I’m a Retiree: 3 Places I’ve Traveled While Only Using My Social Security Money
Written by
Heather Taylor
Edited by
Gary Dudak
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Who doesn’t dream of traveling during their retirement years? While travel is considered an important retirement goal for many, retirees often need to err on the side of financial practicality. In a GOBankingRates October 2023 survey polling 1,021 Americans, 43% of Americans ages 65 and older said they needed to change their vacation and travel spending plans over the last year due to inflation.
Some retirees, however, won’t let concerns about rising prices deter their plans to see the world. They bring their travel dreams to life through careful planning, strategic spending practices and using Social Security to foot the bill. Here are a few incredible places retirees have traveled to using only their Social Security money and the savvy ways they keep costs down.
Eastern Europe
For the last five years, Norman Bour and his wife Kat have been full-time nomad travelers. Bour is the owner of Travel Younger, a website documenting their lives on the road. According to their website, the pair have been to almost 50 countries. Over half of these countries have been visited in the past four years.
Bour told GOBankingRates the couple lives exclusively on Social Security. “Each year we get a nice increase, which makes our lifestyle even better,” Bour said.
Despite receiving a regular uptick in benefits, the Bours prefer to stay on budget. In particular, they enjoy visiting lower cost countries in Eastern Europe. They are currently in Australia — continent number six in their travels — having just left Albania.
“[In Albania] we had a two-bedroom and two-bathroom apartment with an ocean view overlooking the island of Corfu,” said Bour. “The cost each month was $500.”
France
France is one of many countries Debbie and Michael Campbell have jaunted off to in their retirement years. They’ve also made visits to Mexico, Spain, Croatia, Switzerland, England and Italy — and this barely scratches the surface of all their travels. The retired Seattle couple made headlines in 2017 when a story ran in Country Living about how they visited 160 cities around the world and lived out of Airbnbs and two suitcases.
According to Country Living, the Campbells were able to afford their nomadic lifestyle using Social Security and retirement funds. To stay within this budget, they sold nearly everything they owned, including their home, car and boat.
The Campbells document their travels on Instagram at @seniornomads. A lot has happened since their media coverage in 2017 and we visited their page to see what they’ve been up to since then. To date, the Campbells have been to 285 cities, 85 countries and have stayed in 270 Airbnb properties. They wrapped up their 2022 travels in Tunisia and recently highlighted a visit to the Yorkshire Dales, a county park in England, in July 2023.
Phoenix, Arizona
While many retirees are eager to see the world in retirement, others enjoy quick getaways to cities in their home state. Retiree Donna Ryan told GOBankingRates she took a flight from her home city of Tucson to Phoenix. The entire trip cost around $500 and was paid for using her Social Security money.
Booking a domestic getaway is no different than making international travel plans. If you’re using your Social Security money to fund it, all price tags should be economically practical — and you don’t even need a passport.
Ryan said it helped to live in an already tourist-friendly destination. Still, she booked the flight using Southwest’s winter sale and paid $100 round trip. Ryan recommends retirees who are not frequent flyers strategically plan for flights and book their travels in advance. “You need to book the trip about one month before you leave to get the lower price,” said Ryan.
Her hotel stay, at a four-star hotel, cost $240 total. To keep costs down, Ryan used a few strategic approaches to receive discounts. “I can get price decreases at hotels when I contact the hotel myself instead of directly booking online,” said Ryan. “If you’re an AARP member, you’ll get hotel discounts at certain hotels.”
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