I'm Prepared to Join the Emerging Trend of Women Leaving Their Loved Ones – and Traveling Solo

A couple of weeks ago, I received an message about a media tour I would never countenance. It was long haul and it was about health, so it would have entailed a lot of physical activity and early nights. Although I enjoyed those things, I wouldn't have been eager to spend a week with other people who liked them. But even as I was deleting it, 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. Clearly, 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 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 bookings are now people travelling 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, cycling, paddling, all the things that partners are least likely to be aligned on in their enthusiasm. If anyone is also sick of taking teenagers to the world's marvels, 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 puzzle is why it’s taken so long to get here. My father's wife, who is totally modern in every way, would get detained 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 came to mind to travel solo. Now I just have to go somewhere.