I'm Prepared to Become Part of the Brave New World of Women Leaving Their Family – and Holidaying Alone

A couple of weeks back, I got an email about a media tour I would not consider. It was long haul and it was about health, so it would have involved a lot of exercise and early nights. Although I liked 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 really be like: being somewhere new, without anyone to accommodate 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 physician and used to be a Gladiator, and is extremely fit already, and yes, in hindsight, that should have been obvious all along.

So, without meaning to and without going anywhere, I've entered the fastest-growing travel group: the female solo traveller, between 45 to 60. One travel company stated that nearly half (46%) of their reservations 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 doing it alone. People are very interested in hiking, biking, kayaking, all the things that partners are unlikely to be in agreement on in their interest. If anyone is also tired 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 mystery is why it’s taken so long to get here. My father's wife, 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 vestige of it myself, to be this old before it even occurred to me to travel solo. Now I just have to go somewhere.