I'm Prepared to Become Part of the Brave New World of Females Vacationing Without Their Family – and Holidaying Solo

A few weeks ago, I received an message about a press trip I would never countenance. It was long haul and it was about fitness, so it would have involved a lot of exercise and early nights. Although I liked those activities, 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 different, without anyone to accommodate except myself, without anything to do except exactly what I wanted. Plainly, it would be amazing. So I said “yes” and it emerged they meant the other Zoe Williams, the one who is a physician and used to be a 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 most rapidly expanding travel demographic: the female solo traveller, aged 45 to 60. One travel company reported that nearly half (46%) of their bookings are now people travelling alone, and 70% of those are females. They have families, 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, biking, kayaking, all the things that couples are least likely to be aligned on in their enthusiasm. 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 discreet to mention it.

The real puzzle 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 mock her for this constantly, 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.