I am Prepared to Become Part of the Brave New World of Women Leaving Their Loved Ones – and Traveling Solo

A few weeks back, I received an email about a press trip I would not countenance. It was long haul and it was about fitness, so it would have involved a lot of physical activity and early nights. 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 really be like: being somewhere different, without anyone to accommodate except myself, without anything to do except exactly what I wanted. Plainly, it would be incredible. So I said “yes” and it turned out 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 retrospect, that should have been obvious all along.

So, without intending to and without going anywhere, I've entered the fastest-growing travel group: the woman traveling alone, aged 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 families, they have busy 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 adventurous the travel, the more people are doing it alone. People are big into trekking, cycling, kayaking, all the things that couples are unlikely to be aligned on in their interest. If anyone is also sick of dragging teenagers to the wonders of the world, 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 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 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 trace of it myself, to be this old before it even occurred to me to travel solo. Now I just have to go somewhere.