{"id":67062,"date":"2025-10-09T04:50:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-09T04:50:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/67062\/"},"modified":"2025-10-09T04:50:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-09T04:50:08","slug":"i-always-felt-empowered-travelling-alone-as-a-woman-but-then-i-turned-50-and-this-humiliating-incident-changed-everything-says-lisa-hilton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/67062\/","title":{"rendered":"I always felt empowered travelling alone as a woman… but then I turned 50 and this humiliating incident changed everything, says LISA HILTON"},"content":{"rendered":"

The clifftop bar overlooking the Aegean Sea was perfect. Set under a trellised vine on a tiny square in front of a domed, whitewashed church, it seemed the ideal place for a sunset aperitif.<\/p>\n

I ordered a glass of wine and sat back to enjoy the golden light and thudding of the waves hundreds of feet below.<\/p>\n

\u2018Excuse me, are you waiting for someone?\u2019, asked the waiter. \u2018Er, no. It\u2019s just me.\u2019 \u2018Oh… are you sure you want to sit there, lady?\u2019<\/p>\n

He spoke politely enough, but his expression was belligerent. I glanced around quickly: there were hardly any other customers on this late September evening, but clearly he wasn\u2019t happy.<\/p>\n

Then I understood my mistake \u2013 the table I had chosen, its bench spread with charming vintage cushions, was for two. I was taking up too much room.<\/p>\n

I gathered my book and my bag and scuttled off apologetically to a stool in the corner. As the sun went down and the bar slowly filled up with couples, I struggled to stop myself bursting into tears. Night one of the worst holiday of my life.<\/p>\n

Until this last visit to the small Cycladic island of Sifnos, I\u2019d always loved travelling alone.<\/p>\n

I was a happy member of the growing group of solo female travellers whose bookings, new data suggests, have risen by 20 per cent in the past two years.<\/p>\n

\"Lisa <\/p>\n

Lisa Hilton, pictured, says until her last visit to the small Cycladic island of Sifnos, she always loved travelling alone<\/p>\n

Far from being a daunting prospect, going it alone is increasingly appealing for many women, and I understand why. In my 20s, I had travelled alone in Asia and Central America, but after I married, holidays became very much family affairs.<\/p>\n

Then, as a divorced single mother for many years, I had always chosen child-friendly destinations. After my daughter left for university, I relished the opportunity to go back to pleasing no one but myself.<\/p>\n

I happily explored the Pacific Coast of Mexico, Morocco and many of my beloved Greek islands, entirely alone and entirely content.<\/p>\n

Being free to choose where I went and what and when I ate, and to spend all day on the beach with a novel or get up at 6am to do yoga without consulting anyone else, was a glorious kind of selfishness.<\/p>\n

My Italian husband always preferred the same traditional destinations he had grown up going to \u2013 Sardinia in the summer, Switzerland in the winter \u2013 which grew a bit stale.<\/p>\n

Post-divorce, holidays became marvellously liberating.<\/p>\n

But this trip \u2013 my first solo holiday since turning 50 \u2013 was different. Frankly, I felt old and lonely.<\/p>\n

Of course, being able to spend ten days on a Greek island is a huge luxury, but that somehow made it worse. Not only did I feel isolated and sad, I felt guilty about it. Why wasn\u2019t I able to enjoy a morning swim or a wander round the fascinating little archaeological museum?<\/p>\n

\"Lisa <\/p>\n

Lisa Hilton travelled solo in Asia and Central America, but after she married holidays became very much family affairs<\/p>\n

Being single had never bothered me before, but now I had to admit it: I felt wretched about not having a partner.<\/p>\n

Everyone on the island seemed to be half of a couple except me. I was painfully conscious of the odd pitying look as I sat alone night after night, although it wasn\u2019t even the lack of romance that was upsetting me. I was just sick of hauling my heavy suitcase up steep, cobbled lanes; wrestling with ferry timetables on my own; and having no one to go sightseeing or share a coffee with.<\/p>\n

After a few days, I felt like Pauline Collins in the film Shirley Valentine when she makes friends with a rock.<\/p>\n

I also began to feel like a terrible cliche: the lonely English woman looking for love in the Mediterranean. Taking a taxi from the port, the driver asked me if I was married. When I said no, he asked if I\u2019d like to join him in the front seat or meet up for a nighttime excursion to a mountain monastery.<\/p>\n

Costas was no Adonis \u2013 he had fewer teeth than strands in his combover \u2013 but he clearly felt he was in with a chance. It was the sort of chat-up I would once have laughed off, but now it depressed me. Did I look that desperate? Clearly, the answer was yes. Another evening, I had chosen a beautiful garden restaurant in the island\u2019s main village, Apollonia. When I gave my name for the reservation, the waitress frowned and checked it was for one before leading me to a small table next to the loos.<\/p>\n

\"Lisa <\/p>\n

Lisa says she began to feel like a terrible cliche: the lonely English woman looking for love in the Mediterranean<\/p>\n

I asked if I could move, and she explained that unfortunately they were fully booked. Wine, I was informed, was only available by the bottle. Fine, I\u2019d take a bottle of red, drink what I felt like having and put the cork in to take back for another night.<\/p>\n

\u2018A whole bottle?\u2019 she repeated, in a voice that would have been loud enough to be embarrassing if the restaurant had in fact been fully booked. I wanted to say a defiant \u2018Yes\u2019, and ask her to bring me an ouzo on the side while she was at it.<\/p>\n

Instead, I found myself babbling that I wasn\u2019t a heavy drinker, that the wine would probably last me three nights, and didn\u2019t she agree a glass of red would be just the thing with the sirloin steak I planned to order? My reaction would have been funny if there had been anyone to share the joke with, but instead I just felt humiliated. \u2018The steak\u2019s for two,\u2019 she said bluntly.<\/p>\n

Instead of a treat, dinner became an ordeal \u2013 practically every menu seemed to be for sharing. I felt conspicuous and ridiculously nervous, under-ordering in case I seemed greedy, over-tipping to compensate for the inconvenience of taking up a table.<\/p>\n

I hated myself for it and told myself I was being ridiculous, but in the end I gave up and took to eating dinner in my rented studio with dismal supplies gleaned from the mini-market, which seemed even more pathetic.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve read a lot about how women experience a sense of \u2018invisibility\u2019 at 50, but \u2013 perhaps arrogantly \u2013 I hadn\u2019t expected it to happen to me. I have always been reasonably confident about my looks, but that self-assurance evaporated on Sifnos. I became almost paranoid, sidelined and acutely conscious of slights at every turn. Without a man by my side I felt belittled, as though I had experienced a sudden drop in status.<\/p>\n

Obviously, I\u2019m not as physically attractive as when I cheerfully and recklessly hitchhiked my way round Vietnam at 25, yet the wisdom of maturity cut no ice on the island.<\/p>\n

Accepting this change was difficult. The independence which feminism encourages is, of course, a good thing, but I think there is also a pressure for women in their 50s to insist that we\u2019re just fine; that of course we can traverse the globe alone, savouring new experiences without the whims and demands of a partner tying us down.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re not allowed to admit that it\u2019s hard, or to own up to the truth that we might not all be happily single. I have been mostly single for ten years now, but this was the first time it stung.<\/p>\n

Those ten days on Sifnos diminished me, but they forced me to be more honest with myself, too, which can only be a good thing.<\/p>\n

I can admit without apology that I\u2019m feeling more timid as I enter my 50s. I\u2019m not quite ready to book a Saga cruise, but the next time I plan a trip I\u2019ll definitely do it with friends.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The clifftop bar overlooking the Aegean Sea was perfect. Set under a trellised vine on a tiny square…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":67063,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[2300,138,557,558,6820,111,139,69,1769],"class_list":{"0":"post-67062","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-asia","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-dailymail","11":"tag-femail","12":"tag-mexico","13":"tag-new-zealand","14":"tag-newzealand","15":"tag-nz","16":"tag-switzerland"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67062"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67062\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}