I'm Ready to Join the Brave New World of Women Leaving Their Family – and Holidaying Solo

A couple of weeks back, I received an message about a press trip I would never consider. It was long haul and it was about fitness, so it would have involved a lot of exercise and early bedtimes. Although I liked those things, I wouldn't have been eager to spend a week with other people who liked them. But even as I was hitting delete, I started to wonder what that would actually be like: being somewhere new, without anyone to accommodate except myself, without anything to do except exactly what I wanted. Clearly, it would be incredible. So I said “yes” and it turned out they meant the other Zoe Williams, the one who is a physician and used to be a TV Gladiator, and is incredibly fit already, and yes, in retrospect, that should have been clear all along.

So, without intending to and without traveling anywhere, I've arrived in the fastest-growing travel group: the woman traveling alone, between 45 to 60. One travel company reported that nearly half (46%) of their bookings are now people going alone, and 70% of those are females. They have families, they have busy social lives, they have spouses, their world is absolutely full with people they could go on holiday with – and that’s why they (we) need a holiday on their own.

The more adventurous the travel, the more people are undertaking it alone. People are very interested in hiking, cycling, kayaking, all the things that partners are least likely to be aligned 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 field questions such as “how much longer do we have to be here?”, they are too discreet to mention it.

The real puzzle is why it’s taken so long to get here. My father's wife, 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 mock her for this often, I must have had a trace of it myself, to be this old before it even occurred to me to travel solo. Now I just have to go somewhere.