TRAVEL INSIDER : ‘For Women Only’ Trips Are Gaining Converts : Vacations: Sailing or trekking, single-sex tours are unusual for emphasis on group learning and interaction.

While it might, as the saying goes, be nice to have a man around the house, an increasing number of women are opting not to have any along on an adventure vacation--thus creating a mini-boom in organized trips for women only.

The reasons for wanting to travel guy-less range, say adventure travel outfitters, from the spiritual--the anticipated joy of bonding with other women, for example--to the practical: Some trip leaders maintain that women conceptualize and master certain skills, such as navigating a sailboat or scaling a mountain, differently than men do, and accomplish more in a same-sex learning environment. Age, too, can come into play; several companies state outright their trips are for women over 35 or 40, who may be new to the physical rigors of outdoor adventures and don’t want to have to keep up with fitness buffs in their 20s.

“Many of these women have never left home alone before, but always traveled with their husbands and kids,” said Marion Stoddart, owner of Outdoor Vacations for Women Over 40, in Groton, Mass. “Now their kids are grown and off on their own, and their husbands are dead or gone, or simply not interested in an adventure experience. As these women see the big zeros in their lives--40, 50, 60--they’re realizing their own mortality and that there are some things in life they cannot postpone doing any longer or they’ll never do them.”

Suzanne Pogell, president of Womanship, a 9-year-old sailing school in Annapolis, Md., said she sometimes gets calls from irate men and women who object to her single-sex programs. “The guys accuse me of being sexist in excluding them from my trips, and the women think I’m suggesting females are somehow dumber than men and need special handling, but none of that’s the point,” she said. “The truth is many women need an opportunity to develop competence and confidence without the pressures and even well-meant protections that men often provide.

“In sailing, we’ve found that women’s way of learning is different from men’s--more global, with a lot more explanation and hands-on demonstration,” said Pogell, whose company runs two- to seven-day courses out of its Annapolis base as well as marinas in Florida, the Virgin Islands, New England and Washington state. Womanship’s motto, she adds, is “Nobody yells.”

Susan Eckert, owner of Rainbow Adventures, an Evanston, Ill., company that runs about 22 trips a year for women over 35, said that in the 12 years she has been in business, the average age of participants has increased--to about 50--while the physical demands of the itineraries have decreased. “We don’t do backpacking treks or two-week canoe outings anymore,” she said. “Wherever we go, camels, llamas or Sherpas carry the gear.”

Stamina-building is, however, an integral part of the women’s trips run by the Sierra Club and Outward Bound--particularly the latter, whose name is synonymous with rough and tough wilderness challenges. Fifty years old itself, Outward Bound, based in Greenwich, Conn., has grown mellower and more tolerant with age, no longer espousing a strictly survival-school stance. Outward Bound’s Krista Sullivan said that, while the courses are physically demanding, individuals are encouraged to go at their own pace, competing with no one but themselves.

Every program, from alpine mountaineering to dog-sledding, canyon trekking and white-water canoeing, is offered several times a year as an all-women trip to make the experience even more user-friendly for neophytes, Sullivan said.

Carol Hake, a 63-year-old Sierra Club hike leader, has spent eight summers teaching women from 17 to 74 how to tote a 35-pound backpack cross-country without hurting backs or necks.

“We go short distances, just three to four miles a day the first couple of days, and the women learn that by correctly packing and carrying well-designed packs, they don’t ever have to be in pain,” said Hake, whose weeklong trips are in the Ansel Adams Wilderness Area south of Yosemite National Park.

“The Sierra Club women’s trips often are as much about winding down as moving along,” said Hake. “So many of these vigorous women are burned out from their jobs or home stresses and spend much of their time stretched out by a creek, splashing nude in a fresh mountain pool or sketching the wildflowers.”

While most women’s trips involve a high level of female bonding, Women to Women, a program run by Overseas Adventure Travel, of Cambridge, Mass., was created specifically to foster cross-cultural communication and understanding. Accompanied by a local bilingual guide, participants stay in villages in Tanzania or Nepal and Tibet, working and cooking alongside the local women and exchanging ideas about women’s issues, ranging from legal rights to child rearing, and emotional concerns.

What follows is a selection of outfitters and their trips for women. Except where noted, air fare to the destination costs extra, as do many incidentals:

* The Offshore Sailing School, Suite 108, 16731 McGregor Blvd., Ft. Myers, Fla. 33908; (800) 221-4326. This well-established school does not have a regular program of instruction for women only, but once a year runs the “You Can Sail Escape” course for women out of South Seas Plantation resort in Captiva, Fla. Participants choose between a four- or six-day experience, which includes accommodations at the resort; six-day course, May 2-7, $1,000; four-day course, May 6-9, $400. Note: Unlike Womanship, whose instructors are women, some of Offshore’s are men.

* Outdoor Vacations for Women Over 40, P.O. Box 200, Groton, Mass. 01450; (508) 448-3331. Walking Wales with London sightseeing, May 15-25, $2,800; Hiking France’s Loir Valley, June 12-22, $2,900; Rafting Idaho’s Salmon and Snake rivers, July 17-24, $1,600.

* Outward Bound, 384 Field Point Road, Greenwich, Conn. 06830; (203) 661-0797. Alpine mountaineering in the Colorado Rockies, June 2-6, Aug. 11-15, $600; backpacking, rock climbing and canoeing in the Appalachians of North Carolina, Sept. 9-12, $1,200; desert and canyon exploration, Joshua Tree, Calif., Oct. 24-31, $800.

* Overseas Adventure Travel, Women to Women Program, 349 Broadway, Cambridge, Mass. 02139; (800) 831-1231. Tanzania safari and Masai village stay, Aug. 20-Sept. 5, Oct. 15-31, $4,700; Tibet and Nepal trek and village stay, Oct. 15-Nov. 4, $5,100.

* Rainbow Adventures, 1308 Sherman Ave., Evanston, Ill. 60201; (708) 864-4570. Walking Northern Italy’s Lake District, June 24-July 3, $2,800; Helicopter hiking in the Canadian Rockies, July 25-Aug. 1, $2,000; Montana covered-wagon trek and Yellowstone river rafting, Aug. 14-21, $1,300; Morocco tour, including annual marriage festival, where men barter for wives, Aug. 28-Sept. 11 (this trip includes air fare from New York), $4,095.

* Sierra Club, 730 Polk St., San Francisco 94109; (415) 923-5522. Women’s backpack trip to Russian Wilderness, Klamath Forest, Calif., July 7-17, $260.

* Womanship, 410 Severn Ave., Annapolis, Md. 21403; (800) 342-9295. (In Maryland, 410-269-0784.) Live-aboard learning cruises in Annapolis, Md., May-October, seven days, $990; five days, $750; three-day weekend, $470. Weeklong live-aboard sailing courses out of Newport, R.I., June-September, $1,100; weeklong learning cruise in the British Virgin Islands, year-round, $1,150-$1,350; sailing the Greek Islands, Sept. 12-26, $2,500.