I am Ready to Become Part of the Brave New World of Females Vacationing Without Their Loved Ones – and Traveling Solo

A couple of weeks ago, I got an email about a press trip I would not countenance. It was long haul and it was about fitness, so it would have involved a lot of physical activity and early bedtimes. 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 think what that would actually be like: being somewhere new, without anyone to accommodate 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 Gladiator, and is incredibly fit already, and yes, in hindsight, that should have been obvious all along.

So, without meaning to and without going anywhere, I've entered the most rapidly expanding travel demographic: the female solo traveller, aged 45 to 60. One travel company reported that nearly half (46%) of their reservations 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 lousy 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 undertaking it alone. People are big into trekking, cycling, paddling, all the things that couples are least likely to be in agreement on in their interest. If anyone is also tired of dragging 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 mystery is why it’s taken so long to reach this point. My father's wife, who is totally modern in every way, would get arrested before she’d go into a Belgian restaurant on her own, and even though I mock her for this constantly, 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.