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Are you someone who is comfortable to travel alone? Are you confident in crossing borders, boarding planes, boats or trains, or solo driving? Are you happy eating meals alone at a table in a restaurant, nobody to share your day’s experiences or make plans with? Many people are fine with single holidays. There can be benefits. You can please yourself, eat where you want, stay or go, choose to have company or not. But it takes nerve to dine alone, to travel with an empty seat next to you, to explain to a tour guide that you are not with anyone else.

During the 90s I took two lone holidays, both in the same year. The first was an experiment, prompted by a big change in my life and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t anxious after booking it. In fact, as the departure day approached I became increasingly stressed at the idea, waking at night at the thought that I’d be alone, that I would be an object of pity or derision.

My decision to try skiing turned out to be a sensible one. As I dithered and wondered whether to cancel the trip, a friend convinced me to view it as if I were on a course and since I was used to undertaking training for work this idea gave me more confidence. Skiing has never been a budget holiday option, but this was 1996 and I’d found a week’s trip to Borovets in Bulgaria, including flights, hotel, lift passes, ski hire, boot hire and tuition, for the princely sum of £500. I’d also borrowed a ski suit and was good to go.

You have to remember, however, that this was Bulgaria. Seasoned skiers would baulk at the idea of Bulgarian slopes, which are considered ‘easy’. Easy was fine for me; the easier the better!

The fact that I don’t recall the flight out indicates that it was no problem. I arrived to the airport at Sofia and found the ‘courier’ waiting at the barrier. Then I got my first experience of singleton stigma.

‘Which party are you with?’ asked the young man.

‘I’m not with a party’, I replied. This confused him. It was several minutes before he gave up the question and indicated the coach I was to board. I slunk to the back of the bus and sank down into the seat, where I stared out of the window until we arrived at the hotel.

I checked in and found my room, after which I was to get a second wave of humiliation in the restaurant. Armed with a book, I made my way to a table laid for four. It took some time for a waiter to approach, presumably due to my solitude. The tables around me began to fill up with chattering ‘parties’ until the only remaining spare seats were at my table. A couple entered the room and surveyed the scene, in which there were no remaining empty tables, then slowly made their way to mine-and sat down. I thanked them for sitting at my table.

Next week: The transformative power of shared activity…