Holidays alone after divorce: how a hosted week helps you start again
The first holiday you book alone
There is a particular kind of dread that comes with booking a holiday on your own for the first time in years. Not the packing, not the flights. The bit where you have to decide who you're going with, and the answer is nobody, and every website seems built for two.
We hear this a lot at Casa Agara. Someone gets in touch, often a bit apologetic, asking whether it's odd to come alone. It isn't. It's increasingly normal. Nineteen per cent of UK holidaymakers took a solo holiday in the last twelve months, the highest level this decade and up two percentage points on the year before, according to ABTA's Holiday Habits 2025-26 survey of over two thousand UK adults. Solo travel is most common among 25 to 34 year olds, but it stretches well beyond that: plenty of the people who join us are past 50, past a marriage, and simply done with waiting for someone else to say yes to a trip.
Why the single supplement matters more than you'd think
Ask women over 50 what actually stops them travelling alone and the answer isn't safety, and it isn't money in the way you'd expect. In a JourneyWoman survey of women travellers over 50 (a self-selected panel, so read it as indicative rather than a national figure), 78% named the single supplement as the biggest barrier. Not fear. A room charge.
We think that number says something quietly damning about how the travel industry treats people who happen to be travelling without a partner: it charges them for it. At Casa Agara there's no forced single supplement. You share a twin room at no extra cost, matched with someone of the same sex, and if we can't find you a match, we absorb the difference ourselves. If you'd rather have a room to yourself, that's available too, as a paid extra, entirely your choice rather than a penalty for arriving alone.
Company, not a singles holiday
This isn't a singles holiday, and we're wary of anyone who frames it that way. What we're actually offering is a table. Twelve bedrooms, up to 24 guests a week, and every meal eaten together: breakfast, a light lunch (carried as a picnic on walking days), and a home-cooked dinner in the evening, made with vegetables from our own garden. On a real week here that dinner has run from tapas and cava round the fire followed by roasted salmon, to courgette soup spiced with Ethiopian berbere and duck confit, to Tudanca beef, a local breed, on a Saturday night. The bar is free all day, house wine, beer and spirits, poured without anyone counting. It sounds like a small thing until you're the person who no longer has anyone to pour for.
Rob and María live here with Chispa the dog, and we host rather than simply let rooms. That distinction matters more after a divorce than most holiday brochures admit. You don't have to organise anything. You don't have to eat alone at a table for one while a waiter hovers, working out how to seat you. You turn up, and there's a chair.
During the day the valley does the rest. Walking through the Cantabrian Walking Week, riverside routes near Bárcena Mayor, coastal paths out towards Playa de Oyambre, or simply sitting with a book by the Saja, which runs about 200 yards from the door. Some guests come specifically to walk. Others come to sit still and let the company happen around them. Both are fine.
An honest caveat
This is not all-inclusive, and we'd rather say so plainly than have you find out at the bar. Lunch is included every day, but if the group decides to eat out at a local restaurant instead, that meal is on you. Flights, travel insurance and premium spirits aren't covered either. Fresneda de Cabuérniga is about an hour from Santander airport and roughly ninety minutes from Bilbao, which means some travelling either end, and Cantabrian weather can turn wet with little warning, whatever month you come. If you want a resort with a schedule pinned to your door, this isn't it. If you want a house that feeds you, walks you gently and leaves you with people you didn't know a week ago, it generally works.
FAQ
Is it strange to book a holiday alone after divorce?
No. Solo travel among UK holidaymakers is at its highest level this decade, according to ABTA's Holiday Habits survey, and a hosted week is built around the fact that guests often arrive without a partner. You'll be one of several people in exactly that position, not the only one.
Will I have to pay a single supplement?
Not to share. Solo guests are matched twin-share with someone of the same sex at no extra cost, and if no match is found we cover the difference ourselves. A room entirely to yourself is available as an optional paid extra if you'd prefer privacy.
Is this a singles holiday?
No, and we'd rather be clear about that. Couples, friends and solo travellers all join the same week and eat at the same table. The focus is company and a shared table, not matchmaking.
What if I don't want to walk every day?
That's fine. Walking is offered most days depending on the week, but nobody is marched out the door. Plenty of guests spend a day near the house, by the garden or down towards the river, and rejoin the group for dinner.
What isn't included in the price?
Flights, travel insurance, restaurant lunches if the group eats out, and premium spirits at the bar are all extra. Everything else, breakfast, lunch, dinner, the house wine and beer, and transport by minibus during the week, is included.
If you're thinking about coming
If any of this sounds like the holiday you've been putting off, get in touch and we'll talk you through a week that suits where you actually are right now. Every stay at Casa Agara is booked through our exclusive partner Spice Escapes, who can also help with flights if you'd rather not arrange your own. You'd be joining a table that already knows how to make room for one more.