Editor’s Note: This story originally appeared on Boldin.
Travel ranks among the top priorities Boldin users plan for in retirement. AARP research finds 85% of travelers who are 50-plus rank travel among their top three priorities for discretionary spending.
Schedule freedom lets retirees travel for less. Longer trips, shoulder-season timing, and senior discount programs all get cheaper when you’re not locked into school calendars and two-week vacation slots.
The 20 ideas below cover the full range: planning frameworks, discount programs, lodging alternatives, and tools for building travel into your financial picture before it gets crowded out by other costs.
Travel Is the Most Popular Retirement Goal — and the Most Underfunded
Travel tops nearly every list of what people want to do in retirement. The trouble is follow-through. Most retirees don’t build travel into their financial model as a specific line item until it’s competing with healthcare costs and home maintenance.
How Much Does Retirement Travel Cost?
The Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Expenditure Survey puts average annual travel spending for U.S. households headed by someone 65 to 74 at roughly $4,000 to $7,000. AARP research produces similar figures. The range is wide because health, proximity to family, and early-versus-late retirement all shift the number.
One pattern holds across all of them: spending runs higher in the first decade of retirement and tapers later. Budgeting by phase produces more useful projections than a flat annual estimate.
Retirement Travel Has Six Distinct Forms With Different Costs
Retirement travel isn’t a single thing. It runs from a weekend road trip to a month in Portugal to a volunteer expedition in Costa Rica. Understanding the main formats helps you decide which ones match what you want from this phase of life, and which ones to budget for.
The travel industry has built a category for solo retirees
About 28% of Americans 65 and older (roughly 16 million people) live alone, according to Pew Research Center analysis of 2023 Census data. Solo travel has grown with that demographic. Tour operators now design programs for unaccompanied travelers who want structured itineraries without the logistics of going alone. See the cruise and group tour section below for solo-friendly operators.
Multigenerational travel runs higher than most retirees budget for
Grandparents spent an average of $5,205 on multigenerational family travel in 2024, according to the U.S. Family Travel Survey 2025. It ranks among the higher-spend travel categories in retirement, and one of the more memorable ones.
The format works because it produces real time with grandchildren, not just scheduled visits. It works best when kids are in the planning conversation from the start.
Educational travel has grown into a full retirement category
Learning-focused travel has grown with the retirement demographic that built it. Road Scholar alone runs more than 5,500 programs worldwide, pairing destination experiences with expert-led content. National Geographic Expeditions and Smithsonian Journeys operate in the same category. The common thread: you’re meant to understand where you are, not just see it.
Voluntourism scales well with the schedule flexibility of retirement
Pairing travel with service work is a format that scales well for retirees with schedule flexibility. Programs range from week-long Habitat builds to multi-month Peace Corps Response placements, open to applicants 50 and older. See the voluntourism section below for the full list of programs and what each involves.
Slow travel means long stays that get cheaper with each day
Slow travel (staying in one place for weeks or months instead of moving fast through multiple destinations) costs less per day and tends to produce a more genuine experience of a place. A month in an apartment in Lisbon, cooking half your meals and using the metro, runs cheaper per day than a week in a hotel doing the same city. The per-day cost drops. The experience deepens.
The per-night cost of a cruise often beats a hotel in the same port city
Cruises bundle transportation, lodging, and meals into a per-night cost that often beats hotel-plus-meals in a port city. AAA projects that 65% of adult U.S. ocean cruise passengers in 2026 will be 55 or older, with the global industry on track for a record 37-plus million passengers.
The value case is strongest for solo travelers and those managing health considerations: logistics are handled, medical staff are onboard, and the social environment is built in.
Start With a Specific Travel Plan, Not a Bucket List
A bucket list is a wish. A travel plan has destinations, dates, and a budget. Couples discover they have different expectations about retirement travel more often than they’d expect. The discovery is less useful after retirement starts.
1. Write down specific travel goals
Concrete beats vague. Where do you want to go, and by when? How often? Who’s coming?
Goal-setting research is consistent: writing down what you want produces better follow-through than keeping it in your head. There’s a useful test for whether you have a plan or just a wish. A plan has a number attached. “We want to travel more” is a wish. “One international trip per year and two domestic road trips, starting at $8,000 annually” is a plan.
2. Have the travel conversation with your spouse before retirement starts
A 2024 Fidelity Investments Couples & Money Study found that 45% of partners admit they argue about money at least occasionally. Travel is one of the most common pressure points: how often, how far, how much. Working through it before retirement beats discovering the distance after the fact. Exploring ideas for what to do in retirement together is a useful starting point for that conversation.
Senior Discounts Can Cut Travel Costs Significantly
Most hotel chains offer seniors 10 to 20% off, and the discounts are findable on their websites. Airline senior programs have narrowed over the years, but AARP membership opens negotiated rates with dozens of travel partners. Always compare the senior rate to current sale prices before booking.
3. Check hotel chains for senior rates
Marriott, Hilton, IHG, and Best Western all have senior programs at 10 to 20% off standard rates. The discount is on the booking page. No phone call required.
4. Use AARP for broader travel discounts
An AARP membership costs $20 per year, or $15 for the first year if you sign up with automatic renewal. It unlocks negotiated rates with airlines, hotels, car rental companies, and tour operators.
Check AARP’s travel benefits page before booking. The negotiated rates often beat individual loyalty program pricing.
Skip the Hotel: Lodging Alternatives That Cost Less and Give You More
Airbnb and VRBO rentals run 30 to 50% below hotel rates for stays longer than three nights, and they include kitchens. Home exchanges remove lodging costs. Private-room hostels now offer solid amenities at rates well below hotels.
5. Rent through Airbnb or VRBO
Apartments, condos, and homes are available worldwide at rates that undercut hotels for multi-night stays. The kitchen is the real advantage: cooking a few meals a week cuts daily spend by a third or more.
You can also list your own home on Airbnb or VRBO while you travel. Depending on your location, the rental income can offset a portion of trip costs.
6. Try a home exchange
HomeExchange.com matches homeowners for swaps. You stay in someone’s home; they stay in yours. Lodging costs go to zero. The platform now has more than 200,000 members across 155 countries.
7. Look at private-room hostels
The hostel experience has changed. Many properties now offer private rooms with good amenities at rates that undercut hotels. Hostelworld.com lets you filter by room type and read verified reviews before booking.
Last-Minute Travel Pays Off When You Have Time Flexibility
Schedule flexibility is retirement’s biggest travel advantage. Hotels release unsold inventory through apps like Hotel Tonight at sharp discounts.
Google Flights Explore mode shows the cheapest fares from your city when you leave the destination blank. This kind of opportunistic travel works best after you’ve handled the planning basics.
8. Use last-minute tools to find deals
Hotel Tonight: Unsold hotel rooms, discounted for same-night or next-night booking.
Google Flights Explore: Enter your departure city and leave the destination blank. Google returns the cheapest available fares from your airport.
Kayak Explore: Map-based version of the same concept.
Travelzoo: Curated deals with a broader range of lead times.
Intrepid Travel: Last-minute availability for group tours.
Lastminute.com: Focused on European deals.
Longer Trips Cost Less Per Day Than Short Ones
Airfare is a fixed cost. Every additional week in a destination reduces the per-day cost of getting there. A two-month trip to Europe runs far cheaper per day than two separate two-week trips. Long trips also open up apartment rentals, grocery shopping, and slow train travel. All three cost less than the hotel-based, itinerary-packed short trip version of the same journey.
9. Plan multi-destination long trips
To see Spain and Italy, one long trip beats two short ones on cost. You pay for the flight once. With time, you rent apartments at weekly rates, cook some meals, walk instead of cabbing, and move between cities by train. The daily spend drops.
Retirement makes this possible for the first time. There’s no clock to punch at the end of week two.
Road Trips and RV Travel Suit the Retirement Schedule
RV ownership now skews toward the 50-to-69 demographic. Road trips work well in retirement because you’re not tied to Friday departures and Sunday returns, which is when prices peak. The vehicle is the hotel. The pace is yours.
10. Hit the road
RVs combine transportation and lodging in one. For shorter trips, rentals through Outdoorsy or RVshare let you try the format before committing to ownership.
Resources worth bookmarking for any road trip:
The $80 National Park Pass Is One of Retirement’s Best Deals
Seniors 62 and older can buy a lifetime America the Beautiful pass for $80 (plus fees). It covers entry to more than 2,000 national parks and federal recreation sites managed by the NPS, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Reclamation, and Army Corps of Engineers.
11. Get the America the Beautiful Senior Pass
The Senior Pass costs $80 as a lifetime purchase. You can also buy an annual pass for $20 per year. Digital passes are now available through Recreation.gov, or you can order a physical pass from store.usgs.gov (allow up to three weeks for delivery). To qualify, you need to be 62 or older and a U.S. citizen or permanent resident.
At sites that charge per vehicle, the pass covers all passengers in the car plus up to three additional adults at per-person fee areas. One week at a popular park system area often returns the purchase price.
Cruises and Group Tours Reduce Solo Travel Friction
The all-in nightly rate on a cruise covers transportation, lodging, and meals. For many itineraries, that combined figure runs below what you’d pay for a hotel room and meals at the same port on your own. Group tour operators handle logistics that independent travel leaves to you. For solo travelers and those managing health considerations, that trade has real value.
12. Find the right cruise
Resources for cruise research and deals:
Cruise Critic: Reviews, comparisons, and reader discussion.
Vacations to Go: Discounted bookings, including last-minute availability.
Cruise Sheet: Price tracking and fare comparison across cruise lines.
13. Join a group tour
Road Scholar runs learning-focused programs at destinations worldwide, with expert-led content built into the itinerary. It’s structured travel for people who want to understand what they’re seeing, not just move through it.
Many cities have private senior travel clubs that organize group trips at group rates. A web search for “senior travel club” plus your city will surface local options. Confirm any club has a verifiable history before paying a deposit.
For solo travelers:
Voluntourism and Multigenerational Travel Add Meaning to the Miles
Voluntourism pairs travel with organized service work. Multigenerational travel pairs it with family. Both formats produce the kind of experience that stays with you longer than a standard trip.
14. Try voluntourism
15. Travel with grandchildren
Travel is one of the most productive ways to spend real time with grandchildren. Keep them in the planning conversation from the start. Ask where they want to go. That one step separates a genuine shared trip from a grandparent-led tour they’re passengers on.
Budget for Travel Inside Your Retirement Plan, Not Alongside It
Travel is the retirement spending category most often left out of financial models. Most retirees treat it as discretionary spending from what’s left. That puts it in competition with every other cost for priority. Building it in as a specific line item before retirement starts gives it a fighting chance.
16. Budget for travel by phase
Travel spending runs higher in early retirement and tapers later. Model it that way. Set one figure for the first decade, a different figure for the years after. Two numbers beat a flat assumption.
17. Don’t skip travel insurance
Medicare doesn’t cover medical expenses outside the United States. Standard Parts A and B have almost no international application, with narrow exceptions. Medigap plans C, D, F, G, M, and N cover foreign emergency care up to plan limits. Travel medical insurance picks up whatever Medigap leaves uncovered.
Providers worth evaluating:
Check your specific Medigap plan before assuming you’re covered abroad.
18. Book some trips further out
A 2010 study in Applied Research in Quality of Life found that anticipating a trip produces measurable happiness gains separate from the trip itself. Vacationers planning a trip were measurably happier than non-vacationers even before they departed. The planning period has real value. That’s a case for booking some trips well in advance, even when last-minute deals are available.
19. Consider retiring abroad
For some retirees, travel becomes the destination itself. See 12 tips for retiring overseas for what to consider before making the move.
20. Use schedule freedom as a cost lever
The biggest thing retirement changes about travel is your calendar. You’re not tied to peak pricing windows anymore. Mid-week departures, shoulder-season dates, and extended stays all get cheaper when you can leave any day and stay as long as you want. Book the same route on a Tuesday in October instead of a Friday in August. The fare often drops by half.
Budget for Travel Now, Before It Gets Crowded Out
The gap between wanting to travel in retirement and actually traveling comes down to one thing: whether travel has a real number in your plan before other costs claim it. Many retirees treat their travel plans as discretionary spending. That means it loses to healthcare costs and home maintenance almost every time.
Most of the ideas in this article reduce what travel costs: the $80 national park pass, shoulder-season timing, apartment rentals, longer trips, etc. What they can’t do is create budget room that isn’t there.
If travel is on your list, build it in now, before retirement starts. The Boldin Planner lets you model what your travel plans actually cost against your full retirement picture: by phase, by trip, and alongside everything else competing for the same dollars.
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