Lisa Frank vs. schoolbus bullies

By fourth grade, I was on my third school. For once, I wasn’t the new kid, a rare reprieve.

On the bus, the actual new girl sobbed while kids chanted and snickered across cracked vinyl seats, the air thick with diesel, pencil shavings, and gum-snap.

I glanced over my shoulder, measuring the aisle; the driver’s rule hammered in my head: no standing. If I was anything in fourth grade, I was a rule follower. So I turned to the window, the glass cool on my temple, while the chorus behind me needled the air.

I couldn’t move, but I wouldn’t let it go. Rule-following me stayed put, but I weaponized my neon Lisa Frank stationery and recruited the bus driver as my runner.

As soon as I got home, I sprinted to my room and wrote her a letter. I told her I’d been the new girl too, that these kids were cruel, but she had people like me.

And somewhere between that no-standing rule and those neon notes, I learned to create connection under constraint, to really see people, especially the ones on the edges.

Which accidentally became the foundation of SoFe.

Because women like us aren’t running from anything. We’re running toward something.

Solo female travelers are their own kind of rebel. Our families don’t always get it. Our friends worry. Society decides we must be lonely, lost, or a little reckless.

But we know better.

The women who travel solo are the most curious, grounded, brave, and self-possessed women I’ve ever met. They’re not waiting for approval. They’re not waiting for the “right time.” They’re not waiting for someone to join them.

They choose themselves and then they choose the world.

And that’s who SoFe is built for.

xoxo,
Amanda, founder of SoFe Travel