After a painful divorce, Liz Rivas spent a year travelling through 13 countries. She gained independence and confidence along the way, but she also discovered something that photos rarely show: you can feel empowered by arriving alone and still feel lonely once you get there.
In this article, Rivas, founder of RoamCircle, shares how that experience led her to build a social travel platform for women. Having spent more than a decade leading global marketing programmes across the Americas, Europe and other international markets, she was not a developer, but she set out to turn a deeply human problem into a digital product.
After my marriage ended under painful circumstances, I spent the following year travelling and healing though 13 different countries.
I filled my schedule with flights, hotels and itineraries. If I always had another destination ahead of me, I had something to look forward to. Every new city gave me distance from the life I thought I was going to have and space to discover who I was outside of it.
Every new destination strengthened my confidence. I learned to navigate unfamiliar places, make decisions independently and trust myself in ways I had not before.
But solo travel also exposed a contradiction.
I could be completely independent and still want meaningful connection. I could feel empowered by arriving alone and lonely once I got there. The photos might show a beautiful destination, but they could not show how strange it sometimes felt to experience everything alone.
When I wanted to meet people, I found myself searching across Facebook groups, WhatsApp chats, Instagram accounts and different event platforms. I would scroll through introductions, message strangers and try to determine which communities were active, welcoming and trustworthy.
Sometimes I was not searching for a best friend. I simply wanted someone to have dinner with, attend an event with or ask, “Do you want to explore this place together?”
The process was fragmented and often uncomfortable. I had every tool required to reach a destination, but no reliable way to begin building community before I arrived.
I soon realised I was not the only woman doing this.
Solo travellers, digital nomads and expats were repeating the same process in cities around the world. Women were joining multiple groups, introducing themselves over and over and attempting to judge whether an unfamiliar event or person felt safe.
The behaviour already existed. The technology simply had not caught up with it.
That realisation became the foundation for RoamCircle, a social travel platform designed to help women discover friends, trusted communities, local events and group travel experiences wherever they go.
Becoming a technology founder was not an obvious next step for me. I had spent more than a decade leading global marketing programmes across the Americas, Europe and other international markets. I understood audiences, growth and how to bring ideas to market. But I was not a developer.
I had to learn how to translate a deeply human problem into a digital product.
That process taught me that social technology cannot succeed by thinking only about features. When a platform is asking women to move from an online interaction into a real-world meeting, trust is not an optional layer added later. It has to influence the entire experience.
Who is part of the community? What information helps someone decide whether she feels comfortable connecting? How do we work with trusted local leaders rather than attempting to manufacture community from a distance? How can technology make the first interaction easier without trying to replace the relationship that follows?
These questions shaped our approach.
RoamCircle is now available across 13 major destinations for solo travellers, digital nomads and expats. We have also brought hundreds of women together through coworking sessions, dinners, happy hours and local experiences in Miami, Lisbon, Paris, Barcelona and Mexico City.
Those gatherings have reinforced something I now believe strongly: the best social technology should eventually become almost invisible.
The success of a community platform is not measured only by how long someone looks at a screen. It is measured by whether that screen helps her enter a room, begin a conversation and leave with a connection she did not have before.
Our in-person experiences have also shown me that community cannot be copied and pasted from one city to another.
The need for belonging may be universal, but how people connect is local. A coworking session may resonate in one place, while a shared dinner, cultural experience or neighbourhood gathering works better somewhere else.
That is why technology must work alongside local community leadership. A global platform can provide the infrastructure, but people who understand the culture and rhythm of a city create the trust.
This principle is shaping our expansion, including three group trips that are currently live and three more in development with women who already lead their own communities.
It is also influencing our larger vision: helping travellers discover women-owned accommodations, businesses and locally operated experiences. Technology can do more than connect women to one another; it can direct attention and tourism spending towards the women shaping the places we visit.
There is enormous investment in helping travellers decide where to go, where to sleep and what to buy. I believe the next opportunity in travel technology is helping people answer a more human question: Where will I belong when I arrive?
Building RoamCircle has brought me back to the problem I experienced across those 13 countries. I was never looking for technology to replace spontaneous friendships or real community. I wanted technology to make those moments easier to find.
A flight app can get a woman to Lisbon. A booking platform can give her somewhere to stay. A map can help her navigate the city…But after all of that has been arranged, she may still arrive alone.
Travel technology has solved almost every logistical step of the journey. Now it is time to solve what happens between the itinerary and the experience, the moment when someone stops feeling like a visitor and begins to feel that she belongs.
About the Author
Liz Rivas is a Dominican-American entrepreneur and the founder of RoamCircle, a social travel platform helping women who are solo travellers, digital nomads and expats find community wherever they go. Before becoming a tech founder, she spent more than a decade leading global marketing programmes across the Americas, Europe and other international markets. Learn more at https://roamcircle.app/.
