September 12th 2025
By Ari Parker
Discover the best travel clubs for seniors offering group tours, travel companions, and senior-friendly adventures. Compare top clubs and find your perfect match.
Traveling is a beneficial activity as we age, both in terms of our physical and mental health.
But jet-setting solo or with a partner comes with many challenges, like finding the right hotels, activities, and restaurants in a city you’ve never been to or understanding how to stay safe in a new place. To bypass these challenges, many older adults choose to join travel clubs for seniors.
Senior travel groups offer organized trips and travel advice so you can stop worrying about trip logistics and instead focus on enjoying the destination. These clubs also offer the ability to make new friends and find like-minded travellers.
Senior travel clubs offer many travel benefits, such as removing the stress of planning a trip, offering opportunities to make new friends and engage deeper with a destination, and increasing safety while travelling.
The best over 50 travel clubs include Road Scholar, ElderTreks, Senior Planet, Smithsonian Travel, and more. There’s also local travel groups that work well for those looking to travel regionally or with others from their area.
To choose the right travel group, clarify your budget, interests, where you want to travel, and any other club must-haves.
Before we dive into our picks for the best travel clubs in 2025, let’s look at the different types of senior group tours. The three most common over 50 travel clubs include national travel organizations, local groups, and interest specific groups.
National travel organizations are large-scale clubs with nationwide membership, such as Freebird Club and Grand Circle Travel. They offer a diverse array of destinations, trip styles, and dates to travel. Since they are so large, many of these clubs also often get exclusive deals or can offer additional benefits to members, such as discounts on hotels or activities.
National groups recruit members from all over the country. To travel with those in your community or nearby cities, consider local clubs and meetup groups. These groups often focus on regional excursions and local day trips, but some also offer trips to other parts of the country or internationally. The Mill Race Center in Columbus, Indiana, for example, organizes a few trips to Europe each year, bus trips to other parts of the country, and shorter trips to nearby farmhouses, museums, and restaurants.
Many national and regional groups center around travel more generally. If you have a specific interest, such as history or hiking, you may want to travel with a specialty interest club. Mature travelers clubs that fall into this category include ElderTreks and Road Scholar’s birding trips.
While the best travel club is subjective, some stand out in terms of overall options, affordability, and luxury travel.
Road Scholar organizes trips across all continents for older adults. Their trips allow members to become active learners, engaging with culture or natural landscapes. They also offer trips centered on different passions or interests and for different types of travelers, such as solo women, grandparents, or adventurous travelers.
There are no membership fees, and trips range in price from $0 for virtual lectures on cultural or historical events to over $99,000 for a private plane trip around an entire continent.
Budget travellers may enjoy Senior Planet from AARP. This organization hosts virtual and in-person tours, offers advice on how to use technology to make the most of your vacation, and hosts an online community where members can connect with other travellers. This club is free, though it doesn’t offer as many organized tours as other senior travel groups.
For a premium travel experience, consider Smithsonian Journeys. Their trips feature high-end accommodation, exclusive experiences, and small group sizes so you can get to know those you travel with. Smithsonian Journeys hosts land treks, adventure trips, river cruises, cultural stays, and tailor-made journeys, meaning they have something for everyone.
Trips usually range from $3,699 to over $205,000. Typically, the quoted price includes airfare, meals, transportation during the trip, travel insurance, and any excursion costs, though what’s covered varies by trip. There are no additional membership fees.
When looking at different travel clubs, consider group size and travel styles, the offered destinations, and their cost structure.
Before joining a group, check to see if they travel in smaller or larger groups. Neither is better, but the club you choose should have a group size that fits your preferences. You also want to assess the group’s travel style, specifically if their itineraries are flexible or structured and the activity level required for the trip.
Travel clubs can explore domestic or international destinations. They also offer different trip frequencies, with smaller clubs offering fewer, more curated trips and larger organizations offering multiple dates for the same trip and a larger variety of destinations.
Cost structure also matters; some groups have a membership fee while others price per trip. Pay attention to what’s included in the cost too. Some trip fees may include meals or airfare to and from the trip destination, while others may expect you to handle these costs separate from the fee they charge.
Travel clubs offer a variety of benefits, including:
Community: The main benefit of traveling with a club is the community. Organized events and the opportunity to meet new people make these trips great for social health.
Affordability: Since travel clubs bring large groups of travellers to destinations, they can often work out group prices or get discounts that make travel more affordable than going on your own.
Safety: Traveling without a guide can be risky if an emergency pops up, especially for international destinations. With a travel group, you have staff with the expertise to navigate any emergencies and/or local healthcare systems.
Less travel stress: Organizing a trip involves a lot of logistics. In senior travel clubs, someone else takes care of the planning so you can live in the moment and savor the trip.
Cultural enrichment: Many senior travel clubs include cultural excursions, access to local tour guides, and online seminars before traveling so you can learn about the places you travel to.
Before choosing a senior travel club, get clear on what matters to you:
Is there a specific destination you want to visit?
What’s your budget?
Are you looking to travel with others like you, such as a trip for solo female travellers or grandparents?
What’s your preferred mode of transportation (cruise, bus tour, air travel, etc.)?
Are there any activities or excursions you want to go on?
The answers to these five questions can help guide you toward the right travel club for you.
After you find a senior travel club and enroll in a trip, the preparation isn’t over. Follow these tips to get the most from senior travel clubs:
Attend any pre-trip meetings or activities
Introduce yourself to others on the trip
Pack appropriate clothing for the trip’s excursions and the destination’s climate
Communicate any specific needs or preferences with the trip leader
Learn about the destinations before you travel
Many also find these trips more beneficial when they ask fellow travelers for their contact information, such as their phone number or Facebook account, and follow up after the trip ends.
From the budget options offered by AARP to the luxury trips with Smithsonian to the variety of trips hosted by Road Scholar, there’s a senior travel club for everyone. Getting clear on your individual needs and preferences allows you to find and join the right travel club for you.
The best travel club for seniors over 65 depends on someone’s budget, activity level, interests, and where they want to go. Clubs that offer a variety of trips include Road Scholar, ElderTreks, Smithsonian Travel, Freebird Club, and Grand Circle Travel. Senior Planet from AARP also offers free resources, including a community hub to meet fellow travellers.
Seniors trips can cost anywhere from $0 for a virtual trip to over $200,000 for a trip with five star accommodations, private plane rides, and other luxury amenities.
You can join multiple senior travel clubs. Joining many is a great way to try out different organizations, determining which is the best fit for you.
Qiao, G., Ding, L., Xiang, K., Prideaux, B., & Xu, J. (2022). Understanding the value of tourism to seniors' health and positive aging. International journal of environmental research and public health, 19(3), 1476. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19031476
Freebird Club. (n.d.). How it works. https://freebirdclub.com/how-it-works
Grand Circle Travel. (n.d.). Grand Circle Cruise Line. https://www.gct.com/
Mill Race Center. (n.d.). Travel. https://www.millracecenter.org/travel/
ElderTreks. (n.d.). Small group adventures for travelers 50 plus. https://www.eldertreks.com/
Road Scholar. (n.d.). Homepage. https://www.roadscholar.org/
AARP. (n.d.). Senior planet. https://seniorplanet.org/
Smithsonian. (n.d.). Smithsonian Journeys. https://www.smithsonianjourneys.org/
