From 100 to 20,000: Our First Three Months at Football TravelHER

Three months in. A growing audience, a few bookings, lots of learning, plenty of late nights and a whole lot of excitement. So, where are we now?

Three months ago, Football TravelHER was a new name in the women’s football world. We were two lifelong fans with an idea, a website in the making and absolutely no idea what to expect when we finally put ourselves out there.

Fast forward to the end of our third month, and our Instagram reach is growing, our TikTok videos have racked up more than 100,000 views, website traffic is increasing, and we’re starting to see our name recognised by more people across the women’s football industry.

Are we going viral? Absolutely not.

Are we learning a lot, making connections and slowly building something we’re really excited about? Definitely.

So, here’s a little look at our first three months: why we started, what we’ve learned, the people we’ve met and where we hope to go next.

Why we started

Football TravelHER is the world’s first tour operator dedicated exclusively to elite women’s football. We’re women-founded and women-led, and our mission is simple: to make travelling to watch the women’s game easier, more accessible and more enjoyable.

Whether you’re a lifelong supporter who has followed your club for years, a Lionesses or other international team fan looking to experience club football for the first time, or someone who fancies combining a weekend away with live sport, we want to help you make it happen.

We’ve been friends for almost 20 years, and for most of that time, we’ve followed women’s football together. We’ve experienced the highs, the long journeys, the unforgettable matches and the years when it sometimes felt like nobody else was watching.

We’ve also experienced that familiar feeling of returning from a brilliant football trip, desperate to talk about the players, the match and the atmosphere, only to find that not many people around us knew what we were talking about!

We both wanted to work in the industry and contribute to the continued growth of the women’s game. But rather than simply looking for a way in, we started thinking about what we could bring to it ourselves.

We understand the importance of planning, organisation, attention to detail and making sure all the moving parts of a project come together. We also know how to identify problems, test solutions and improve a process.

And when we looked at women’s football travel, we saw an opportunity to bring those skills together with our knowledge as fans.

We knew how much supporters loved travelling to games, but we also knew that organising everything around a fixture could take time and effort. Travel, accommodation, tickets, finding out where to go before and after the match, and working out what a destination has to offer can all become part of the planning.

What if we could bring those elements together and make the whole experience easier?

That was the thinking behind Football TravelHER. An idea that started with two friends, a shared love of the game and a belief that there was room to do something different.

Going live: 4 August!

Before launch, we questioned pretty much everything.

• Was this feasible?

• Would people actually want a tour operator dedicated to women’s football?

• Would clubs want to work with us?

• And, perhaps most importantly, how on earth were we going to get people to know we existed?

Friends and family were hugely supportive, but the reality was that we were stepping into an industry we were passionate about without knowing how our idea would be received.

Then came 4th August, and Football TravelHER officially went live.

Some press coverage followed, people started taking notice, and suddenly the idea we’d been working on was a real business.

It was daunting, overwhelming and, above all, incredibly exciting.

But once the initial buzz of launch began to settle, the next challenge appeared.

How do we keep people interested? How do we reach the right audience? And how do we turn an idea people seem to like into a business that people actually book with?

That has been one of our biggest learning curves so far.

Learning the socials the hard way

We’ll be honest: Our grip on social media tech is embarrasing! We’ve been running socials for months and only discovered you can switch Instagram accounts with a single tap the other day through a clumsy fat-finger error by Corinne. Absolute digital pioneers, us.

Setting up our social media channels was one thing. Working out what to post, when to post it, how to reach people and how to create content that actually gets noticed was something else entirely.

Our early attempts involved a fair amount of trial and error. Some things worked, others didn’t, and we quickly realised that simply posting about our packages wasn’t necessarily going to build the audience we needed.

We needed to show people who we were, why we had started Football TravelHER and what makes travelling to women’s football special.

A little help from a content creator made a real difference. With some guidance on what to post and how to approach our content, we started seeing much better results.

Our TikTok videos began reaching thousands of people, with some landing between 5,000 and 25,000 views. Instagram started growing too, and we began to understand a little more about what our audience wanted to see.

The biggest lesson? You don’t have to know everything yourself.

We’re still learning, experimenting and finding our feet, but we’re getting more confident about showing the personality behind Football TravelHER and sharing the experiences that made us fall in love with the women’s game in the first place.

Views are great, but bookings are the goal

Here’s something we’ve learned pretty quickly: growing an audience and growing a business are two very different things.

We’ve seen month-on-month growth in our profile views, website visits and the number of people across the industry who are starting to recognise our name. We’ve received enquiries, answered plenty of questions and secured several bookings, which is incredibly encouraging for a business that’s only three months old.

But a positive month on social media doesn’t automatically translate into a full booking calendar.

And that’s something we’re having to learn as we go.

People need to discover us, understand what we offer, decide where they’d like to travel and work out whether a particular trip is right for them. For some supporters, booking a women’s football trip through a dedicated operator will be a completely new concept.

We’re not just selling a weekend away. We’re introducing people to a different way of experiencing women’s football.

That means building trust, explaining our offering, working with clubs and understanding what supporters actually want from us.

We’re learning which packages generate the most interest, what information people need before they’re ready to book and how we can make the whole process as straightforward as possible.

For now, we’re focusing on getting our name out there, building relationships, listening to supporters and making sure we’re creating something people genuinely want to use.

We know this didn’t happen overnight. We didn’t expect it to be an overnight success story, either.

The other big learning curve has been managing our workload.

In the lead-up to launch and throughout these first three months, we’ve been balancing our full-time jobs with building Football TravelHER around them.

That means evenings spent working on the website, weekends dedicated to planning trips and packages, and plenty of conversations about the business squeezed into whatever time we can find.

We’ve had to work out how to give Football TravelHER the attention it needs without allowing it to affect our day jobs. It’s a balancing act, and we’re still working out the best way to do that.

We’re getting there. Slowly!

So, where are we after three months?

Let’s look at some numbers. By the end of month three, we’d reached:

• Around 20,000 Instagram views and likes across our growing content and activity.

• More than 100,000 TikTok views, helping introduce Football TravelHER to a much wider audience.

• Growing website traffic, with visitors coming from more than 10 countries.

• Several bookings and enquiries from supporters interested in travelling to women’s football.

• More conversations and connections across the industry, as we continue introducing ourselves to clubs, organisations and potential partners.

For two people who started with an idea and launched a brand-new business just three months ago, we’re happy with the progress.

We know that building awareness, establishing relationships and encouraging supporters to book will take time.

Our expectation is that this will be a slow burn, particularly over our first couple of seasons as we develop the brand, learn what works and build a reputation within the women’s football community.

We want to grow sustainably, make the right connections and create experiences that supporters genuinely enjoy.

And if these first three months have taught us anything, it’s that progress doesn’t always happen in one big leap. Sometimes it’s a new club agreeing to work with you, a supporter getting in touch, a successful trip or a social media post reaching someone who had never heard of you before.

Those small steps matter.

Big names, new connections and our own backyard

One of our priorities since launch has been getting Football TravelHER in front of the people and organisations helping shape the women’s game.

We’ve been reaching out to established brands, industry organisations and clubs, introducing ourselves and exploring where there might be opportunities to work together.

Those conversations are important, and we’ll continue pursuing them. Here’s a little of what we’ve been up to:

Supporting the Free Lionesses in Greece

In October, we supported the Free Lionesses by helping create matchday guides for England’s Women’s World Cup qualifying play-off in Crete, Greece.

We reached out to Debs from the Free Lionesses, whom we’ve known for years through following the Lionesses at major tournaments. Having spent so much time travelling to watch England ourselves, it felt like a natural opportunity to help other supporters make the most of their trip.

Debs has been incredibly generous with her advice and support since we launched, and it’s been lovely to find ways to contribute to a community we’ve been part of for so long.

It also reinforced something we believe strongly at Football TravelHER: a football trip is about much more than the 90 minutes on the pitch.

It’s about knowing where to go, discovering somewhere new, meeting other supporters and making memories along the way.

Honeyball FC: football, friendship and a comeback!

Closer to home, we’ve been spending time with Honeyball FC in Yorkshire, a club with several teams covering a wide age range across the local leagues.

And they’ve even managed to persuade Corinne to come out of knee-injury retirement and kick a football again!

Whether that proves to be a brilliant decision or a questionable one remains to be seen....

Jokes aside, reconnecting with playing is a fantastic reminder of what football can offer beyond watching the game. The friendships, the community, the physical activity and the positive impact on mental health are all important parts of what makes sport so special.

Supporting the women’s game means celebrating all of it, from elite football at the highest level to the grassroots clubs creating opportunities for women and girls to play.

We’re proud to have connections with the local game, and we hope to build more opportunities to bring supporters together through Football TravelHER.

Hera Social: putting women’s sport on the map in York

We’ve also supported the opening night of Hera Social in York, Yorkshire’s first women’s sports bar, which sponsors one of the Honeyball club teams.

Spaces like Hera are incredibly important for women’s sport. They give supporters somewhere to watch matches together, meet other fans and enjoy an atmosphere where women’s sport is the main event rather than an afterthought.

As a York-based business, we’re particularly excited about what this could mean locally.

And what better way to start or finish a football weekend than gathering with fellow supporters at a venue that shares your passion for the game?

We’re looking forward to seeing how the relationship develops and exploring opportunities to work together in the future.

A football weekend in Glasgow

We’ve also made the trip to Glasgow to watch one of our featured clubs, Glasgow City, take on local rivals Partick Thistle in the Scottish Women’s Premier League.

Trips like this are a big part of why we started Football TravelHER. We love the football itself, of course, but we also love discovering new cities, experiencing different clubs and seeing how the women’s game is developing in different parts of the country.

It’s also important for us to experience the trips we offer and continue learning about the destinations and matchday experiences we’re recommending to supporters.

After all, we’re fans ourselves, and that perspective is at the heart of everything we do.

Working with the Female Football Network

October also saw us collaborate with the Female Football Network (FFN), contributing a hospitality experience to their giveaway.

We offered two WSL hospitality tickets to a game of the winner’s choice from our featured clubs, giving one lucky supporter the opportunity to enjoy women’s football with a little extra matchday luxury.

For us, it was a great opportunity to introduce Football TravelHER to a wider audience of women’s football supporters while supporting an organisation that shares our enthusiasm for the game.

We want to work with people and organisations who are helping women’s football grow, whether that’s through media, community engagement, supporter networks or creating opportunities for more people to experience live matches.

Collaborations like this help us reach new audiences, build relationships and show supporters what Football TravelHER can offer.

We’re still a young business, so getting our name out there and finding the right partners is an important file in our journey. We’re excited to see where those relationships lead.

What’s next for Football TravelHER?

We’re heading into the next few months with plenty to do and lots to look forward to.

We’re hoping to welcome another WSL club and an overseas club into our featured clubs section over the coming month, expanding the range of fixtures and destinations available to supporters.

We’re also keen to develop more local trips from York and across Yorkshire, build on our matchday guide offering and continue working with clubs and businesses that share our passion for women’s football.

There will be more content, more trips, more conversations and, undoubtedly, more things for us to learn along the way.

We’re still working out which marketing approaches are most effective, how to turn growing interest into bookings and where we can make the biggest difference as a small business in a growing industry.

But we started Football TravelHER because we believed there was an opportunity to do something worthwhile.

Three months in, we still believe that.

We’re proud of what we’ve achieved so far, grateful to everyone who has supported us, and excited about what the next chapter might bring.

We’re just getting started!

If you’ve been thinking about taking your first trip to watch women’s football, consider this your sign to make it happen.

Whether you want to follow your favourite club away from home, discover a new team, explore a different city or combine a weekend away with live football, we’d love to help you plan it.

Follow Football TravelHER to keep up with our latest trips, featured clubs, matchday guides and behind-the-scenes adventures.

And if there’s a fixture or destination you’d love us to feature, tell us about it. We’re always keen to hear where supporters want to go.

Want to work with us?

If you’re a grassroots football club (anywhere!), a local business, a professional working in the game or a local council interested in supporting women’s sport and tourism, we’d love to hear from you.

We’re particularly keen to collaborate on matchday guides/activities, local experiences and opportunities to help more people discover women’s football.

We’re only three months in, and there’s still a lot to learn.

But one thing hasn’t changed: we believe the women’s game is worth travelling for.

And we can’t wait to see where it takes us next.