A companionship holiday is one you join on your own where the company comes as part of the package: a small hosted group, meals at one shared table, hosts who make the introductions, and days planned together. There's no romance agenda and no 'singles' label — just a week engineered so that nobody on it is ever short of company at dinner or on the hill.

How is it different from a singles holiday?

The word 'singles' does a lot of unhelpful work in travel marketing. Singles holidays tend to carry a matchmaking undertone, which puts off the very people most likely to want company on holiday: the recently widowed, the long divorced, the contentedly independent, and those whose partner simply won't get on a plane.

A companionship holiday drops all of that. Guests book as individuals because that's how life is currently arranged, and the week's job is to supply good dinners in good company — nothing more loaded than that. In format it's a hosted holiday: a scheduled group week, joined individually, with hosts on site.

The scale of the audience explains why the category exists. The 2021 Census for England and Wales counted 3.0 million widowed people, with 9.1% of adults divorced. That's a very large number of capable, experienced travellers arranging holidays for one — and most of the industry still lays its tables for two.

What does the companionship look like day to day?

Take Casa Agara as the working example: an 18th-century stone casona in the Cabuérniga valley, inside Cantabria's Saja-Besaya reserve, with the river Saja running below the village. The shape of a week is simple. Breakfast is eaten together. The day's activity is shared — guided walking (Walkwise runs the walking weeks), riding including low-tide beach rides, surf lessons about forty minutes away, painting or yoga depending on the week. Dinner is home-cooked, much of it from the garden, and eaten at one long table with house wine, beer and spirits included, so evenings never dissolve into separate tables and separate bills.

Two hosts, Rob and María, live at the house with Chispa the dog, and the hosting is a real job rather than a brochure word: introductions on the first evening, seating arranged so conversation starts easily, a quiet eye kept on anyone drifting towards the edges. Here's what a typical day looks like, hour by hour.

Who goes on companionship holidays?

A broader mix than you might guess. Some guests are widowed or divorced; some have partners at home who don't travel; some have friends who can no longer manage the walking, or whose calendars belong to the grandchildren these days; others simply prefer arriving alone to negotiating a companion's preferences for a week. Ages range widely, and so do reasons. What guests share isn't a circumstance but a preference: they want a proper holiday with other people in it, without having to supply the other people themselves.

If you're worried about being the odd one out, we've written honestly about who turns up on these weeks. The short answer: almost everyone arrives alone, so nobody is.

Do you have to be sociable the whole time?

No — and the good weeks are careful about this. Company on tap is different from company enforced. You can skip an outing and read by the river, carry your coffee to a far corner of the garden, or turn in early without anyone minding or asking twice. The structure is there when you want it and invisible when you don't, which is precisely the balance most people who holiday alone are after.

How do you get there from the UK?

More easily than the green-valley setting suggests. Santander airport is about an hour away and has direct flights from the UK; Bilbao is roughly an hour and a half. If you'd rather not fly, Brittany Ferries sails from England to Santander, which turns the crossing into the first day of the holiday.

What does it cost and what's included?

Hosted half board covers more than hotel half board usually does: breakfast and a home-cooked dinner every day, with house wine, beer and spirits included rather than chalked onto a bar bill, plus the hosts and the escorted days as part of the fabric. We've broken down exactly what's in the price.

The part that matters most when you're booking alone: there is no forced single supplement. Share a twin with a same-sex room-mate at no extra charge; if no room-mate can be matched, the supplement is covered rather than passed to you; or take a room of your own for an optional supplement.

Every week is booked through Spice Escapes, Casa Agara's exclusive booking partner — a social holiday company with over 45 years of hosted holidays behind it and ATOL 9046 protection; here's who they are and how the partnership works. The booking itself stays on an agara.es-branded page, so it feels like dealing with one house from start to finish, because you are.

The hosted weeks currently scheduled are here — or ask Rob and María for a steer on which week would suit you best.