I'm Ready to Become Part of the Emerging Trend of Women Vacationing Without Their Family – and Holidaying Solo

A couple of weeks back, I got an email about a press trip I would not countenance. It was long haul and it was about fitness, so it would have entailed a lot of physical activity and early nights. Although I enjoyed those things, I wouldn't have been eager to spend a week with other people who enjoyed them. But even as I was deleting it, I started to think what that would actually be like: being somewhere new, 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 emerged they meant the other Zoe Williams, the one who is a doctor and used to be a TV Gladiator, and is extremely fit already, and yes, in hindsight, that should have been clear all along.

So, without meaning to and without traveling anywhere, I've entered the most rapidly expanding travel group: the female solo traveller, between 45 to 60. One travel company stated that nearly half (46%) of their bookings are now people travelling alone, and 70% of those are women. They have families, 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 adventurous the travel, the more people are undertaking it alone. People are big into hiking, biking, kayaking, all the things that couples are unlikely to be in agreement on in their enthusiasm. If anyone is also sick 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 detained before she’d go into a Belgian restaurant on her own, and even though I tease her for this constantly, 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.