I am Ready to Join the Brave New World of Women Vacationing Without Their Loved Ones – and Holidaying Alone

A few weeks back, I received an email about a media tour I would not consider. It was overseas and it was about health, so it would have entailed a lot of physical activity and early nights. 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 accommodate except myself, without anything to do except exactly what I wanted. Plainly, it would be amazing. So I said “yes” and it emerged they meant the different Zoe Williams, the one who is a physician and used to be a TV Gladiator, and is extremely fit already, and yes, in hindsight, that should have been clear all along.

So, without intending to and without traveling anywhere, I've entered the most rapidly expanding travel group: the woman traveling alone, aged 45 to 60. One travel company stated 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 lousy 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 big into hiking, cycling, paddling, all the things that couples are least likely to be aligned on in their interest. If anyone is also sick of taking teenagers to the wonders of the world, 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 reach this point. My father's wife, who is completely modern in every way, would get detained before she’d go into a Belgian restaurant on her own, and even though I mock 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.