Hi there, I'm Lale Arakoglu, and this is Women Who Travel.

Today, we're starting a three-part series about one of our favorite and most talked about topics,

solo travel.

The series will go beyond the glamour of solo travel and share what it's really like to go it alone.

There are funny moments, occasions connecting with locals, and also loneliness and overcoming fear.

To start our series, How to Survive a Work Trip when you've gone without your co-workers,

and you're in a totally new environment.

I would go to a panel and then there'd be, you know, an open bar.

The setting literally looks like the Love Island Villa.

So it was so nice.

So it wasn't that corporate in the sense that it was buttoned up.

It was pretty loose.

But it was corporate in the sense that, oh, everyone is here to network, to work,

to take meetings on the beach while they're holding a coconut.

In June, Zakea Gibbons found herself in the south of France

at a prestige event called Cannes,

which describes itself as a festival of creativity.

So-called movers and shakers in the entertainment industry all gather there to network and

discuss new trends. When Sequeer arrived, it was quickly clear this wasn't a conventional

conference setting. The sparkling blue water, hot, and I see these kind of like mini villas after villa after villa side by side by side by side.

And I'm walking and, you know, there's signs saying like Reddit, Amazon, like all the big tech companies have essentially built like literally constructed villas on the sand in a matter of a week.

Zakia is a dynamic host, storyteller, and the co-founder of an organization that champions

...