Last-minute departure · Sep 2026
End of the Earth
Peru · Bolivia · Chile · Argentina
July 14, 2026
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2026 edition. Prices last verified: July 2026.
Ask ten people what three months of travel costs and you'll get answers ranging from “a few thousand” to “more than a new kitchen”, and both can be right. The cost of 3 months travel for UK retirees depends almost entirely on three decisions: where you go, how you move, and how much of the organising you do yourself.
What it shouldn't depend on is guesswork. This article gives you real, line-item numbers for Europe, Southeast Asia and Japan, plus a straight comparison between doing it yourself and travelling on an all-inclusive programme. It's the money chapter of our complete guide to how to travel for 3 months, and the figures below assume the standard of travel most DECADES readers actually want: comfortable, well-located, eating properly. Not luxury, and emphatically not backpacking.
One framing thought before the numbers: call it the replacement budget. Three months abroad is not three months of extra spending stacked on top of your normal life. While you're away, your supermarket shop stops, the car mostly sits still, the heating is off and the restaurant bills at home disappear. A typical UK retiree living alone spends somewhere around £1,300–£1,800 a month at home; a fair chunk of any travel budget simply replaces money you'd have spent anyway. The useful question isn't “what does the trip cost?” but “what does the trip cost more than staying home?”, and that number is usually smaller than people fear.
Before the destination-by-destination breakdowns, it helps to see where the money goes. For almost any long trip, the budget divides into six lines:
The single most powerful cost lever is pace. The traveller who spends a month in each of three places will spend thousands less than the traveller covering nine cities in the same ninety days, and will almost invariably enjoy it more.
The Greek Islands are the natural first choice for a long trip closer to home: close, familiar enough to be easy, different enough to be worth it. Realistic figures for one traveller, at a comfortable mid-range standard with a month in each of three bases:
Call it £5,500–£8,600 for the three months. The line worth a hard look is accommodation: an apartment costs what it costs, however many people sleep in it, so a solo budget is always more than half of a shared household's. Choosing a good one-bedroom rather than a larger flat, and letting monthly rates do their 40–60% of work, is how you keep that line firmly in hand.
The swing factors: island choice (a smaller, quieter island is markedly cheaper than Santorini or Mykonos), season (May costs less than August and is better weather for most tastes), and how often you eat out. A £14 menu del día every lunchtime is one of southern Europe's great retirement pleasures and keeps the food line firmly under control.
Thailand, Vietnam and Malaysia offer the lowest cost of 3 months travel available anywhere in real comfort, and comfort here means more than you might expect: serviced apartments with pools, excellent food, inexpensive taxis everywhere.
Roughly £5,000–£8,000 for the three months, much the same as Europe once the long-haul flights are absorbed, but with a crucial difference in texture: in Southeast Asia the day-to-day money goes much further. The mid-range budget buys what would be a luxury budget in Europe: eating out three times a day, weekly massages, drivers rather than buses.
The caveats: the flight is long, the climate needs planning around (monsoon seasons are real), and healthcare standards vary, which is why the insurance line is slightly higher and even less negotiable.
Japan is the aspirational choice, and its expensive reputation is only half deserved. Transport and hotels are costly; food, happily, need not be.
Say £8,850–£13,250 for an independent trip done comfortably. Japan punishes fast itineraries hardest (the shinkansen is magnificent and dear), so the month-per-base rhythm matters more here than anywhere. It also rewards planning more than anywhere: the good-value monthly apartments, the seasonal windows, the restaurants worth booking. It is, not coincidentally, the destination where travellers most often conclude that curation is worth paying for.
So where does a curated programme sit against those numbers? A DECADES three-month experience runs at £15,000–£20,000 per person, all-inclusive. Set against the DIY figures above, that's clearly more than an independent trip to the Greek Islands and broadly comparable to a well-done independent Japan trip once everything is counted.
The comparison only becomes useful when you're precise about what each side includes.
What the DIY figure hides. The line items above are the visible costs. The invisible ones: perhaps a hundred hours of research and booking; the premium you pay when you book late or choose wrong; the nights in a disappointing apartment that looked fine online; the near-double rates hotels and tour operators quote for one person; and the meals, guides and experiences you skip because arranging them felt like work. None of these appear on a spreadsheet, and all of them are real.
What all-inclusive actually includes. On a curated programme the price covers accommodation chosen by people who've stayed there, the meals worth crossing town for, guides, experiences and internal travel. It also covers the part that has no DIY equivalent: a small group of like-minded travellers, and someone whose job is to handle every problem before it reaches you. DECADES programmes are built for solo travellers, so there is no single supplement: the per-person price is the price. On DECADES' Japan programme, the difference between the catalogue price and the DIY price largely buys access and company: the tables, teachers and rooms an independent traveller rarely finds, and people to share them with.
The fair conclusion. If your pleasure is the planning (and for many people it is), DIY costs less in cash and pays you in satisfaction, and the 12-month planning timeline will serve you well. If your pleasure is the travelling, and the hundred hours of logistics stands between you and it, the all-inclusive premium is buying back exactly the thing retirement gave you: your time. Neither answer is wrong. They're answers to different questions.
Whichever route you take, three lines routinely go missing from first-draft budgets:
A budget on a page is an estimate; a budget in an account is a plan. The mechanics that work: open a dedicated trip account twelve months out, divide your target by the months remaining, and set up the standing order. Use a card with no foreign transaction fees while abroad; over three months of spending, the 2–3% that legacy debit cards charge adds up to £150–£300 of pure waste. And hold your contingency as contingency, not as a soft extension of the activities line; the trips that go wrong financially are almost never wrong by 10%, they're wrong because nothing was held back at all.
How much does 3 months of travel cost for a solo retired traveller? Realistically, £5,000–£8,600 in Southeast Asia or the Greek Islands, and £8,850–£13,250 in Japan, travelling at a comfortable mid-range standard. The cost of 3 months travel for UK retirees swings most on three decisions: destination, pace, and how much of the organising you do yourself. The line-item tables above break each figure down.
Is 3 months of travel cheaper than a normal holiday, per day? Considerably. Monthly accommodation rates run 40–60% below nightly equivalents, flights amortise across ninety days instead of fourteen, and the replacement budget effect means much of your spending abroad simply substitutes for what you'd have spent at home. Per day, a slow three-month trip often costs less than half of an equivalent two-week holiday.
Is an all-inclusive 3-month programme worth the extra cost? It depends on where your pleasure lies. If you enjoy the planning, DIY costs less in cash and pays you in satisfaction. If roughly a hundred hours of logistics stands between you and the travelling itself, the premium buys back your time, plus access and company that independent travel rarely finds. Neither answer is wrong.
How much should I budget per month for long-term travel in the Greek Islands? At a comfortable standard, roughly £1,850–£2,900 a month all-in: accommodation, food, transport, insurance, activities and a proper contingency. The line to watch as a solo traveller is accommodation, because an apartment costs what it costs however many people sleep in it: choose a good one-bedroom and let monthly rates, typically 40–60% below nightly equivalents, do the heavy lifting.
Planning your own three months away? Start with the free DECADES Gap Year Guide: the practical starting point covering budgets, planning, health and everything between deciding to go and boarding the plane. Get your free copy here.
Strip it all back and the finding is this: a comfortable three-month trip costs roughly £5,000–£8,600 in Southeast Asia or the Greek Islands, £8,850–£13,250 in Japan, done independently. A further premium buys you a fully curated version where the only thing you organise is your own curiosity. Run the replacement budget properly (subtracting what home would have cost you anyway) and the true additional cost shrinks further still. It's little wonder that research from Inspired Villages found nearly 25% of retirees have either taken extended travel or would seriously consider it. Against a retirement that might reasonably hope for twenty good travelling years, none of these figures is the barrier it first appears. The scarce resource was never really the money. It's the stretch of open time, and if you're reading this, you already have that part.
About the author: Laura Cannon is the founder of DECADES. She has spent the past twenty years travelling solo and long-term across the world; experience she now puts into designing three-month experiences for people in retirement and semi-retirement.
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