I am Prepared to Become Part of the Brave New World of Women Leaving Their Loved Ones – and Traveling Alone

A couple of weeks ago, I received an email about a media tour I would never consider. It was long haul and it was about health, so it would have entailed a lot of exercise and early bedtimes. Even if I enjoyed those activities, I wouldn't have been eager to spend a week with other people who enjoyed them. But even as I was deleting it, I started to think what that would really be like: being somewhere different, without anyone to please except myself, without anything to do except exactly what I wanted. Plainly, it would be amazing. So I said “yes” and it turned out they meant the other Zoe Williams, the one who is a doctor and used to be a TV Gladiator, and is extremely fit already, and yes, in retrospect, that should have been clear all along.

So, without meaning to and without going anywhere, I've entered the most rapidly expanding travel group: the female solo traveller, between 45 to 60. One tour operator reported 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 undertaking it alone. People are very interested in trekking, biking, kayaking, all the things that couples are unlikely to be aligned on in their interest. If anyone is also tired of dragging teenagers to the wonders of the world, 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 get here. 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.