I am Prepared to Join the Brave New World of Women Vacationing Without Their Loved Ones – and Holidaying Solo

A couple of weeks back, I got an message about a press trip I would not countenance. It was long haul and it was about health, so it would have entailed a lot of physical activity and early nights. Although I liked those things, I wouldn't have been eager to spend a week with other people who enjoyed them. But even as I was deleting it, I started to wonder what that would really be like: being somewhere different, without anyone to accommodate except myself, without anything to do except exactly what I wanted. Plainly, it would be incredible. So I said “yes” and it turned out they meant the different Zoe Williams, the one who is a doctor and used to be a TV Gladiator, and is extremely fit already, and yes, in hindsight, that should have been clear all along.

So, without meaning to and without traveling anywhere, I've entered the fastest-growing travel group: the female solo traveller, aged 45 to 60. One tour operator reported that nearly half (46%) of their reservations are now people going alone, and 70% of those are women. They have households, they have busy social lives, they have spouses, their world is absolutely lousy with people they could go on holiday with – and that’s why they (we) need a holiday on their own.

The more daring the travel, the more people are undertaking it alone. People are very interested in hiking, cycling, paddling, all the things that partners are least likely to be in agreement on in their enthusiasm. If anyone is also sick of taking teenagers to the wonders of the world, just to watch them be on their phones and answer questions such as “how much longer do we have to be here?”, they are too tactful to mention it.

The real mystery is why it’s taken so long to get here. My stepmother, who is totally modern in every way, would get detained before she’d go into a Belgian restaurant on her own, and even though I tease her for this often, I must have had a vestige of it myself, to be this old before it even came to mind to travel solo. Now I just have to go somewhere.