I'm Prepared to Join the Emerging Trend of Women Vacationing Without Their Family – and Traveling Solo

A couple of weeks back, I got an message about a press trip I would not consider. It was long haul and it was about fitness, so it would have involved a lot of physical activity and early nights. Even if I enjoyed those activities, I wouldn't have been desperate 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. Clearly, 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 retrospect, that should have been clear all along.

So, without intending to and without going anywhere, I've entered the most rapidly expanding travel group: the woman traveling alone, between 45 to 60. One travel company reported that nearly half (46%) of their bookings are now people going alone, and 70% of those are females. 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 daring the travel, the more people are doing it alone. People are big into trekking, cycling, paddling, all the things that partners 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 tactful to mention it.

The real puzzle is why it’s taken so long to reach this point. 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 often, I must have had a trace of it myself, to be this old before it even came to mind to travel solo. Now I just have to go somewhere.