I am Prepared to Become Part of the Brave New World of Females Vacationing Without Their Loved Ones – and Traveling Solo

A couple of 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 entailed 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 different, without anyone to accommodate except myself, without anything to do except exactly what I wanted. Clearly, 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 Gladiator, and is incredibly fit already, and yes, in hindsight, that should have been clear 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 reservations 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 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 big into trekking, cycling, kayaking, all the things that couples are least likely to be in agreement on in their enthusiasm. If anyone is also tired 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 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.