And the social pressure is lower, because a group of twenty absorbs someone who wants a quiet evening far better than a group of two thousand does.
Diva Destinations suits the traveler who wants a real itinerary rather than a floating party. These are trips where the destination is the point and the group is how you experience it. If you want to see Japan or Morocco properly, in the company of other queer women, without organizing any of it, this is the one.
ELLA
ELLA started as a festival in Europe for lesbians, LGBTQ+ women, and femmes, and it's grown from there. It's a different animal from the other two.
What they actually run
The center of it is the festival, held in Mallorca, running across the better part of a week and combining music, talks, beach and wellness programming, art and culture, food, and structured chances to actually meet people. Their eleventh summer edition is scheduled for 2027, with 2026 dates and packages already listed.
ELLA Travel has grown out of that as a way to see more of a place than a festival site, with excursions including Senegal. They now describe themselves as part of a wider ELLA Global Community for queer women and nonbinary people, so the festival is one expression of something larger.
ELLA isn't all-inclusive the way an Olivia resort week is. The festival lists partner hotels, so you can stay where other attendees are staying, but you're assembling a bit more of the trip yourself.
Who it suits
A festival week has a different rhythm from a tour. Nothing is compulsory, most of the day is yours, and the programming is something you opt into rather than a coach that leaves at eight. That suits people who want structure available but not imposed, and frustrates people who booked expecting somebody else to have made the decisions.
ELLA is for the traveler who wants an event rather than an itinerary. If what you want from a week is music, ideas, and a community that materializes in one place and then scatters, that's the format. It's also the youngest-feeling of the three, and the most European.
If you want everything handled and a schedule you can ignore, this is the one that will ask the most of you.
What All Three Have in Common
Every one of these is a fixed departure. The dates are set before you're involved. The itinerary is set. The destination is set. And you're traveling with a group of people you haven't met, which is the entire appeal if that's what you want and the entire problem if it isn't.
That's the format, it's what makes the community possible, and there's no version of a 5,000-woman charter that also leaves on your anniversary. But it means the question isn't really which of these three is best. It's whether a group departure is the trip you're actually looking for.
When a Group Departure Is the Wrong Trip
A few of the shapes it takes.
You're going on a honeymoon. Group travel and a honeymoon want opposite things. One is about meeting people and the other is about not having to. Nobody's first married trip should involve a group dinner with forty strangers on night two. If that's the trip, I've written separately about where lesbian couples actually go.
Your dates don't move. The best group departures sell out a year ahead and run when they run. If you've got a specific anniversary, a school holiday, or the only two weeks your work will release, you're choosing from whatever happens to fall there rather than from what you want.
You want the destination, not the departure. If you've wanted to see Portugal for a decade, or somewhere from a list you've been keeping, the question shouldn't be whether anyone runs a trip there this year. It's what your Portugal looks like, which is a different question with a much better answer.
You're traveling with people who aren't all queer women. Your brother's coming. Your straight best friend is coming. Your mother is coming. These trips aren't for that, and it's not a slight, it's the definition.
You've done one and don't want another. A decent number of people I talk to have already taken a group trip, enjoyed it, and discovered that what they actually want next is the same destination without the schedule. It's usually the conversation that starts a custom trip.
You want the space to yourselves. If what you're picturing is a house with a pool and a cook and nobody else in it, that's a private villa, and it's a genuinely different holiday from a resort takeover.
That's the work I do. Not a departure you join, a trip built around your dates, your people, and the place you actually want to be, with the same attention to whether you'll be comfortable when you get there. I'm not competing with these three. They do one thing well and I do another.
How to Choose Between Them
If a group departure still sounds right, the choice is fairly clean.
Go with Olivia if you want scale and the full force of the community, if you're traveling solo and want that to be unremarkable, or if any of their specific programs describes you. Nothing else has that infrastructure.
Go with Diva Destinations if you want a real itinerary in a serious destination, if you're traveling solo and want a smaller group, or if you're in Europe and want a company operating on your side of the Atlantic.
Go with ELLA if you want an event more than a tour, if you like the idea of a festival with a community built around it, and if you don't mind assembling a bit of the trip yourself.
And book directly with whichever one you choose. They're not mine to sell, and you'll get better information from the people who run them.
What to Check Before You Book Any of Them
A few things are worth pinning down before you pay a deposit.
The single supplement. This one catches solo travelers hardest. On most group travel, a room or cabin is priced for two, and traveling alone means paying some share of the empty half. Policies vary a lot, and some departures waive or reduce it while others don't. Given how many people on these trips are solo, ask early rather than assuming it's handled.
What's actually included. The three companies sit at different points on this. An Olivia resort week is all-inclusive in the way you'd expect. A cruise includes your room and most food but not necessarily drinks, excursions, or gratuities. ELLA isn't all-inclusive at all, and you're booking a partner hotel alongside your festival ticket. Two prices that look comparable can describe very different weeks.
Whether air is separate. It usually is. Getting yourself to Mallorca, or to Cancún, or to the start of a trip in Morocco, is generally your problem unless the company says otherwise. Build it into the number before you decide something is affordable, and give yourself a day of margin at the front of any trip you can't miss the start of.
Which room or cabin category. Cabin choice is one of the biggest decisions on any cruise and the one people rush. Where you are on the ship changes how much noise and motion you get, and the difference between an inside cabin and a balcony changes how the whole week feels rather than just where you sleep. On a takeover sailing there's an extra wrinkle: the best categories go early, because a large share of the ship is booked by people who have sailed with the company before and know exactly what they want.
What happens if you cancel. Group departures tend to have firmer terms than an ordinary hotel booking, because the operator has committed to a ship or a property well in advance. Deposits go non-refundable earlier than people expect. Travel protection matters here, and your credit card almost certainly isn't providing it.
Whether you want the days either side. Most of these trips end at a port or an airport, and most travelers fly straight home from a place they've barely seen. A few days before or after, in the city you flew into, is often the best part of the trip and the easiest thing to add. That part I'm happy to help with even when the departure itself isn't mine.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Olivia only for lesbians?
Olivia's trips are for lesbians and LGBTQ+ women, and they run dedicated programming that includes a Trans and Nonbinary program alongside groups organized by age, background, and travel style. The community is women-centered rather than narrowly defined.
How far in advance do lesbian group trips sell out?
Further ahead than most travelers expect. The strongest departures across all three companies are booked a year or more out, and cabin categories and room types go long before the trip itself does. If a specific departure matters to you, treat twelve months as normal rather than early.
Are these trips good for solo travelers?
Unusually good. Olivia runs a dedicated Solos program, and Diva Destinations reports that over 80 percent of their travelers arrive on their own. Turning up alone isn't something you have to manage on these trips, because most of the group did the same thing.
What's the difference between Olivia and Diva Destinations?
Scale and intent. Olivia runs large ship charters and full resort takeovers where the community itself is the experience. Diva Destinations runs smaller group trips built around a destination and an itinerary. If you want to be surrounded by hundreds of queer women, that's Olivia. If you want to see Japan properly with a group, that's Diva.
Is ELLA a holiday or a festival?
Primarily a festival, held in Mallorca, with travel programming built around it. It combines music, talks, wellness, and culture across the better part of a week. It isn't all-inclusive in the way a resort takeover is, so you're arranging a little more yourself, and partner hotels keep you near everyone else.
Can I book these through a travel advisor?
These three are booked directly with the operators, and I'd tell you to go straight to them. Where an advisor earns their place is the trip that isn't a group departure: your own dates, your own people, and a destination chosen by you rather than by a calendar.
What if I want a lesbian-friendly trip that isn't a group departure?
That's most of what I plan. The same question sits underneath it, which is whether you'll be comfortable and treated well when you arrive, and that gets answered by choosing specific properties and knowing how they handle same-sex couples, rather than by traveling in a group large enough to be self-sufficient. The general safety and comfort questions apply either way.
Group travel solved a real problem, which is that for a long time the only way to be sure of your welcome was to arrive with a few hundred people who shared it. That's still the best answer for some trips, and these three companies are the best of it.
It just isn't the only answer any more, and it was never the right one for a honeymoon, a trip with your own family, or the two weeks in Portugal you've been thinking about since 2019. If that's the trip you're imagining, it's a short conversation.
