I'm Ready to Join the Brave New World of Women Leaving Their Family – and Traveling Alone

A few weeks back, I got an message about a press trip 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 activities, I wouldn't have been eager 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 different, without anyone to accommodate except myself, without anything to do except exactly what I wanted. Plainly, it would be incredible. So I said “yes” and it emerged they meant the different Zoe Williams, the one who is a physician and used to be a Gladiator, and is incredibly fit already, and yes, in retrospect, that should have been clear all along.

So, without intending to and without going anywhere, I've entered the most rapidly expanding travel group: the woman traveling alone, aged 45 to 60. One tour operator stated that nearly half (46%) of their reservations are now people travelling alone, and 70% of those are women. They have households, they have hectic 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 daring the travel, the more people are undertaking it alone. People are very interested in hiking, biking, kayaking, all the things that partners are least likely to be in agreement on in their enthusiasm. If anyone is also sick of taking 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 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 detained before she’d go into a Belgian restaurant on her own, and even though I mock her for this often, 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.