It’s been a wild ride at Muslim Solo Travel… Read our history below to understand what we’ve been through and where we are going next.
- The start of it all… & Muslim Solo Travel’s domain was bought
- Muslim Solo Travel 1.0 (travel blogger) officially started
- The Community was introduced – MST 2.0 started
- Saudi Arabia announced that it is okay to do Umrah and Hajj without mahram & what does this mean to Muslimah Solo Travelers.
- Journeys Session started
- Our First Meet Up!
- Our Community hit 1000 & Connect Sub-group was introduced
- The Travelers Mindset: Our First Retreat!
- First Writers Sharing
- Our First MST Survey
- Sayonara MST 2.0, Our Instagram & Writers (are moving…)
- MST 3.0
The start of it all… & Muslim Solo Travel’s domain was bought
Farihah, who was a travel journalist at this time, was in her childhood room in Borneo during lockdown.
After constantly being bombarded with questions from her family, friends, friends of friends (some are twice, thrice removed), on “how did you do it (solo travel)“, she figured…
Why is nobody doing this (creating a resource for Muslimahs to travel solo safely)? If nobody is doing this and the domain is on sale, let me do it!
— Farihah’s naive thoughts at the time. This was a time when traveling solo was still a taboo subject for Muslimah, but was on the rise for non-Muslims alike.
Itching to travel, couldn’t get over her personal month-long solo trip to the US two years prior and still smitten with the idea of independent travel, she was determined to push forward with Muslim Solo Travel and the idea of her being the travel blogger behind it, as that seemed realistic to her capacity at that time.
Seconds before she hit the purchase domain button, she looked at her mom, telling her to “pray for me”. And that was the beginning of everything.
This was the soft-launch of MST.
Muslim Solo Travel 1.0 (travel blogger) officially started
Prior to January, there were a few long-form, long-tail keyword articles posted on Farihah’s own solo travels (you won’t find them here anymore). But January was the beginning of it all as the world finally opened up and Farihah traveled to Middle East, particularly Dubai EXPO to deepen her understanding of various cultures, and solo travel.
The Community was introduced – MST 2.0 started
After realizing that Farihah’s own journey won’t simply cut it – as there are a lot of Muslim women with various backgrounds and unique stories in this world – the community was introduced to foster meaningful, nuanced dialogues between Muslimahs.
The website slowly changed to adapt a more communal tone, instead of a first-person, travel blogger tone.
Saudi Arabia announced that it is okay to do Umrah and Hajj without mahram & what does this mean to Muslimah Solo Travelers.
According to Riyadh, it would apply to pilgrims worldwide.
Speaking at the Saudi embassy in Cairo, Tawfiq Al Rabiah, Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Hajj and Umrah, said: “A woman can come to the kingdom to perform Umrah without a mahram.”
“Is it allowed to do umrah/hajj alone?”
– has been one of the biggest & repeated questions and objections that we get from our community.
Ever since our establishment, we have constantly engaged in dialogues about this with relevant parties in the tourism industry / Halal events on how times have changed. We have also been loud on SEO (Search Engine Optimization – pre-AI days) and socials on this, as we are the ambassador for Muslimah Solo Travelers.
Our thinking at that time was simple. Life is complex. From our Founder’s personal encounter with stories on how difficult it was for ladies to get permission from their mahram… everybody has unique struggles.
Some ladies might have their husband passed, maybe aren’t married, or divorced, maybe their closest mahram have an unknown abusive history to them, and maybe that’s the only mahram that they have, or maybe they have no male mahrams at all (these days there’s a rise in single households). But they are financially capable, literate (it is common for women to have tertiary education) and digitally savvy to go so alone. A stark difference compared to our grandma’s time! With the sudden mushrooming of many women-only Umrah / Hajj trips, and Saudi Arabia as one of the hot layover spots in the world, this has changed the trajectory of the status quo at the time. Many community members have voiced out that they like to take advantage of including Umrah as a layover within their solo travels.
And with this announcement from Riyadh, the biggest challenge to solo travel as a Muslimah (as Hajj is one of the five pillars of Islam) has been solved.
A common consensus within our community is that most of us don’t dream to travel to as many countries like the usual non-Muslim solo female travel narrative, but to be able to perform one of the five pillars of Islam, even if it means doing it independently is the way to go about it.
Journeys Session started
Our signature Journeys session featured Muslimahs of different background, on their solo travel tales, what they’ve learned and what they could impart to other MSTers. It was hosted in the community.
Journeys Replay in MSTer Membership
Now, you can watch the replay when you buy any of our membership programs.
Our First Meet Up!
Accidentally, on a formal trip to Brunei as MST, Farihah ended meeting up with Bruneian MSTers. Then Singapore MSTers, as our official Meet Up series.
This later on sparked the idea of meeting up is normal and part of one’s solo travel.
We later on had Meet Ups in KL in conjunction with Islamic Tourism Month.
Our Community hit 1000 & Connect Sub-group was introduced
Our Connect Sub-group, which is a place for one to post their request / ability to meet-up, travel buddy, host, swap, pet sit, etc was introduced in response to the success of our original Meet Ups and MSTers demand in the main community group.
To better distinguish the conversations on solo travel and connections on solo travel, it presented a need for Connect sub-group.
It is hoped that the sub-group can help MSTers to facilitate their own connections safely, wherever they are in the world.
Connect with MSTers!
To facilitate your solo travels via meet-up, travel buddy, host, swap, pet sit, etc
The Travelers Mindset: Our First Retreat!
We held our first retreat, The Travelers Mindset with Muslimah Psychotherapist within the foothills of Malaysian Janda Baik.
“Bring me more calmness and maybe kind of reaffirm of my perspective about certain
things in life” – MSTer Farhana
As we get requests from time to time to host this again, however, due to everyone’s differing schedules (we are busy too), and our ethos on independent travel, we’ve this retreat will now be converted into a self-paced course where you can do it yourself in your solo retreats – yippie yeay!
First Writers Sharing
With the aim to expand diverse voices on the website, we held our first writers sharing. Writers from four different continents attended the first session which presented a unique multipolar landscape.
Our First MST Survey
To better serve all, Muslimah Solo Travelers, Muslimah-friendly hospitality professionals, we put out our first survey to see where we can take the next direction.
The results? Surprising. As it is key to chart the next course for MST.
Sayonara MST 2.0, Our Instagram & Writers (are moving…)
Together with the feedback from our survey, the timing felt right, it was time for a change, especially with AI changing the landscape digitally.
Vetting through our entire presence online, we also decided to depreciate our Instagram, and give a second life to MST’s original Instagram to our sister brand, Ruhfar.
If you search for MST’s instagram, it is still there. But we don’t post there anymore. (sounds confusing, yeah, but it’s how it is)
The reason behind the depreciation? When MST was first started, there was no community. Only Instagram. That was our primary and first channel to communicate to the world. But now that we have two community groups on FB, TikTok, and we are super active on our website (plus email for paid members) as the central reference, there is really no need to be everywhere anymore.
We also said farewell to our writers, as the website now has transformed into an archive of community conversations, upon reading your requests through the survey.
More on this in our MST 3.0 announcement.
