I am Prepared to Become Part of the Emerging Trend of Women Vacationing Without Their Loved Ones – and Holidaying Solo

A couple of weeks ago, I got an email about a press trip I would never countenance. It was overseas and it was about health, so it would have entailed a lot of exercise and early bedtimes. Even if I enjoyed 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 new, without anyone to please except myself, without anything to do except exactly what I wanted. Clearly, it would be amazing. 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 retrospect, that should have been obvious all along.

So, without meaning to and without going anywhere, I've entered the fastest-growing travel demographic: the female solo traveller, between 45 to 60. One tour operator stated that nearly half (46%) of their bookings are now people travelling alone, and 70% of those are females. They have households, they have hectic social lives, they have partners, 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 doing it alone. People are very interested in hiking, cycling, kayaking, all the things that couples are unlikely to be aligned on in their enthusiasm. If anyone is also sick of dragging teenagers to the world's marvels, 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 puzzle is why it’s taken so long to reach this point. My father's wife, 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 often, I must have had a trace of it myself, to be this old before it even came to mind to travel solo. Now I just have to go somewhere.