I'm Prepared to Become Part of the Brave New World of Women Leaving Their Loved Ones – and Traveling Solo

A couple of weeks back, I received an message about a media tour I would not consider. It was long haul and it was about health, so it would have involved a lot of physical activity and early bedtimes. Although 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 hitting delete, I started to think what that would actually be like: being somewhere new, without anyone to please except myself, without anything to do except exactly what I wanted. Plainly, it would be incredible. So I said “yes” and it turned out they meant the other Zoe Williams, the one who is a physician 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 traveling anywhere, I've arrived in the fastest-growing travel group: the female solo traveller, between 45 to 60. One tour operator stated 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 very interested in hiking, cycling, kayaking, all the things that couples are least likely to be aligned 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 puzzle is why it’s taken so long to get here. My stepmother, who is completely 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 vestige of it myself, to be this old before it even occurred to me to travel solo. Now I just have to go somewhere.