I'm Prepared to Become Part of the Brave New World of Women Vacationing Without Their Loved Ones – and Holidaying Solo

A couple of weeks ago, I got an message about a media tour I would never consider. It was overseas and it was about fitness, so it would have entailed a lot of exercise and early nights. Even if I enjoyed those things, I wouldn't have been desperate to spend a week with other people who liked them. But even as I was hitting delete, I started to wonder what that would actually be like: being somewhere new, 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 emerged they meant the other 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 going anywhere, I've entered the most rapidly expanding travel demographic: the female solo traveller, between 45 to 60. One travel company stated that nearly half (46%) of their bookings are now people going alone, and 70% of those are women. They have households, they have busy 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 big into trekking, cycling, paddling, all the things that partners are unlikely to be in agreement on in their interest. If anyone is also sick of taking teenagers to the world's marvels, 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 puzzle is why it’s taken so long to get here. My father's wife, who is totally modern in every way, would get detained 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 came to mind to travel solo. Now I just have to go somewhere.