I made a post recently talking about how travel seems to be a mostly female obsession and thought I'd expand on that by asking why are most solo travelers women?

I have read multiple articles claiming that when asked most travel companies report that they find women make up the majority of solo travelers, anywhere from 60-80% of all solo travelers. This corresponds with my own personal experience, I find it's mostly women you see traveling alone. Men in contrast tend to either travel with their girlfriends/wives or in groups, often all male.

This doesn't make a lot of sense as naturally you'd assume that most women would be too timid and scared to travel on their own, yet in reality statistics show they do it significantly more than men.

Why do you think women are more likely to solo travel than men, or perhaps more to the point why do relatively few men solo travel? Do men fear being perceived as loners more than women do?