I'm Prepared to Become Part of the Brave New World of Females Vacationing Without Their Family – and Traveling Solo

A couple of weeks back, I got an message about a media tour 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 eager to spend a week with other people who liked them. But even as I was hitting delete, I started to think what that would really 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 different 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 intending to and without going anywhere, I've entered the fastest-growing travel group: the female solo traveller, between 45 to 60. One travel company reported that nearly half (46%) of their reservations are now people travelling alone, and 70% of those are females. They have families, they have busy social lives, they have spouses, 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 very interested in trekking, biking, paddling, all the things that partners are least likely 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 stepmother, who is totally modern in every way, would get arrested 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 trace of it myself, to be this old before it even occurred to me to travel solo. Now I just have to go somewhere.