I'm Prepared to Join the Brave New World of Females Leaving Their Loved Ones – and Traveling Alone

A couple of weeks ago, I received an email about a media tour I would not consider. 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 enjoyed 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. Plainly, it would be incredible. So I said “yes” and it turned out they meant the different Zoe Williams, the one who is a doctor and used to be a TV Gladiator, and is extremely fit already, and yes, in hindsight, that should have been clear all along.

So, without intending to and without going anywhere, I've arrived in the fastest-growing 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 females. They have families, they have hectic social lives, they have partners, their world is absolutely full 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, biking, paddling, all the things that partners 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 father's wife, who is totally modern in every way, would get arrested 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 trace of it myself, to be this old before it even occurred to me to travel solo. Now I just have to go somewhere.