Is solo travel expensive? (And how to do it without breaking the bank)

Short answer: yes, doing things by yourself costs more per person. But it’s worth being precise about where the extra money goes, because most people assume it’s spread evenly across the trip and it isn’t. It’s concentrated in one place, it has a name, and once you know the name you can plan around it.

The single supplement is the whole story

Hotels, tour operators and cruise lines price a room, not a person. Two people split it. One person doesn’t. Rather than let a solo traveler pay half, the industry charges a single supplement — an extra fee for occupying a room alone.

It typically runs 25–75% on top of the per-person rate, and on some cruise lines it’s a full 100%: you pay for two people and travel as one.

This is not a niche complaint. A 2025 survey of solo travellers found 78% named the single supplement as their biggest obstacle to booking a trip. If it has put you off before, you’re firmly in the majority. Most people don’t even know it’s what stopped them. It shows up as a total that just looks inexplicably high.

Everything else about solo travel is genuinely cheaper. No compromise meals for someone else’s preferences. No splitting a taxi to a place you didn’t want to go, no rounds of drinks, no group activity you paid for out of politeness. You eat when you’re hungry and skip what you don’t care about. Those savings are real, and they partly — not entirely — offset the room.

The good news: it’s becoming negotiable

The industry has noticed that solo travellers are now a large market rather than an edge case, and pricing is starting to move:

• Roommate matching. Several major tour operators will pair you with another solo traveller of the same gender, and the supplement disappears. If they can’t find a match, the better ones waive it anyway rather than charging you for their failure to pair you.
• Flat rates instead of percentages. At least one large operator has moved to a fixed daily single supplement rather than a percentage of the trip cost, which is dramatically cheaper on an expensive itinerary.
• Just asking. Supplements are often more negotiable off-season, or on a trip that isn’t selling well. It’s a normal question to ask and the worst answer is no.

The general rule: the more packaged the trip, the worse the supplement, and the more room there is to negotiate it. Independent travel mostly sidesteps the problem instead.

How to travel solo without breaking the bank

The useful reframe is that the accommodation ladder isn’t only a cost decision — it’s the same decision that determines whether you’re alone too much. The options that dodge per-room pricing are the same ones that put people around you.

Hostels with a private room. The version people don’t know about. You get a door that locks and your own bed, at well under hotel rates. There’s a common room too, and usually a calendar of events you can ignore entirely. This is the single biggest lever on a short trip.

Colivings, for two weeks or longer. Priced for people staying a while, so the per-night rate drops sharply against a hotel, and they’re built around having your own space with other people nearby. Disclosure: I’m a part-owner of a coliving space. I’d recommend the category regardless, but you should know that before you weigh my opinion.

A whole apartment, booked long. Weekly and monthly discounts on Airbnb and Booking are often steep enough to beat a hostel bed on a longer stay. This is the one that surprises people — a month somewhere can cost less per night than four nights somewhere.

Beyond the room:

Stay longer in fewer places. Every move costs you a travel day and usually a night in transit. Two weeks in one city is meaningfully cheaper than two weeks across three, before you count what you save by learning where the good cheap food is.

Go where your money goes further, and check the time zone while you’re at it. The destination guide covers this properly. Short version: Latin America gives a U.S.-based traveller more days on the ground per dollar than most of Europe. And no jet lag to burn a day on.

Travel outside peak. Solo travel’s real advantage: you’re not coordinating with anyone else’s school holidays or annual leave. Shoulder season is cheaper, less crowded, and entirely yours to pick.

Eat where you’re standing, not where you researched. The most reliable saving on any trip. Set lunch menus, markets, and the place with a queue of people on their break will beat anything with an English menu and a host outside.

What it actually comes to

Budget for the room honestly, and assume it’s the line that will surprise you. Then let the rest of the trip be cheaper than it would have been with anyone else, because it will be.

The trip you take on a smaller budget still counts. The one you keep postponing until you can afford the version with the private room and the good hotel mostly doesn’t.

The honest caveat

The single supplement is the part of solo travel nobody warns you about, and it's a real cost — not something you can positive-attitude your way out of. What follows is how to reduce it, not how to pretend it doesn't exist. Some trips genuinely do cost more alone, and that's a fair thing to factor into whether you go.