I'm Prepared to Join the Emerging Trend of Females Vacationing Without Their Loved Ones – and Traveling Solo

A few weeks ago, I got 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 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 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 amazing. 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 hindsight, that should have been clear all along.

So, without meaning to and without going anywhere, I've entered the most rapidly expanding travel demographic: the woman traveling alone, between 45 to 60. One tour operator reported that nearly half (46%) of their reservations are now people travelling alone, and 70% of those are females. 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 daring the travel, the more people are undertaking it alone. People are very interested in hiking, cycling, paddling, all the things that partners are unlikely to be aligned on in their interest. If anyone is also tired of taking 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 discreet to mention it.

The real puzzle is why it’s taken so long to get here. My father's wife, who is completely 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 came to mind to travel solo. Now I just have to go somewhere.