Just you

Across the Virgin Limited Edition collection, that looks like a shared fire and a full table at a safari camp, a mountain retreat with nowhere to be, or a stretch of Mediterranean coastline to yourself before anyone else is up. None of it asks you to bring company along to enjoy it and what's left is the best part: working out which retreat, and which version of alone, suits you.

Is an African safari good for solo travellers?

Yes, and arguably it's where solo travel makes the most sense of all, because safari camps are built around shared experiences by design. Game drives go out together, guided walks and sundowners bring guests together through the day, and the whole rhythm of camp life naturally puts you alongside other travellers without anything feeling forced.

Finch Hattons, in Tsavo West beneath the Chyulu Hills with Mount Kilimanjaro on the horizon, takes individual bookings across its 17 tented suites. It's a good first-safari property precisely because it doesn't rely only on the Big Five drive-and-tick format: hike up into Chuylu Hills cloud forest, pick your way across the black volcanic rock of the Shetani lava flow, spend an afternoon with a Maasai community, or head out after dark on a night drive to catch the side of Tsavo that day-trippers never see. Climb the camp's observation tower as the light goes, and there's a good chance you'll have Kilimanjaro turning pink entirely to yourself, plenty to fill a few days beyond the vehicle, none of it needing a second person to make it worthwhile.

Mahali Mzuri perches on a hillside in the Olare Motorogi Conservancy, all canvas and wide decking looking straight out over the Mara's open plains, where something is nearly always moving through the grass below. Twice-daily game drives head out from camp in search of it, and the 12 tents wrap around a shared lounge and infinity pool that pull everyone back together at sundown, drinks in hand as the plains change colour, so the sociable part of the day tends to happen without anyone trying.

Ulusaba, in the Sabi Sand reserve bordering Kruger, is mid-redesign, and it's a genuinely exciting one: picture waking up to floor-to-ceiling glass instead of a wall, impala drifting past a few metres from your own private plunge pool before you've even had coffee. Twice-daily game drives will go out in search of the Big Five once the doors reopen, Safari Lodge in January 2027 and Rock Lodge that April, with bookings open now, so a solo traveller keen to be among the first through the door has plenty of time to plan around it.

Which mountain retreats welcome solo travellers?

Mountains have a solitude built into them already, the good kind: a long walk, thinner air, a view you feel like you've earned. Two very different Virgin Limited Edition retreats make the case for heading up there alone.

Kasbah Tamadot , an hour into the Atlas Mountains from Marrakech, is where a solo stay gets to be genuinely unstructured. Rooms, suites and Berber tents are scattered through terraced gardens, there are two restaurants and a spa built for long, unhurried afternoons, and Mount Toubkal sits on the horizon whenever you look up. When you do want a day with shape to it, there's plenty on offer: a guided hike into the foothills, a wander through the souks of nearby Asni or Marrakech, or an afternoon at the Eve Branson Foundation, meeting the Berber artisans and craftspeople it supports. Nobody here is expecting you to do anything in particular, which for a solo traveller is often the whole point: permission to set your own pace, structured or not, without having to explain it to anyone.

The Lodge, in Verbier, is a nine-room chalet just 250 metres from the lifts and backing onto one of the runs home, close enough that a day on the mountain barely interrupts anything else. It's the one retreat here that needs a little planning: individual rooms open up on select weeks across both winter and summer rather than year-round, so it's worth checking dates beforehand. Land on the right week, though, and it delivers the full private-chalet fantasy solo: ski or hike all day, then come back to an indoor pool and hot tubs with the Alps still lit up outside, a fully catered dinner waiting without you having to organise a thing, all the comforts of a house party with none of the group logistics of actually running one.

Where can solo travellers find a food and wine escape?

This is the theme that deserves more attention than it usually gets, because eating and drinking well alone, with nothing to compromise on and no bottle to split with someone else's choice, is one of the better arguments for travelling solo at all.

Mont Rochelle Hotel, in Franschhoek in South Africa's Cape Winelands, pairs a 26-room hotel with its own working vineyard and two restaurants, MIKO and The Country Kitchen. Book a guided tasting or a vineyard picnic straight through the estate's own reservation system and you've got a sociable, structured afternoon sorted before you've even landed, no group tour required to make it feel like an occasion. Franschhoek itself is easy to explore solo too, a short bike ride from the hotel into a village of independent shops and art galleries, and a spa treatment back at Mont Rochelle is a good way to close out a day spent wandering on your own terms.

Son Bunyola Hotel, on Mallorca's UNESCO-listed north-west coast in the Tramuntana Mountains, is 810 acres of olive groves, its own vineyards and three miles of coastline, with 27 rooms and suites, a MICHELIN Hotel Key to its name, and its own restaurant, Sa Terrassa, that's worth the flight on its own. Fill a day entirely on your own terms: a beekeeping experience with the estate's own hives, an olive oil tasting drawn from those same groves, a guided wine tasting through its vineyards, and a spa treatment to unwind before dinner. Then sit down to a tasting menu that doesn't care whether you're a table of one or ten.

Can you stay on a private island as a solo traveller?

Necker Island is the property most people assume is couples-and-groups only, since it's best known for full-island buyouts. It isn't, on selected dates throughout the year. Individual stays put you in a room or suite, without needing to rent the whole island, and everything runs all-inclusive: meals, drinks, snorkelling, paddleboarding, e-foiling, tennis, yoga, guided hikes and airport transfers, all folded in. Fixed weeks are set aside for this each year and listed on the website, so it's worth checking dates before building a trip around it.

Turn up solo during one of these windows and you'll likely end up sharing a kitesurfing lesson or a sundowner with people you'd never have met on your own itinerary. Because a handful of small parties share the island's communal spaces and staff during these weeks, it's arguably the least lonely version of a private island going, and about as close as the collection gets to living out the buyout fantasy without having to organise the guest list yourself.

Which is the best Virgin Limited Edition property for a first solo trip?

There's no single right answer, but as a rule of thumb: Kasbah Tamadot or Mont Rochelle Hotel for a first solo trip that eases you in with structure and good food nearby; Finch Hattons or Mahali Mzuri if you want the safari itself to do the work of putting you around other people; and Necker Island's individual-stay dates if the goal is a genuine once-in-a-while splurge without needing to organise a group to justify it.

Ready to go it alone? Explore individual stays across the Virgin Limited Edition collection.