Black water rafting in New Zealand’s Waitomo Caves; shark diving in Cape Town, South Africa; learning Muay Thai boxing in Thailand; performing the world’s highest bungee jump at the Macau Tower! Indian women travellers have graduated from the standard city tours and are pushing the boundary in travel in pursuit of adventure. While tourists usually cover New Zealand’s legendary Waitomo Glowworm Caves by boat, 30-year-old Pinal Jariwala had something different on her mind. She went on a three-hour expedition involving climbing down the caves’ main network and hidden passageways, conquering thrilling rock traverses and heights and floating in the underground river to finally enjoy the sight of glow worms on vaulted limestone galleries on the caves’ ceilings. “The three-hour expedition was a leap of faith for us as we wanted to do the journey with a twist,” says Jariwala, who was accompanied by five other like-minded women travellers. Financially empowered women like Jariwala are ignoring the “must-see, must-do” lists while holidaying as they seek adrenaline rush, and travel companies are taking notice. “We have changed the way we look at women travellers… There is a new growing segment which is more independent and seeking adrenaline rush,” says Shibani Phadkar, senior vicepresident — products and operations, leisure travel (outbound) at Thomas Cook (India). The company had launched ‘What Women Want’ packages for this segment a few years ago, but the real pick-up has happened only in the last one year, she says. Surya Shrivastava occasionally travelled with her cousins and friends, but for years her holidays were ‘plainvanilla’ city tours. That changed recently when she took off to Ladakh with the same group and cycled the world’s highest motorable road — Khardung La, did water rafting in conjunction of Indus river and Zanskar valley, hired a Royal Enfield and drove on the edges of the treacherous Himalayan roads. “You need not possess a Y chromosome to indulge in adventure travel! I had to do something beyond the limits of normal and all this comes to me from being a scientist,” says the 29-year-old. Travel companies say men, by and large, are satisfied with travel packages. But designing destinations for women is a tough proposition. “Women travellers are very demanding and designing an itinerary is a challenge as they don’t compromise on their requirements and are willing to shell out big bucks, unlike men who mostly prefer cookie-cutter itineraries,” says Karan Anand, head — relationships, Cox & Kings. The travel firm recently launched ‘Getaway Goddess’ packages designed for women travellers, with close to 80 domestic and international itineraries. In the past few years, a clutch of women-owned travel companies have mushroomed across the country, catering to this fast-growing niche market. Most of them now offer off-beat travel destinations. “Even to regular itineraries, we add some element of adventure because there is an increasing preference for adventure among women travellers,” says Vidya Deshpande, founder of Gurgaon-based SoulPurpose Travel, an adventure travel company for women. Some of the pure adventure trips conducted by the three-yearold firm include canyon walks in Jordan, whale watching in Sri Lanka, deep sea diving in Andaman and rafting in Kali river. Women travellers’ discerning tastes result in increasing spends on holidays. “Interestingly, holidays planned by women have a 15-20% higher budget than holidays planned by men,” says Hari Nair, founder and CEO HolidayIQ, an online travel community. According to Nair, solo women trips have been on the rise, with the average trip length expected to increase to 5-7 days in 2016. Anand of Cox & Kings has seen 20% year-on-year growth in women taking domestic and international trips either on their own or with other like-minded women. Keen to target this niche segment, tourism boards of countries like Thailand, Singapore and Philippines are working with Indian travel companies to grow their numbers. “We are closely studying the women travel segment to create specific offerings as they are getting more adventurous and exploring new waters when it comes to travel,” says Verna C Buensuceso, officer in charge, market development group, department of tourism, Philippines.