I'm Ready to Become Part of the Brave New World of Females Vacationing Without Their Loved Ones – and Holidaying Solo

A few weeks back, I received an email about a press trip I would not countenance. It was overseas and it was about health, so it would have involved a lot of exercise and early bedtimes. Although I liked those things, I wouldn't have been desperate 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 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 turned out they meant the other Zoe Williams, the one who is a doctor and used to be a TV Gladiator, and is incredibly 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 tour operator stated that nearly half (46%) of their bookings are now people going 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 least likely to be in agreement on in their interest. If anyone is also tired 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 tactful to mention it.

The real mystery 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 tease her for this often, I must have had a vestige of it myself, to be this old before it even occurred to me to travel solo. Now I just have to go somewhere.