Talk about a leap of faith.

Ali Bogner, a Brooklyn, N.Y., mom, left her husband and son for a rare girlfriends' getaway -- with a group of women she'd never met.

Yet, Bogner explained, she felt closer to some of these women than she did to her friends back in Brooklyn. They'd met and bonded as part of an online support group when they were pregnant and after their babies were born, ''the amazing mommies,'' as they dubbed themselves, decided they all wanted to meet. That first weekend in Dallas was such a success that the women now meet every year -- most recently in Colorado. ''For a lot of the girls, this is it. They don't do anything else without their families and they save all year,'' said Ali Bogner.

''The women range in age from late 20s to early 40s and come from all around the country for a few days for just one reason. ``We don't have to take care of anyone else!'' says Bogner. ''We can just be girls. It's so much fun! And affordable.'' Their most recent Colorado weekend cost just $600 a person, including food.

GREAT GIFT

I can't think of a better Valentine's gift for a busy mom than a few days away, or even an overnight, with her best buds. ''Our getaways allow us to stay up late laughing and crying and celebrating our friendship and sisterhood,'' added Kimberly Bercun, who lives in New Jersey.

I know how she feels. For the past several years, my two oldest friends and I manage similar getaways -- most recently to the Fairmont's Turnberry Isle Resort and Club in Miami (www.fairmont.com/turnberryisle). (Check out the new Power Shopper deal that includes discounts, a foot massage and more. Look for new girlfriend golf getaways too.)

For a few days anyway, we're no one's mom, or co-worker, or wife, though being moms we're reachable by cell phone and e-mail for ''emergencies.'' And it doesn't matter whether you're at a ritzy resort, as my friends and I were, or in a rental house, as were Ali Bogner, Kimberly Bercun and the rest of the ``Amazing Mommies.''

''It's more about the company than the journey,'' observes Carrie Sloan, editor of Girlfriends Getaways magazine (www.girlgetaways.com). Sloan notes that 86 percent of women polled for the magazine said they'd taken a girlfriend getaway in the past three years. And these trips are becoming increasingly popular.

These are grandmas (I met them at a women's ski camp last year at the Canyons Resort in Park City, Utah, www.thecanyons.com), mothers and daughters (my daughter and I met them hiking with Backroads (www.backroads.com) in Italy, as well as sisters and friends (two of mine are going on a short, post-holiday cruise after visiting aging parents in Florida).

''Life is so serious, you just want to giggle,'' says Sloan, adding that increasingly, women will attempt something they wouldn't have otherwise done because they have the support of other women. That includes daughters. I wouldn't have made it up Mt. Kilimanjaro without the support of my hiking partner, my daughter Reggie.

The dynamic is entirely different when it's ''just girls,'' whether its moms and daughters, grandmothers and granddaughters, sisters or simply good friends.

Nor is it necessary to wait until Mother's Day. If no one takes the hint this Valentine's Day, ask for an early Mother's Day present this winter, a weekend away! Two close friends are going with their mom to Israel in March. My friend recently took her grown daughter to Las Vegas.

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