I'm Prepared to Join the Brave New World of Females Vacationing Without Their Family – and Holidaying Alone

A few weeks ago, I got an message about a press trip I would not countenance. It was long haul and it was about health, so it would have involved a lot of physical activity and early bedtimes. Although I enjoyed those activities, I wouldn't have been desperate to spend a week with other people who enjoyed them. But even as I was hitting delete, 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 incredible. 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 Gladiator, and is incredibly fit already, and yes, in hindsight, that should have been obvious all along.

So, without meaning to and without traveling anywhere, I've arrived in the fastest-growing travel demographic: the female solo traveller, between 45 to 60. One tour operator stated that nearly half (46%) of their bookings are now people travelling 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 daring the travel, the more people are undertaking it alone. People are big into hiking, cycling, paddling, all the things that partners are unlikely to be aligned 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 field 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 totally modern in every way, would get arrested before she’d go into a Belgian 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.