I'm Prepared to Become Part of the Emerging Trend of Females Leaving Their Loved Ones – and Holidaying Alone

A few weeks back, I got an message about a media tour I would never consider. It was long haul and it was about health, so it would have entailed a lot of exercise and early nights. Although I liked those activities, I wouldn't have been desperate 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 please except myself, without anything to do except exactly what I wanted. Clearly, it would be incredible. So I said “yes” and it emerged they meant the different Zoe Williams, the one who is a physician and used to be a TV Gladiator, and is incredibly fit already, and yes, in hindsight, that should have been clear all along.

So, without meaning to and without going anywhere, I've entered the most rapidly expanding travel group: the female solo traveller, between 45 to 60. One tour operator reported that nearly half (46%) of their bookings are now people going alone, and 70% of those are women. 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 big into trekking, biking, kayaking, all the things that partners are least likely to be aligned on in their interest. If anyone is also sick of dragging 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 European 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 occurred to me to travel solo. Now I just have to go somewhere.