5 Girls’ Trip Destinations for Different Types of Travelers
- Meredith Peters
- Aug 8, 2023
- 7 min read
Updated: 4 days ago
Planning a girls’ trip sounds easy until you start trying to get everyone to agree on where to go.
One friend wants a beach and very few plans. Someone else wants great restaurants, sightseeing, or wine tasting. Another wants to actually do something besides sit by the pool. And then there’s the question that can narrow down your choices pretty quickly: How much time can everyone realistically take off?
If you only have four or five days, I wouldn’t spend a large portion of your trip flying to Europe and dealing with jet lag. Mexico or the Dominican Republic can give you a great international getaway without requiring everyone to take a full week or more away from work and home.
If you have more time, Portugal, Tuscany, and Costa Rica open up very different possibilities.
The best girls’ trip destination isn’t necessarily the place getting the most attention on social media. It’s the one that works for your group, your interests, and the amount of time you actually have.
First, How Much Time Do You Have for Your Girls’ Trip?
Before deciding where to go, figure out how many days everyone can realistically commit to the trip.
For a four- or five-day getaway, I’d look for somewhere relatively easy to reach where you can arrive, settle in, and start enjoying the trip without a lot of moving around. The Riviera Maya and Dominican Republic both work well for this.
If you have seven to ten days, I’d consider destinations where the additional travel time is worthwhile and where you’ll want enough days to experience more than one part of the destination. Portugal, Tuscany, and Costa Rica all fall into this category for me.
Group size matters, too. I generally prefer fewer hotel changes when I’m planning for a group. Moving six or eight people and their luggage is very different from moving two. Every hotel change means packing, checking out, coordinating transportation, checking back in, and getting everyone settled again.
The less time you spend doing that, the more time you actually have to enjoy the trip together.
Riviera Maya, Mexico: Best for an Easy 4–5 Day Beach Escape
If your group wants warm weather, a beautiful resort, good food, and the option to do more than sit by the pool, the Riviera Maya is one of the easiest choices on this list.
It works particularly well when everyone wants something slightly different. Some of you can spend the morning at the spa while others head out for an excursion. You can plan a day to visit a cenote or archaeological site and still leave plenty of time for the beach and pool.
For a shorter girls’ trip, I wouldn’t try to see too much of the region. Choose the right resort and use it as your base. That keeps the logistics simple and lets everyone decide how much or how little they want to do.
The resort itself becomes especially important on a short trip. I’d look beyond the prettiest pool photos and consider the restaurants, spa, room options, evening atmosphere, beach, and how easy it is to get off property when you want to explore.
How much time do you need? About 4–5 days.
Dominican Republic: Best for a Relaxing Resort Getaway
The Dominican Republic is the option I’d choose for a group whose primary goal is to get away together and relax.
This doesn’t need to be the trip where everyone wakes up early every morning for sightseeing. Pick a resort that fits the group well, make a few dinner and spa plans, choose an excursion or two if everyone is interested, and leave room for afternoons when nobody has to be anywhere.
That simplicity is part of the appeal, especially when coordinating everyone’s schedules was difficult enough just to get the trip on the calendar.
For a girls’ trip, I’d pay attention not only to the beach and pool but also to room configurations, restaurant choices, spa facilities, evening atmosphere, and whether there are enough options for people to do their own thing occasionally.
Because even on a girls’ trip, everyone does not need to spend every minute together!
How much time do you need? About 4–5 days.
Portugal: Best for Culture, Cities and Coastal Scenery
Portugal is a better fit for the group that wants to spend its days exploring rather than staying primarily at a resort.
Lisbon gives you restaurants, historic neighborhoods, shopping, sightseeing, and nightlife, with places such as Sintra and the coast accessible for day trips. With more time, you can add another part of Portugal and experience a different side of the country.
This is where I’d resist the temptation to do too much.
Portugal may look relatively compact on a map, but that doesn’t mean your group needs to change hotels every other night. Choosing one or two well-planned bases usually makes for a much more enjoyable trip, especially when several people are traveling together.
And yes, there should absolutely be time for Portuguese food and wine. A food tour, a memorable dinner, or a day built around wine can be part of the experience without turning the entire itinerary into a checklist of things you’re supposed to see and do.
How much time do you need? At least 7 days, and longer if you want to include multiple regions.
Tuscany, Italy: Best for a Villa Stay, Food and Wine
If your group has talked about renting a villa in Italy together, Tuscany is hard to beat.
A villa gives a girls’ trip a completely different vibe. Instead of everyone retreating to separate hotel rooms at the end of the day, you have shared spaces where you can have coffee together in the morning, open a bottle of wine in the evening, and spend an afternoon doing absolutely nothing if that’s what everyone feels like doing.
From the right base, you can plan winery visits, a cooking experience, visits to Tuscan towns, long lunches, and perhaps a day in Florence, depending on where your villa is located.
A beautiful villa isn’t automatically the right villa. Some countryside properties are quite remote. That matters if your group imagines being able to walk into town for dinner, split up during the day, or come and go independently.
Transportation needs to be part of the planning from the beginning, particularly if wine tasting is high on the agenda. This is one of those trips where the logistics behind that beautiful villa matter just as much as the villa itself.
I’d also rather plan fewer outings and leave some time to actually enjoy the property than schedule everyone from morning until night. If you’re paying for a beautiful villa in Tuscany, you should have time to enjoy being there.
How much time do you need? A minimum of 7 days, but preferably 8–10 days.
Costa Rica: Best for Adventure and Nature
Costa Rica is my choice for the group that wants more activity and nature built into the trip.
Depending on where you stay, your trip could include wildlife, hiking, waterfalls, ziplining, hot springs, rafting, beaches, or a combination of adventure and downtime.
But Costa Rica is also a good example of why looking at a map doesn’t tell you everything you need to know about a destination. Getting between regions can take longer than you might expect, and trying to include too many places can leave you spending a surprising amount of your vacation in transit.
For a girls’ trip, I’d choose the experiences that matter most to the group and build the itinerary around one or two areas rather than trying to cover the country.
And not everyone needs to do every activity.
If half the group wants to zipline while the other half would rather book a spa treatment, that’s perfectly fine. A good group itinerary should have room for both. You’re traveling together, but that doesn’t mean everyone needs an identical vacation.
How much time do you need? At least 7 days, preferably longer if you want to experience two different regions.
What Makes a Destination Work for a Girls’ Trip?
Choosing the destination is only part of planning a successful group trip.
With several travelers, I think about logistics differently than I would for a couple. How easy is it to get everyone from the airport to the hotel or villa? Are there room configurations that work for the group? Will you need private transportation? Can restaurants accommodate your party? Can people easily split up when they want different activities?
And perhaps most importantly, does everyone actually want the same kind of vacation?
That’s a conversation the group needs to have before anyone books a flight.
One person’s perfect girls’ trip might involve getting dressed for dinner every night and spending the day exploring a city. Someone else may be picturing a swimsuit, a book, and absolutely no reason to leave the resort.
There's nothing wrong with either option. You just want to figure that out before you get there.
You also don’t have to spend every minute together for a girls’ trip to feel like a group trip. Building in some flexibility usually makes the time you do spend together more enjoyable.
Which Girls’ Trip Destination Is Right for Your Group?
If you only have four or five days and want to keep things easy, I’d start with the Riviera Maya or Dominican Republic.
If your group wants restaurants, culture, sightseeing, and time to explore, and you can give the trip at least a week, consider Portugal.
If the dream involves a villa, wine, good food, and slower days together, choose Tuscany and give yourselves enough time to enjoy it.
And if your friends would rather hike, zipline, see wildlife, and spend time outdoors, Costa Rica may be the winner.
The point isn’t to find the destination that sounds best on paper. It’s to choose the trip that works for the people who are actually going.
Planning travel for a group can get complicated quickly, especially when you’re balancing different schedules, budgets, interests, and ideas about what makes a great vacation. I help groups sort through those decisions and create a trip that gives you plenty to experience together without requiring everyone to move as a pack from breakfast until bedtime.
Ready to start thinking about your own girls’ trip? Learn how I can help plan a trip that works for your group.
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