Recently, I took my 9-year-old daughter, Cecily, on a girl’s trip (with Bunty the dog) to a small Scottish island.

To be honest, I was super-mum.

We swam in the Scottish sea in blazing heat, played on white beaches, cycled the whole island meeting only the post van once, climbed the highest mountain, kayaked past seals and every night toasted marshmallows on a huge bonfire at our wild campsite overlooking the Munroes on the mainland.

Because, as absolutely magical as it was, it was equally back-breaking. The list of trials I went through is as follows: the car broke down 3 miles from the ferry and I had to abandon it to get to the ferry on time, and find a taxi to take 2 passengers, one spaniel and 5 bags to the ferry and pick us up again after our trip, the gas stove ran out of gas (galling mistake) and the only shop on the island didn’t sell camping gas (hence the enormous amount of marshmallows eaten – I don’t have a sweet tooth), the wild campsite was 1km from any civilisation and it took 3 trips for me to get all our gear there, and then three trips back at the end of the holiday, on the final day, Cecily annoyed me so much I tapped her on the head with a wetsuit glove – this caused a hysterical attack and became known as “the time Mum HIT me on the HEAD with a GLOVE”, and after all that I had a 6.5 hour drive home with a bored 9-year-old and a hot dog. I lay on the sofa for a whole day after watching Harry Potter with Cecily, recovering.

That’s just nonsense. Firstly, everyone fits in, because families come in all shapes and sizes nowadays. But secondly, if you are joining a group adventure as a single parent, you’ve hit holiday gold. They could have been designed just for us in mind.

From the minute I arrive, I am not the only responsible adult, I have an instant group of new adult friends who more likely than not, have a similar outlook and interests, and equally, Cecily as an only child, has other children to play with which is an unqualified joy.

Update: After this article was published in June this year, we received a lovely email from a mum who had read it - and long story short, Alex and Cecily will be going on our Kenya Wildlife Wonders Family Safari adventure with them in 2019! We love a happy ending.

 >> Take a look at KE's stress-free family holidAys