Single travellers no longer have to pay more than couples for their holidays, writes Gerry Mullins
Until recently, single travellers were the poor relations in the holidaymaking fraternity. They upset the tidy "pps" that followed the prices in holiday brochures. They were penalised for only half- filling hotel rooms by the dreaded single supplement, the world's only tax on being alone. Even "supplement" is misleading; it sounds like a gift or discount, not a punishment for showing up without a partner. Fortunately, the industry is slowly awakening to the enormous number of people who want or have to travel alone. People stay single longer, more marriages break up, and people survive longer the deaths of their loved ones. So thousands more people are travelling alone than was the case a decade ago.
PATT CLUB A year or two ago Deirdre Grant, of Driftaway Travel in Letterkenny, Co Donegal, put an advert in a local paper asking: "Are you retired, widowed, single, separated or simply alone, and would like a pick-me-up week in the sun before winter sets in?" The holiday sold out in three days, prompting her to establish People Alone Travelling Together (Patt), a club for single travellers. It organises trips in Ireland as well as abroad, in order to help members to get to know each other before embarking on a foreign holiday together. This is important, as members usually have to share rooms. A pre-holiday night out can reduce the potential for personality clashes.
Grant's club now has 2,000 members, and although romances have developed she insists it is neither a dating agency nor a senior citizens' club. "It is a facility for people of all ages who want to see the world or have a wonderful holiday in the company of other people," she says. "The youngest person is 28, the oldest 84, and the average age is 55."The travellers on one of next year's cruises will include four widowed people who met up on a previous club trip. The three women and one man wanted to share a large cabin, despite Grant's offer to keep the sexes separate. One of the women said: "We're all in our 60s and 70s. What harm can we do to each other at this stage?"
Patt's next domestic event is a Christmas party at Clontarf Castle, the Dublin hotel, on December 3rd. It includes dinner, mulled wine, a band, "a big sing-song" and a choir singing carols around a Christmas tree. The evening costs €48; accommodation is an additional €60. (Clontarf Castle is at 01-8332321.)
The club's biggest event next year is a four-star cruise that sets sail from Larne, in Co Antrim, on July 21th. It will pick up passengers in Dublin before travelling to Portugal, Gibraltar and Morocco; it will then return to Ireland via Spain. Music on board will be provided by Brian Kennedy and The Chevys. The 10-day cruise costs €1,050 per person sharing. Membership of Patt costs €40 a year. Call 0818-303132 or visit www.thepattclub.ie.
FRANCE Cruising is fine, but for those who prefer to paddle their own canoe, a British company offers adventure holidays for singles in the south of France. Adventure St Tropez, which was established in 1982, offers wakeboarding, power boating, waterskiing, mountain biking and other activities. Accommodation is at Cogolin marina, about three kilometres (two miles) from St Tropez. A typical week costs about €500 a person, excluding flights. More information from www. adventure-sports.co.uk.
EXODUS Exodus offers similar types of adventure holidays, but in more than 25 countries. Although the company doesn't specifically court single travellers, the nature of its adventure tours means that many of its customers are travelling solo. Exodus is represented in Ireland by Colette Pearson of Abbey Travel. Contact 01-8047153 or www. exodus.co.uk.
CLUB MED Don't confuse Club Med with Club 18-30. The latter has a reputation for attracting the drink-and-party-until-dawn crowd; the former is an upmarket holiday company that calls itself the world's largest sports club. It has a cosmopolitan clientele that ranges in age from mid 20s to mid 60s, and it has traditionally been singles-friendly. Rather than charge single supplements, some of its resorts allow solo travellers to share a room with someone of the same sex and a similar age. Many of its resorts are child-free zones, and it favours large round tables in its restaurants, to encourage sociable meals. Club Med is represented in Ireland by O'Mara Travel, in Dún Laoghaire. Call 01-2366800 or visit its website, www.omara-travel.com.