I am Prepared to Become Part of the Brave New World of Women Vacationing Without Their Loved Ones – and Traveling Alone

A couple of weeks back, I got an message about a media tour I would never countenance. It was overseas and it was about fitness, so it would have involved a lot of exercise and early nights. Although I liked those activities, I wouldn't have been desperate 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 different, 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 turned out they meant the different Zoe Williams, the one who is a doctor and used to be a TV Gladiator, and is incredibly fit already, and yes, in retrospect, that should have been clear all along.

So, without intending to and without traveling anywhere, I've entered the fastest-growing travel group: the female solo traveller, between 45 to 60. One tour operator stated that nearly half (46%) of their reservations are now people travelling alone, and 70% of those are females. They have households, they have busy social lives, they have spouses, 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 trekking, biking, paddling, all the things that couples are least likely 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 tactful to mention it.

The real mystery is why it’s taken so long to reach this point. 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 mock her for this constantly, 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.