I am Ready to Become Part of the Brave New World of Women Vacationing Without Their Family – and Holidaying Solo

A couple of weeks back, I received an message about a press trip I would not consider. It was long haul and it was about fitness, so it would have entailed a lot of exercise and early bedtimes. Although I enjoyed those activities, I wouldn't have been desperate to spend a week with other people who liked them. But even as I was deleting it, I started to think 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 Gladiator, and is extremely fit already, and yes, in hindsight, that should have been obvious all along.

So, without intending to and without going anywhere, I've arrived in the most rapidly expanding travel demographic: the female solo traveller, aged 45 to 60. One tour operator stated that nearly half (46%) of their reservations are now people travelling alone, and 70% of those are women. They have families, 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 big into hiking, biking, kayaking, all the things that partners are unlikely to be in agreement on in their enthusiasm. If anyone is also tired 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 completely modern in every way, would get arrested 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 trace of it myself, to be this old before it even came to mind to travel solo. Now I just have to go somewhere.