I'm Prepared to Join the Emerging Trend of Women Leaving 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 entailed a lot of physical activity and early bedtimes. Even if 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 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 other Zoe Williams, the one who is a doctor and used to be a TV Gladiator, and is incredibly fit already, and yes, in hindsight, that should have been clear all along.

So, without intending to and without going anywhere, I've arrived in the fastest-growing travel group: the woman traveling alone, between 45 to 60. One travel company reported 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 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 daring the travel, the more people are undertaking it alone. People are very interested in trekking, biking, kayaking, all the things that partners are unlikely 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 tactful to mention it.

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