Travelling Solo? Here's How To Avoid Paying Extra
The first time I travelled alone, I went to Japan to teach English. I had flown by myself before, but on trips to stay with family or move into a university dorm in English-speaking countries. This time, I wasn’t going to stay with family, and I was functionally illiterate. I knew a few Japanese phrases, but I could not hold a complicated conversation in Japanese. My support group was on the other side of the world, Google Translate didn’t exist yet, and neither did Google Maps.
It was one of the best travel experiences I ever had. I ended up living in Japan for nearly a year, learning how to be by myself and enjoy my own company. Since I couldn’t speak the language, I was forced to slow down and take my time; I had to look things up to understand what they were and to make sure I wasn’t offending anyone. Tokyo, where I was based, is an old and sprawling city; I could never hope to see it all, though I did try.
That first solo adventure made me more open-minded. I could have stayed in my room, only making trips to the grocery and convenience stores for food, but I went out and explored the city, went to museums, ate a ton of ramen and karaage in little restaurants, chatted (badly) with the lovely fruit seller on my street who would pull me aside to show me mangoes, went to the movies by myself and had late-night conversations with random strangers (sober and tipsy) on the train as we headed to our homes.
I did make friends, both Japanese and foreign, but those eight months really made me want to travel more by myself—and in the years since, that's exactly what I've done. I love not having to worry about or plan with another person.
I’m not alone in enjoying traveling alone. In 2023, Travel Weekly found that tour operators reported a high demand from solo travellers, particularily women, and one operator declared it “one of the fastest-growing travel styles right now.” In a 2019 study by Travelport, solo travel made up nearly 18 percent of global bookings in the travel industry, and Radical Storage, a luggage storage company, reported a 267 per cent increase in online searches for the term “solo travel” between December 2020 to April 2022.
Yet time and time again, single people are denied or forced to pay extra when it comes to entertainment and travel. If you think you’re paying more even though you’re consuming less, it's not paranoia. The UK travel association ABTA analyzed all-inclusive holidays from the country’s two largest tour providers and found that solo travellers could pay up to 87 per cent as much more than a travelling pair despite one body in one seat and one body in one hotel room, which would be priced the same if two people were sharing it.
Welcome to the single supplement.
Navigating the single supplement
If you’re shopping for tours, all-inclusive vacations or cruises, squinting at the fine print usually reveals that prices are “based on double occupancy.” Anyone travelling solo has to pay a bit more than two people sharing the space and the cost. I talked with Shayna Zand, WeTravel’s director of partnerships, who has experience with tour groups and the single supplement.
“A single supplement gives you your own room at the end of the day,” she said. This sounds ideal, because sometimes you don’t want to share with a stranger who can see your 1--step nightly skincare routine. The supplement isn’t double the price of the trip, because it only covers you having your own room, while everything else on the tour remains the same cost. That sounds like it makes sense, but I was still hung up on charging a single supplement on a room.
“I’m just trying to figure out the math here,” I said, genuinely confused. “If the room was $100 and they’re like, ‘Okay, we’re pricing for two people. So that’s $50, we’ll add that in.’ So do they take that extra $50 and then just roll it on to a single person?” Turns out tours price the entire trip as a whole, so they have priced the cost of the room and the single supplement for your own room into the total cost. What that means is when a package is offered, because the room is for two, the price per person is usually built in at half the amount. If it’s only one person taking up the room, they pay both halves. That’s irritating, to say the least, because the onus falls on the single traveler to shoulder the additional cost, instead of on the tour company, which could figure out ways to be cost efficient or choose accommodation with single hotel rooms.
According to a May 2025 investigation by Thrifty Traveler, a consumer travel website, Delta Air Lines, United Airlines and American Airlines were charging a tax on single travellers that almost doubled the fare in one case. (Two of the perpetrators rolled back this practice after the report came out.) It’s especially outrageous as solo traveling has increased. According to Yahoo Finance, the travel industry predicts nearly 10 per cent annual growth in solo travel through 2030 from all groups ranging from Gen Z to retirees. We’re not a niche market.
Whether it’s airfare, housing or group trips, travelling solo often means paying more for the same thing. It’s not just frustrating, it’s inequitable—and unless we keep calling it out, nothing will change. If you see similar pricing discrepancies whether in travel, accommodations or everyday services, document them, share them, and speak up. We deserve transparency and fair treatment. Vote with your money.
Luckily, some tour and cruise operators have realized that single travellers have, well, money. Some have started waiving the single supplement fee for certain trips, and some don’t have one at all. One example is Virgin Voyages, which waived single supplement for any European trip during summer 2023. "When cruise ships have a set number of rooms, a lot of times a single supplement is waived because they need to fill the boat,” Zand says. Sometimes, trips may post a deal early, but in a lot of cases, the deals come closer to the day of departure, so it helps to have a flexible schedule. (Luckily, it can be easier to be spontaneous as a solo traveller.)
Some places will waive the single supplement to fill space, but the onus is on you to find those deals. While it’s mostly cruises that seem to waive the single supplement, some tour groups like Overseas Adventure Travel, which was founded in 1978, never charge for it. More women are travelling solo and more tour companies are responding, so be sure to shop around before selecting a tour operator. There’s no harm in asking for a deal, but go directly to the head office of the tour or cruise operator. If they won’t offer one, consider taking your business elsewhere.
Understand the math and the language
When you’re looking at a trip and you see a price based on “double occupancy” or an asterisk next to the price, you can assume that there might be a supplement attached. To figure out the percentage of the supplement, divide the amount by which you’d be overpaying by half of the double occupancy price. For example, if the price for two people is $1,000 (or $500 each) and the price for one person is $600 ($100 more than they’re each paying), then you’re paying 20 per cent more ($100 divided by $500) to have the room to yourself.
Share with another single
It’s not ideal, but if you can’t afford the single supplement, consider sharing with another solo traveller. (Just hope they don’t snore. If they do, may I recommend firm, not foam, earplugs and an app that plays 10 hours of white noise. I speak from experience; it works.) It’s a valid money-saving tip that’s been the common response from the travel industry and agents, as well as personal finance experts. Again, this puts the burden on the traveller instead of on the industry. If they want your money, they should accommodate you.
Choose the shoulder or off-season
The longstanding advice about travel deals has been that shoulder season—the time just before and after peak travel months—tends to be cheaper. But Zand points out that shoulder seasons are becoming more popular these days, and often are almost as busy as high season: “Those are the dates now that tour operators are trying to push to combat over-tourism.” Deals can still be had in the off-season. While not everything will be open, you can enjoy your trip without a ton of people.
Look for single rooms
It was a true revelation when I realized that the Ace Hotel in New York City offered rooms specifically for single people. The room was smaller than a standard room but had all the amenities. In late 2024, a single room was $269 USD per night (excluding taxes and fees) compared to the larger double-bed room at $369 per night. Imagine what you can do with that extra $100 in New York City. Maybe not much, but $100 is $100.
It’s not only the Big Apple. When I went on a vacation to Saint Lucia with two friends, Aya and I shared a room while Grace had a room made for single visitors. We love to see hotels creating space for single people, and pricing it as such. It’s more common in European countries due to older buildings and less sprawl. You can also stay at a hostel, where you could share a room.
The cruise industry has started to go beyond waiving the single supplement to designing for singles. According to a press release from 2021, John Diorio, the associate vice president of sales for Virgin Voyages, said solo cabins “are designed and priced for independent travelers, and they perform really well.”
As of January 2024, Norwegian Cruises opened up three new solo stateroom categories including Solo Inside, Solo Oceanview and Solo Balcony. Now, we live in a capitalist society and Norwegian is out to profit, so the rationale for these offerings is simply demand. From 2019 to 2022, Norwegian saw an increase in guests booking accommodations as a single occupant in non-studio staterooms. Money talks, and hopefully other companies will embrace solo services in the future.
Until travellers refuse to pay the supplement, certain parts of the industry will continue to charge it. That, thankfully, seems to be changing, and now singles can sometimes travel without the financial baggage of coupledom.
Excerpted in part from The Singles Tax: No-Nonsense Financial Advice for Solo Earners by Renée Sylvestre-Williams. Copyright © by Renée Sylvestre-Williams, 2026. Published by ECW Press Ltd. www.ecwpress.com
