How to Plan for Travel in Retirement

Six Cost-Saving Tips for Traveling in Retirement

One of the more enjoyable aspects of retirement planning is envisioning the future lifestyle you want to enjoy. For many retirees, travel is a big part of that picture. According to the 23rd Annual Transamerica Retirement Survey released in 2023, travel makes up 60% of Americans' retirement dreams.

One potential obstacle stands in the way of those dreams: the cost, with some estimates suggesting between $10,000 to $50,000 being budgeted for travel in retirement. Yet in 2022 (latest information), approximately 29 million senior Americans had less than $29,740 in yearly income from all sources, according to the Pension Rights Center.

That doesn't leave much wiggle room for seeing the world, but 66% of Americans remain confident that their financial strategy will allow them to have a comfortable retirement lifestyle. Making the numbers work to accommodate travel plans involves budgeting and financial goal-setting before and after retirement begins.

Key Takeaways

  • Retirement comes with many costs. Ensuring you have enough to cover general expenses and other activities, such as travel, will require planning and budgeting.
  • Strategizing your trip, such as when to travel, how to travel, where to stay, and making expense adjustments on each, can help reduce the overall cost of the trip.
  • When using a portfolio to cover travel expenses, remove that portion from riskier assets if traveling in the next three to five years.

Consider Everyday Spending

Before focusing on travel, first consider your preparedness to manage everyday expenses in retirement.

“It all begins with: Do we have the cash flow to cover our normal cost of living and then add to it the cost of traveling?” says Ken Moraif, a certified financial planner and senior advisor at Retirement Planners of America in Plano, Texas. “If the answer is, ‘Yes,' then we’re good to go. If the answer is, ‘No,' then we have work to do.”

The more you save for retirement, the more leeway it gives you in planning travel spending. Moraif says reviewing retirement income and spending can help answer key questions, such as:

  • Is the trip too expensive? If so, can it be done at a lower cost?
  • Can the retiree afford to travel based on current cash flow?
  • Does it make more sense financially to delay travel in order to save for it appropriately?
  • How many trips can the retiree afford each year?

Moraif says determining how much one can spend on travel annually helps shape a travel budget. “Based on that budget, we can decide if we want to take one major trip each year, or if we want to take multiple smaller trips each year,” he says. “Since each trip could be different, the most important costs will also be different for each trip.”

The travel budget should include airfare or other long-distance transportation, accommodations, food, shopping, entertainment, and local transportation.

Traveling in the shoulder seasons, which usually means not the peak of summer, can result in plenty of cost savings.

An often-overlooked cost for retirees is medical care. “Most medical plans don’t provide coverage overseas, so it’s prudent to be aware of what is covered in one’s medical plan,” says Simi Dhall, certified financial planner and senior vice president at Wealthspire Advisors.

“It’s also important to note that traditional Medicare generally does not provide any coverage when traveling overseas, other than some in-patient services in Canada or Mexico. Dhall says some Medicare Advantage plans may cover expenses incurred outside the U.S.

Travel insurance will likely be a wise purchase, but one that must go into the budget. The plan you choose should cover both medical issues while traveling and trip cancellation due to illness of the traveler or other family members, which can delay or interrupt trips.

Have a Goal and a Timeline

Once a travel budget is fixed, saving for it is the next step—and the sooner, the better. Chris Jackson, founder of Lionshare Partners and co-founder of The Arc Foundation, says saving early allows “the power of compounding to do the heavy lifting in funding these goals.”

Jackson recommends using a bucket strategy to plan retirement savings goals, including eventual travel spending. “That means having a fixed expense bucket, a variable expense bucket, and a future bucket,” he says. Travel falls into the last category for those who are still just planning retirement.

Earmark travel savings in a liquid savings account, money market account, or certificate of deposit, or allocate a portion of the investment portfolio for those expenses.

Pay attention to the timing. “If you’re using your portfolio to cover your travel expenses, then it’s important to remove that portion from your [higher-risk] assets if you plan on traveling in the next three to five years,” Jackson says. Moving travel savings from stocks into bonds or into another relatively safe investment can help insulate those assets from market downturns.

In addition to market volatility, consider how inflation may impact travel savings goals. Even if inflation moves at a moderate pace of less than 3% each year, travel may be much costlier by the time a current worker retires. To compensate, travel savings need to generate an average return at least equaling inflation each year.

Another factor: Taxes on savings and investments may diminish those returns. If one anticipates landing in a higher tax bracket in retirement, it may be beneficial to save for travel expenses in such tax-advantaged vehicles as a Roth individual retirement account, which allows for tax-free distributions after age 59½.

How Much Should You Budget for Travel in Retirement?

By some estimates, it is recommended to budget between $10,000 and $50,000 annually for travel in retirement. This will vary greatly depending on the types of trips you take, the places you stay, and the activities you engage in.

What Is a Realistic Retirement Budget?

A realistic retirement budget will vary depending on the individual and the life they choose to lead in retirement. Some people may downsize a home, travel less, and not have any children to support. Others may be in the opposite situation, buying a vacation home, traveling more, and having children to support. It is generally estimated that having 80% of your pre-retirement income is sufficient for retirement budgeting.

What Income Do You Get in Retirement?

The standard income you get in retirement is Social Security, if you qualify. You may also get a pension from work if one is provided, though that is becoming more rare. Other than that, the rest of the income you receive is up to you. It can encompass income from retirement plans, such as IRAs and 401(k)s, as well as money from annuities.

The Bottom Line

Living the travel lifestyle in retirement is a lofty goal and requires prep work. Comparing the costs of travel to various destinations is another important part of the process, in addition to budgeting and saving. Casting a wider net of cities or countries to visit may allow a retiree to stretch travel savings further.

Article Sources
Investopedia requires writers to use primary sources to support their work. These include white papers, government data, original reporting, and interviews with industry experts. We also reference original research from other reputable publishers where appropriate. You can learn more about the standards we follow in producing accurate, unbiased content in our editorial policy.
  1. Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies. "23rd Annual Transamerica Retirement Survey," Page 13.

  2. Kiplinger. "Four Keys to Budgeting for Travel in Retirement."

  3. Pension Rights Center. "Income of Today's Older Adults."

  4. Internal Revenue Service. "Traditional and Roth IRAs."

Take the Next Step to Invest
×
The offers that appear in this table are from partnerships from which Investopedia receives compensation. This compensation may impact how and where listings appear. Investopedia does not include all offers available in the marketplace.