Why women should take more solo trips

Stop waiting for a chaperone to live your most joyous, "big bite" life

Dot Cottage (by Kitty Wheeler Shaw)

I’m writing this essay from someone else’s bed.

It’s 3:32 pm, and a honey-gold glaze has settled on the view from my window: interrupted glimpses of the River Rother, its swollen, swampy banks, and the tiled roof of a house, carpeted almost completely with moss. Before you get excited, there’s no one here with me. No second body under the voluminous floral sheets, no foreign footsteps on the ancient Sussex floorboards. I’m quite alone. I’m also extraordinarily content.

This is the second time I’ve taken myself away to stay in Dot Cottage, a small, beautifully decorated cottage in the English town of Rye. I like to think of it as a necessary indulgence, something I might do every year - growing increasingly wrinkly and decrepit each time - as a way of sitting down with myself for a long-overdue talk.

I spend a lot of time talking to myself in my own head: making plans, taking emotional temperature checks, and consoling myself with gentle parenting techniques. I am - gratefully - good friends with myself. But against the noise and drudgery of the every day, it’s can be hard to hear yourself fully. Alone and without any particular agenda, it’s that much easier. Ah, hello. Yes, I thought as much.

Dot Cottage (by Kitty Wheeler Shaw)

Before setting off for Rye yesterday, I had an appointment with a dermatologist. Between talking to me about lasers, peels and pigments, she asked me what I was up to for the rest of the day. “I’m actually going on a trip,” I told her. “How lovely,” she said, “who with?”

After mentioning that I would be going alone, she paused with her back to me, momentarily motionless. “Do you,” she paused again, as though choosing her words carefully, “do that sort of thing often?” Unable to read her face, I couldn’t tell what her question was loaded with, envy or pity. Perhaps a handful of both.

“Oh, yes.” I assured her, “All the time.”

I’ve long since lost the embarrassment that comes with doing things alone as a woman. As a relentless doer of things, I got tired of waiting for a chaperone to scratch that itch. If I want to see an exhibition before it ends, I go. If I want to decompress after a stressful month, I take myself away. If I want to join a running or reading club, I no longer need the comfort blanket of another person to do it. There just isn’t enough time to waste on waiting or organising. I’m hungry, and I want to take big, impolite bites of life while I can.

Dot Cottage (by Kitty Wheeler Shaw)

Instead, I’ve become a sort of enthusiastic cheerleader for women’s solo experiences, galvanising anyone who’s on the fence about spending time alone. Which is, I suppose, the purpose of this essay.

So, to some scene setting…

This morning, I woke up to the sun melting through the candy cane blinds like a child’s nudge. Get up, let’s go, it’s time to make something of the day. I had coffee with fresh cream. I ate a pistachio cannoli for breakfast, the colour of sage. I then ran through Rye’s famous nature reserve and on towards the beach. Crunching my way down to the surf, I found a driftwood log to sit on and gazed out towards the wide, shimmering horizon, the dark, jagged outline of Dungeness Power Station in the distance. A curious sore thumb.

Dot Cottage (by Kitty Wheeler Shaw)

The day before, I spent a leisurely twenty minutes chatting to the owner of The Richmond Hill Gallery, talking about Vanessa Bell and the way everything in Charleston was her canvas, from chairs to wardrobes to picture frames. I made elaborate raw tuna tostadas for dinner, pulverising roasted jalapeños into guacamole and juicing limes until my cuticles burned. The audiobook of

Miranda July

‘s All Fours played all the while.

“I think sometimes we forget that being alone - whether for a weekend or a lifetime - can be a choice, not some sad, unwanted circumstance.”

I suppose what I’m trying to get across is that, no matter how deeply I love the people in my life and how wonderful I feel in their company, there hasn’t been a moment where I wished someone else was here with me. If the dermatologist paused out of pity, she needn’t have bothered. With some practice, I’ll admit, I can now have as much (if not more) fun alone than in company—if a situation or headspace requires it. I think sometimes we forget that being alone - whether for a weekend or a lifetime - can be a choice, not some sad, unwanted circumstance.

Of course, safety is an issue. I’m always envious of men who can take themselves off to camp in wide open fields and forest clearings without a care, knowing that in the middle of the night, my joy might quickly turn to flat-out panic. But I do think women shouldn’t let the issue of safety stop us from doing most things alone. Behind Dot Cottage’s locked door, I feel perfectly safe, sleeping splayed out and deeply. With a little list of rules in mind (don’t tag your location on social media, keep in touch with friends or relatives, explore unknown places only in daylight hours), there’s no reason you can’t do big, exciting things in your own company.

Snaps from my stay at Dot

When I return home tomorrow, it’s to a busy weekend, with probably more plans than I can realistically fit in: dinners, coffees and walks with friends. But it makes me happy—the way I can have my cake and eat it. Knowing how much sweeter company will taste after this precious time alone.

If you’d like to treat yourself to a stay at the gorgeous Dot Cottage, you can book here. Caroline is an amazing host who will share plenty of local spots to make your visit as lovely as mine has been. And don’t forget to get yourself a hot chocolate from Knoops over the road. I’m on my third in three days!

---