I'm Prepared to Become Part of the Emerging Trend of Women Leaving Their Loved Ones – and Traveling Solo

A couple of weeks back, I received an message about a media tour I would never countenance. It was long haul and it was about health, so it would have involved a lot of exercise and early nights. Even if I liked those things, I wouldn't have been eager to spend a week with other people who enjoyed them. But even as I was hitting delete, I started to wonder 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 incredible. So I said “yes” and it emerged they meant the other 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 clear all along.

So, without intending to and without traveling anywhere, I've arrived in the fastest-growing travel group: the female solo traveller, aged 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 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 undertaking 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 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 reach this point. My stepmother, 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 constantly, 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.