Welcome Eddie:
Hesitate no longer! I am also in my 70s but, unlike you, have not been used to lifetime company. On my first long-haul trip (for many years) in 2012 – part of which involved a cruise, and with a large travel agent, I was on my own, amongst 25 married couples, but went armed with a supply of Sunday Times magazines which kept me happily occupied while waiting for and during consumption of all meals.
Only the lunches out on excursions presented anything of a problem and on several occasions, a couple or small group nearby would invite me to join them, though I still had a magazine with me, just in case, in my new shoulder-bag! (John Lewis, black leather, perfect @ £89!)
Like you, I discovered JustYou and plunged right in at the deep-end with a 17-day trip to China and the Yangtze add-on, for what turned out to be “The Best Holiday Ever of My Life”! I soon discovered the huge benefits of all being in the same boat: it is most noticeable when you reach an excursion destination and you disembark the coach. When the Tour Manager announces after his/her initial briefing on the area, “OK, please be back here in 50 minutes.....that’s quarter-past eleven”, for example!
So as you all wander off, mostly individually though a few might’ve have palled up, over those periods of free time you are always bumping into a familiar face with whom you can exchange pleasantries and observations on whatever one is admiring for a minute or three before moving on to the next, generally independently again.
Actually, on the very first day in Beijing, as we embarked back on to the coach, a lady several years my junior, asked to join me where I sat and we hit it off within minutes and have remained lifelong friends ever since. I may have just been very lucky. As was she, of course! 😉 But while we enjoyed most coach journeys together, we were never in each other’s pockets either at any sites or during meal times.
That first trip was such a success, that I went with JY the following year to India – hitting it off, even as we queued in the aisle to leave the plane at New Delhi, with another, male, friend – and again last year, to Peru. But I did choose to go there with their sister company, Travelsphere, as three travellers on this Forum had recommended their trip over JustYou’s on both cost and itinerary bases.
I have already booked a nearer-to-home trip with JY within Europe for this autumn. You may prefer something similar for your first venture. But I concur with so much advice here which is to decide where you want to go first, then see if JY offer a near match.
Anyway, this is a typically ,long-winded way of reassuring you that you are sure to enjoy yourself. You’ll also read here of so many who return for the umpteenth year running. Good luck.
