Traveling solo in India, 2012.
Janice Waugh is founder, publisher, and contributor to Solo Traveler, a website she conceived of based upon her own need for better information about travelling alone. She is also producer of the Solo Travel Awards. Janice is a member of the Travel Media Association of Canada.
Since launching the site in 2009, it has grown to a readership of over 100,000 monthly with a subscriber base of over 55,000 that eagerly awaits four mailings per month. She is also author of The Solo Traveler's Handbook, now in its second edition.
Janice is a go-to authority for the media on the topic of solo travel. She's been interviewed by the New York Times, CNN, TravelWeekly, The Chicago Tribune, The Globe & Mail and many more. She has spoken at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, DC, the World Travel Market in London, TBEX in North America and Spain and The Social Travel Summit in Germany and Austria.
Advocacy for solo travelers is one of the priorities of the site. As such, gathering data on the solo travel market and understanding the demographics and psychographics of solo travelers has been a fundamental task at Solo Traveler. With this information, Janice has worked with many companies to help them serve solo travelers better.
Janice has a long history as an entrepreneur. She started a trade show and conference business in 1988 which was sold in 2000. After selling the business Janice travelled with her family for 10 months and returned to work on a freelance basis as a writer of business articles and websites before starting Solo Traveler.
Volunteer work has included being a doula for new moms under 20, co-founding a research group that produced documentation to improve navigation of the healthcare system and, more recently, co-founding Northstar Startups, to help marginalized members of her community achieve greater financial stability and, in so doing, increase our their life satisfaction, improve health equity and reduce strain on social services in Scarborough.
Janice has a Masters degree in History. She lives in Toronto.
