A couple of weeks ago, I got an email about a press trip I would never countenance. It was long haul and it was about fitness, so it would have involved a lot of exercise and early nights. 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 different, without anyone to please except myself, without anything to do except exactly what I wanted. Plainly, it would be amazing. So I said “yes” and it turned out 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 retrospect, that should have been obvious all along.
So, without meaning to and without going anywhere, I’ve arrived in the fastest-growing travel demographic: the female solo traveller, aged 45 to 60. One tour operator, Jules Verne, said nearly half (46%) of their bookings are now people travelling alone, and 70% of those are women. 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.
