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ON OUR RECENT TRIP to Alaska, I was surprised by the number of solo women passengers. It turns out I shouldn’t have been.
According to a recent report from Road Scholar, a not-for-profit travel company geared toward those age 50 and older, a quarter of its travelers were single, with 85% of them women. That group included married folks traveling solo. It’s a growing trend. The Road Scholar study reported that 60% of the company’s solo travelers in 2022 were married.
Why would a married person want to travel solo? Among the women surveyed by Road Scholar, there were two major reasons: Either their spouse wasn’t interested in travel, or the spouses had different travel interests. We know couples where one of the spouses is eager to travel, while the other is a confirmed homebody. The third most-cited reason for traveling solo: Health issues limited travel for one partner.
The solo travelers I’ve spoken to like having an experienced company make all the arrangements and provide local support if things go awry. That preference, however, can limit travel options and may mean paying a premium. Many of these planned trips, especially cruises, seem to be based on double occupancy. I looked at prices for the same Road Scholar trip to Alaska’s Inside Passage that my wife and I took in September 2023. There are 10 trips scheduled for 2024. All 10 had double cabins available, but only four offered single cabins.
The per-person price for a double cabin for a late August 2024 trip was quoted at $10,499. A single traveler booking the same cabin would pay $13,499. Road Scholar will try to connect a solo traveler with a cabin partner, but there are no guarantees. The company says it’s designing more trips with solo travelers in mind.
Interested in traveling alone? There’s an enormous amount of information available. An article in Travel & Leisure lists the 14 best tour companies for seniors. Several were highlighted for their attention to the needs of solo travelers. Road Scholar has a page listing “singles at no extra cost” trips, while EF Go Ahead Tours has a special page for solo tours, as does Overseas Adventure Travel.
Here are some ways to trim costs if you’re traveling solo.
My wife has done trips with her girlfriends for many years. These have included “girls’ weekends” at the Jersey shore, Las Vegas, Boston, and several houseboat trips in central Pennsylvania and Arkansas. For some reason, I’ve never done a guys’ trip, although I’m thinking about it. Maybe it’s because of the extensive travel I did during my career. Some years, I was on the road for at least part of 40 weeks. Some of the travel was with colleagues, but much of it was on my own. I didn’t mind the travel too much, but I was always glad to get home.
I’ve been happily married for almost 42 years, plus Vicky and I dated for five years prior to marrying. After all that time, the thought of single life is daunting. Maybe traveling solo, while we still have our spouses and partners around, is good training for our eventual singlehood. In a HumbleDollar article last year, Laura Kelly wrote about how she and her husband are taking steps to develop and maintain their independence. To that end, they’re planning some independent trips in 2024.
Richard Connor is a semi-retired aerospace engineer with a keen interest in finance. He enjoys a wide variety of other interests, including chasing grandkids, space, sports, travel, winemaking and reading. Follow Rick on Twitter @RConnor609 and check out his earlier articles.
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I’m often able to offset the single supplement by declining the included airfare and booking my own using miles/points.
My wife and I did a lot of traveling in the US, Canada and Caribbean when I worked. These trips usually involved flights. After our last trip out West, she said she would never fly again. We can manage that in the US, but not overseas travel. I did a fantastic Holy Land tour solo with our church. The next year I went to Italy with my sister and her friends. I hated my wife was not there but was glad to make both trips.
At age 79, I may have one more overseas trip in me. I have been to 9 foreign countries, and two places I would love to go to are New Zealand and Hawaii. Maybe do both on the same trip.