If you want a solo holiday that's small-group and genuinely all-in — no table for one, no running bar tab — a hosted week at Casa Agara is about as close as it comes. You arrive on your own (or as a couple), join a handful of other guests, and sit down to a home-cooked dinner at one shared table every night. Breakfast and dinner are included each day, and the house wine, beer and spirits are poured on the house. It isn't a wristband resort. It's an 18th-century casona in the green Cabuérniga valley of Cantabria — Green Spain — where "all in" simply means someone else does the cooking and nobody is counting your glasses.

What does "all-inclusive" actually mean here?

Half board, done generously. Every day starts with breakfast and ends with a proper home-cooked dinner, much of it from vegetables grown in the garden. Alongside it, the house wine, beer and spirits flow freely all day, so there's no tab building up in the background and no awkward sums at the end of the week. Lunch isn't part of it, and that's deliberate: you'll usually be out on a walk or a beach by the middle of the day, free to please yourself. The point is that the parts that make solo travellers hesitate — eating alone, drinking alone, paying alone — are quietly taken care of.

Is dinner on your own as bleak as it sounds?

That "table for one" feeling is exactly what a shared table is built to undo. Dinner is served at one long table, together, every evening. You can join the conversation or let it wash over you; nobody expects a performance. Rob and María host the week, with Chispa the house dog usually somewhere underfoot, so there's always a familiar face keeping things moving. It's sociable without being forced, and unhurried by design. Most people find that by the second night the room already feels like people they know rather than strangers they've been seated with.

Do solo guests pay a single supplement?

Here's the honest version, because it matters. There is no forced single supplement. If you'd rather not pay to have a room to yourself, you can twin-share: Spice Escapes, the UK operator who runs many of these weeks (ATOL 9046, which covers the flight-inclusive packages), will match you with a same-sex room-mate at no extra charge — and if they can't find you a match, they cover the room supplement themselves. Prefer your own space? You can take a room of your own for an optional supplement instead. Either way, we'll confirm the exact terms and figures for the week you're looking at, so you know precisely where you stand before you commit.

What is there to do all day?

The relaxed, mostly-free things lead. Walking starts from the door, straight into the Saja-Besaya nature reserve, with the Picos de Europa about an hour away for their green fringes and viewpoints. The wild Atlantic beaches are around forty minutes off, and the surf there is beginner-friendly at any age. Beyond that there's riding, cycling, gentle yoga and wellbeing, painting and fishing. When you fancy some culture, Santillana del Mar is roughly twenty minutes away, Comillas has Gaudí's El Capricho, and the Altamira caves show their Neocueva replica — worth booking ahead, as you can't simply turn up. Do as much or as little as the mood takes you.

Who actually comes on a small-group solo week?

Ordinary people who fancy a break and don't want to organise everyone else's, mostly. Travelling solo has become entirely normal: ABTA's Holiday Habits research found around 19% of British holidaymakers took a solo trip in the past year — a record, and growing fastest among the under-45s — while the ONS reported about 8.4 million people live alone in the UK in 2024. You can come by yourself or bring a partner, and because the numbers are small you're never lost in a crowd, nor left rattling around on your own.

How easy is it to get there?

Straightforward. The house sits about an hour from Santander airport, with direct UK flights from Stansted, Manchester and Edinburgh, so most guests are door to door in an afternoon rather than a full travelling day.

If a sociable, generous, unhurried week — dinner cooked, glass poured, good company already at the table — sounds like your kind of solo holiday, tell us what you're after and we'll help you find the right week. Get in touch here.