I am Prepared to Join the Brave New World of Females Vacationing Without Their Family – and Traveling Solo

A few weeks ago, I received an email about a media tour I would not consider. It was overseas and it was about fitness, so it would have entailed a lot of physical activity and early bedtimes. Although I enjoyed those things, I wouldn't have been desperate 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 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 doctor and used to be a Gladiator, and is extremely fit already, and yes, in retrospect, that should have been clear all along.

So, without meaning to and without traveling anywhere, I've entered the most rapidly expanding travel group: the woman traveling alone, between 45 to 60. One travel company stated that nearly half (46%) of their reservations are now people going alone, and 70% of those are women. They have families, they have hectic social lives, they have partners, 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 adventurous the travel, the more people are undertaking it alone. People are big into trekking, biking, paddling, all the things that couples are least likely to be in agreement on in their interest. If anyone is also tired of dragging teenagers to the world's marvels, 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 mystery 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 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.