05:00, 15 Oct 2025<\/p>\n
![\"Kiersten](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/0_01K7GMPAPDE2XTYV49W3Q5Q0BE.jpg\")
Kiersten Drynan has always loved travelling<\/p>\n
A woman who prefers to travel<\/a> solo without her husband has visited 47 countries in the last eight years as she wants to \u201ccollect as many experiences\u201d as she can.<\/p>\n Kiersten Drynan, 58, met her husband of 35 years, Jim, 62, at church, before they settled down and had four children \u2013 Jake, 32, Paige, 29, Tate, 25 and Peyton, 23.<\/p>\n Having always loved travelling after visiting the UK as a teenager, Kiersten, who lives near Toronto, Canada<\/a>, said she \u201cjust didn\u2019t have the means\u201d to embark on costly excursions while raising a family.<\/p>\n However, after spending a week in Paris with a friend in 2017, before jetting off on an organised group tour around Europe with her youngest daughter, Kiersten caught the travel bug and \u201cloved every second\u201d.<\/p>\n As her husband is more of a \u201chomebody\u201d and Kiersten opts for group tours which are \u201csafe and family-orientated\u201d, she said Jim was \u201ctotally fine\u201d with her travelling solo \u2013 and he is her \u201cbiggest champion\u201d for her adventures, which have taken her to Japan, Morocco, South Africa and Argentina<\/a>, to name a few.<\/p>\n Kiersten, who retired from a 32-year career in teaching in 2022, currently works a few weeks a year as a supply teacher but uses the rest of her downtime to travel, and she hopes to cross off the rest of her bucket list in future.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a quote I really like to live by, which is \u2018in a few years from now, you won\u2019t remember how much it cost but you will remember how alive you felt\u2019,\u201d Kiersten told PA Real Life.<\/p>\n \u201cFor women like me, it\u2019s definitely difficult to take the first step and there\u2019s a lot of anxiety that comes with it \u2013 but I\u2019m really glad I did it.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you\u2019re too afraid to take that step, there\u2019s so many memories that you\u2019re never going to have.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m just trying to collect as many experiences as I can.\u201d<\/p>\n Kiersten said she \u201cnever had any money to travel\u201d when she and her husband were raising their four children, and the family opted for excursions they could drive to, such as skiing holidays or camping trips.<\/p>\n \u201cI went to England when I was 13 with my grandfather and it was so interesting,\u201d Kiersten said.<\/p>\n \u201cI always wanted to travel more, but I just didn\u2019t have the means.\u201d<\/p>\n In the summer of 2017, Kiersten said one of her friends took part in a study programme in Paris, and she was invited to stay with her for a week.<\/p>\n The trip then inspired Kiersten to take her youngest daughter, Peyton, on an organised group tour around Europe the following summer.<\/p>\n They visited 10 countries over the course of two weeks, and Kiersten said she \u201cloved every second of it\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cI liked it so much that I talked my husband into doing a UK and Ireland tour the next summer,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cI knew he didn\u2019t love flying, but this time he also didn\u2019t enjoy packing up every day and moving from place to place.\u201d<\/p>\n During that trip in particular, Kiersten said her husband noticed the organised tour was \u201csafe and family-orientated\u201d, and single travellers were \u201cwelcomed\u201d and \u201cincluded\u201d.<\/p>\n When Kiersten wanted to embark on another travelling tour, she said her husband was \u201ctotally fine\u201d with her going alone.<\/p>\n \u201cHe likes to be at home looking after our children, even though they\u2019re all grown up, but if anything comes up for them, making sure the lawn is mowed \u2013 he\u2019s more of a homebody than me,\u201d Kiersten said.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m fully independent in what I do, and my husband is my biggest champion for that. He encourages me to go for it.\u201d<\/p>\n Kiersten\u2019s travel plans were temporarily scuppered by the Covid-19 pandemic, but in 2022 she could set off once more.<\/p>\n \u201cI was retiring at the time so I said to my husband that I was thinking of putting two European tours back to back, so I would be gone for around 40 days,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cI was viewing it as a retirement gift to myself.<\/p>\n \u201cMy husband missed me, of course, but it was amazing \u2013 it lasted all of July and halfway into August.\u201d<\/p>\n Kiersten has since embarked alone on \u201cdouble-up tours\u201d several times, and she has visited 47 countries since 2017, including Japan, Morocco, South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Argentina \u2013 as well as \u201csome 40 European countries\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s hard to pick a favourite,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cIn South Africa, I felt so alive out on safari, but in Morocco the people were so friendly.<\/p>\n \u201cIn Switzerland, you\u2019re looking out at the most beautiful scenery but my heart loves London because I\u2019ve been there many times.<\/p>\n \u201cParis is beautiful but the cherry blossoms in Japan were amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n Along the way, Kiersten has gained a host of experiences, from tripping on some medieval steps in France and falling into a hot spring to accidentally upgrading to a luxury suite in Morocco with two bathrooms.<\/p>\n Recalling a \u201chilarious\u201d moment from her adventures, Kiersten said she was \u201cattacked\u201d by a coati, a mammal which is a member of the raccoon family, in Argentina.<\/p>\n \u201cI was just eating a popsicle and it wanted the popsicle \u2013 all of a sudden it started running towards me,\u201d she recalled.<\/p>\n \u201cA man started yelling at me in Portuguese or Spanish, I didn\u2019t know what he was saying.<\/p>\n \u201cEverything sort of went in slow motion and I screamed, jumped up and threw the popsicle at the coati.<\/p>\n \u201cIt grabbed the popsicle and ran off into the bush.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery once in a while, I\u2019ll search online to see if anyone has posted a video of it, because I really wish it had been captured.\u201d<\/p>\n When embarking on her solo travels, Kiersten said she will \u201calways keep safety in mind\u201d and she prefers to book her excursions through travel companies which organise group tours.<\/p>\n Occasionally, she will stay in places on her own for a few days, either before a tour starts or after it finishes, but she is always \u201ccautious about safety\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I\u2019m completely by myself, I don\u2019t stay out late, I don\u2019t go out after dark,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cIf I want to see the most that I can out of a country or place, having a tour leader or a guide will make sure we hit all those important spots \u2013 even some you\u2019ve never heard of that turn out to be really cool.\u201d<\/p>\n Kiersten said she has embarked on 11 international tours so far through Expat Explore, a tour operator based in the UK.<\/p>\n New data from the operator shows a 20 per cent yearly rise in women over 45 joining their tours, and almost a third of women who travel alone are married.<\/p>\n Kiersten has made about 70 new friends from the tours, and she keeps in touch with them via Facebook.<\/p>\n Looking ahead, Kiersten plans to visit Egypt, Jordan and Peru next year.<\/p>\n She also keeps a bucket list of places she hopes to visit in future, which includes Chile, Costa Rica, Iceland, Thailand, Australia and Madagascar.<\/p>\n To find out more, visit: expatexplore.com<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n Subscribe to our newsletter for the latest news from the Irish Mirror direct to your inbox: <\/strong>Sign up here<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n![\"Kiersten](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1_01K7GMP9Z5DE08CDGN04YNC1YJ.jpg\")
Kiersten said it is ‘hard’ to pick her favourite travel destination<\/p>\n![\"Kiersten](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/0_01K7GMP8YYBM5AR29QJ96YE5KM.jpg\")
Kiersten and her husband Jim<\/p>\n![\"Kiersten](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/0_01K7GMP9241DCG5H9SB0CRJVN8.jpg\")
Kiersten has made around 70 new friends through her travels<\/p>\n![\"Kiersten](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/0_01K7GMP865BKRBAPDBERKGJHKD.jpg\")
Kiersten keeps ‘safety in mind’ while travelling alone<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1760409671_892_1_irish-presidential-election-stock.jpg\")
Follow the 2025 presidential race every step of the way with our politics newsletter<\/p>\n