Before our friendship breakup, about five years ago, my ex-best friend had been my main travel partner. Without her, I found myself in a bit of a quandary. I still loved to travel but I didn’t have her knack and enthusiasm for researching and organising trips.

In addition to this, a lot of the other people in my friendship circle were either married, mothers, or both, which meant that it wasn’t so easy for them to get away. I remained unwilling to travel by myself though, because I hated the idea of doing so solo as a single black woman in a world that is not always so welcoming or accommodating to us.