I met a woman at a cooking class in Bilbao who was coming off a trip to Morocco with Intrepid tours. She was widowed late 60’s and said she felt like the group was a good mix of singles, friend groups and couples. She recommended the premium trips by intrepid. For Morocco she felt safer in a group as a single woman traveler.
We did an extended family river cruise a few years ago. We enjoyed it but I don’t see us on a trip like that without family.
Wild Terrains
We have had my BIL accompany us on several air & sea tours. He pays a small supplement but is happy to have his own room.
We’ve gone on several Rick Steves tours and there have always been several single travelers in the group. I know Rick Steve’s charges a single supplement, which I think is about $50/day.
My 35yo daughter went on their Scotland tour and she said there were other singles and everybody was very friendly . She was the youngest by far, most tours skew to late 50’s - 70’s
Like @mom60 I’m tired of planning trips. But most organized tours include only 1/2 of what we like, usually for 2x the cost (or more) of coordinating ourselves. We love to roam small towns; prefer local pubs over fancy dinners, and typically focus on scenery and culture, often bypassing museums or “tourist” meccas. Simple but clean, safe, and convenient accommodations preferred. We’re not usually there to enjoy a hotel, and spend little time in our rooms.
We also appreciate at least some flexibility. We tried several short-term group bus tours that required booking months in advance. Of course, the days we were scheduled to travel were so awful, most scenery was completely obscured.
Choosing places is less an issue, but transportation can be more complicated.
And then there’s inertia.
Some of our favorite trips have been with our adult children. We’ve offered to pay for a large part of their expenses if they would do the planning. So far no takers, but their lives are also much busier.
I used to always enjoy planning vacations, but no more. We’ve been on several tours, in every case we were taken somewhere we would not have known about or heard of, and found that surprise stop to be delightful.
Also I used to always drive—-now I can look out the coach window and admire scenery without the worry of killing everyone in the car!!!
When we did a tour many years ago it was with trafalgar. Was reportedly a step up from globus and gate one. When we did a safari we used micato. Excellent. They only do Africa and India. Highly recommend. Our second choice was Abercrombie and Kent.
My husband is normally our driver. But on non-US vacations (and US Hawaii) he favors NOT driving. That’s fine, for tricky navigation we’d be in what I call “Marriage Buster” moments.
My friend’s husband pointed out that last summer may have been their last vacation to some places where they have to rent cars as he turned 75 in October and some places won’t let him rent anymore. She is younger and can drive, but not sure if he wants that.
The two people I know who travel single talk about are Overseas Adventure (OAT) and Tauck Small group. We have been on a Tauck Small group and recommend.
We’ve done 2 tours with Trafalgar, both excellent, doing a third next fall.
Also, 3 with Collette, all were very good, one of the 3 tour directors was just OK.
CIE is an Irish tour company that also does UK, Iceland, and Italy. We did Scotland (12 days) and England and Wales (14 days) with them and they were fantastic. Their thing is that all excursions are included, i.e., no optional ones for an additional fee.
Wow—H is 83 and so far we haven’t hd any issues getting rental cars. He has a very clean driving record but they don’t ask. He r only drive in the US.
I don’t have names, but many of the tour companies abroad charge less than the US ones. I have friends who have done trips with Dutch, Swiss, and English companies, and I was just looking at someone in Japan. @MADad make me think of that. Some of them are standard (the bike one in Holland, hiking in England), but the Japan one was highly customizable. Mentioning that as it’s a bit of a halfway house for all of us who are wearying of planning but have a decent idea of what we want our trips to be.
We did Ireland with Trafalgar Tours. They did an excellent job, but there were desirable optional excursions that cost extra.
When we decided to go to Scotland a couple of years ago we compared Trafalgar to CIE (the Irish company). List price and duration of the two tours was about the same, but when we factored in all stops Trafalgar charged extra for that CIE included, CIE came out cheaper. As I said in my previous post, we used CIE again a year later, to visit England and Wales–same deal, no extra cost for optional excursions.
While I am babbling on, something we look for in tours is where the city hotels are situated. A hotel right in city center makes all kinds of neat places walkable. Some use hotels in non-touristy areas of town or even in suburbs, presumably because they cost them less $$$. For Edinburgh for exazmple, the CIE Scotland tour used a hotel at the foot of Edinburgh Castle–the Trafalgar tour we did not choose used a hotel across the Firth of Forth (nothing would have been within walking distance from there)
Tauck Tours have been discussed on this thread—I’d be SHOCKED if there were any extra charges with them–they may even cover tips to tour director and bus driver, though I’m not certain. They are a cut above other tour companies, and one pays for that, for sure.
Keep babbling - it’s great to learn from others here on CC.
I absolutely agree that hotel location is key. For example, in Madrid (2012) we selected very central Hotel Europa based on recommendation from Rick Steves guidebook. It was right at a subway station (which we didn’t use) and the Hop-on-Hop-off bus (which we really liked). Easy walk to Plaza Mayor. My husband had been to Madrid and agreed it was a fine location. Imagine my surprise when there actually was a Rick Steves tourgroup (something I did not yet know about) staying there. In the lobby they posted daily tour info, and we took advantage of their hints and tips.
I’m appreciative of all the posts. Ireland is on our list so I’m going to look into some of the companies mentioned.
One adjustment we had already made was utilizing day tours and things like cooking classes in the areas we have traveled. Also booking private transportation on arrival over trying to navigate trains and buses with luggage. We also sometimes take taxis. When we were younger we would never take a cab even if it was an hour walk on cobblestone streets to our lodging. We learned a lesson a few trips back when we walked from the train to our hotel in Lisbon over cobblestones. We ended up with a broken wheel on one of our bags. Shot out to Osprey who when I got home sent me a brand new bag.
My husband isn’t afraid of driving abroad but did like on our trip to Sicily and Puglia we only had a car part of the trip. Same in Portugal and Spain.
I would go! Just not retired yet so have limited vacation time. 
But Canadian Rockies are at the top of my list to visit sometime and I love to walk as see things.
My friend and her husband and another couple are doing a walking tour in the UK - but 15 miles a day for almost a week (whew, a little too much for me!). But what a fun concept!
Listening to all these travel plans has me living vicariously (and trying to figure out what trips hub, family, friends and I will do when I retire!).
In terms of budget (since meeting financial planner this week!) - can I ask roughly how much folks allocate to travel per year in retirement? Trying to figure out if my estimated number ($16k if things are otherwise going okay) is reasonable….
I think it depends on what your goals are
We did/plan for approximately 1 big trip a year. $16,000 probably wouldn’t be enough for our big trip. I figure if I’m going somewhere, I’d like some luxury and more comfortable lodging at this point in our life.
A domestic trip, that budget would work.
We also did one long weekend with kids and several trips to visit family that if I’m being honest was in the $10,000 range all in. Travel of any kind gets expensive.
Seems like a good place to start. A lot is going to depend on how much international flying you do and how much you might supplement for kids on family vacations. In theory, once retired you can go longer… and in theory seek out accommodations cheaper/day (such as a monthly rental.. have an in-depth visit with one flight cost), though so far we have not done that.
We’ve already been retired about 6 years. Although we track monthly “outflow” total, we don’t have budget categories. (And for travel, we are fortunate to have an account of inherited funds earmarked to use toward family trips.) One thing that has crossed my mind is that we have a lot of travel in “go-go years”…. and as that tapers off in later years it will get offset by growing expenditure in the medical category.