I'm Prepared to Become Part of the Emerging Trend of Women Vacationing Without Their Loved Ones – and Holidaying Solo

A couple of weeks back, I received an message about a press trip I would never consider. It was long haul and it was about fitness, so it would have entailed a lot of exercise and early nights. Even if I enjoyed those activities, I wouldn't have been eager to spend a week with other people who liked them. But even as I was deleting it, I started to think what that would actually be like: being somewhere different, without anyone to please except myself, without anything to do except exactly what I wanted. Plainly, it would be amazing. 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 intending to and without traveling anywhere, I've arrived in the most rapidly expanding travel demographic: the female solo traveller, between 45 to 60. One travel company stated that nearly half (46%) of their reservations are now people going alone, and 70% of those are women. 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 undertaking it alone. People are big into hiking, biking, paddling, all the things that partners are least likely to be aligned on in their interest. If anyone is also sick of dragging 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 mystery is why it’s taken so long to reach this point. My stepmother, who is completely modern in every way, would get detained 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 vestige of it myself, to be this old before it even came to mind to travel solo. Now I just have to go somewhere.