I'm Ready to Become Part of the Brave New World of Females Leaving Their Family – and Holidaying Solo

A few weeks ago, 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 involved a lot of physical activity and early bedtimes. Even if I enjoyed those things, 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 wonder what that would really be like: being somewhere different, 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 emerged they meant the different Zoe Williams, the one who is a doctor and used to be a Gladiator, and is extremely 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 demographic: the woman traveling alone, 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 females. 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 daring the travel, the more people are doing it alone. People are big into hiking, cycling, kayaking, all the things that couples are least likely to be in agreement on in their enthusiasm. 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 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 European 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 occurred to me to travel solo. Now I just have to go somewhere.