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For the way I travel now, arranging everything myself works out cheaper. I like slow travel: staying somewhere for a month or two, finding my bearings, and waking up with no obligation beyond deciding what I fancy doing.

Sometimes that involves exploring. Sometimes it involves finding a comfortable cafe and making absolutely no contribution to the local sightseeing statistics.

But I would not tell every solo traveller over 50 that independent travel is automatically the better deal. An organised holiday can be good value, particularly for a shorter trip, several destinations, or the reassurance of somebody else managing the arrangements.

I have used package holidays myself. When I felt less confident about going entirely alone, that safety net mattered a great deal. As my confidence grew I started arranging my own flights and accommodation, and that suited me better. It is not a progression everyone needs to follow, and there is no prize at the end of it.

The short answer: independent travel is usually cheaper for a longer stay in one place. A solo package may be better value when you want an itinerary, company and support. To compare them honestly, you have to look at the complete cost and the holiday you actually receive.

First, what do we mean by a solo package holiday?

People use the phrase for several rather different things.

You might book a conventional flight-and-hotel package for one person and then spend the week doing exactly as you please. Or you might join an escorted holiday designed for solo travellers, an adventure tour that welcomes people travelling alone, or a cruise with a cabin for one.

These are not interchangeable. A beach package does not necessarily include a guide or any organised social programme. A group tour may cover accommodation and transport between destinations but leave you to arrange international flights yourself.

So before comparing prices, decide which experience you actually want. Otherwise it is rather easy to compare an apartment with a fully escorted itinerary and congratulate yourself on discovering that fewer services cost less.

Why independent slow travel suits me now

These days I arrange everything myself. I choose the flights, look for an apartment for a longer stay, and decide how much moving about I want to do.

The financial benefit comes partly from that slower pace. Staying in one place means fewer transfers, fewer travel days, and fewer occasions when I have to buy whatever happens to be available beside a departure gate.

A monthly rate usually works out lower per night than a short booking. Ask about longer-stay prices, but check electricity, water, cleaning charges, deposits and cancellation terms before celebrating the saving.

Then there is the airfare, which is where the arithmetic gets interesting. A £600 return flight is about £43 a day over a fortnight, or £20 a day over a month. The flight costs the same either way; you simply get more days out of it.

A lower daily cost is not the same as a lower total bill, of course. But if you have the time, it buys you considerably more time away for the same airfare.

That is the appeal of slow travel after 50. There is a particular frustration in leaving a place just as you have worked out where to buy a decent breakfast, and it gets sharper with age. At twenty-five, a week somewhere felt like plenty. At fifty-four I want long enough for a cafe to become part of my day rather than a recommendation saved for a return visit I have not booked.

There is a practical argument too. A fortnight of changing hotels every three nights is more tiring at sixty than it was at thirty, and tiredness is expensive in its own way. It turns into taxis you would have walked, meals you would have cooked, and a day in the room recovering from the last three.

What are you actually paying for on an organised holiday?

A guide’s time, local knowledge and the work of coordinating a trip are all part of the product. So are the transport, excursions, meals and accommodation the itinerary includes.

There is also the less tangible value of having people around you. If you are taking your first solo holiday in your fifties or sixties, the prospect of an unfamiliar airport and an empty evening may matter rather more than saving a few pounds a day.

I understand that, because I valued organised travel when I was less confident. It let me go somewhere without taking responsibility for every moving part at once.

A guide does not guarantee safety or solve every personal need, so check the level of support, the physical demands and how much independent time you get. But having a named person coordinating the trip is worth something, and it is worth more at some ages than others.

If paying for that support means you take a holiday you would otherwise postpone indefinitely, it is money well spent. A cheaper trip you never book costs you the whole holiday.

The three things that change the price most

Operators differ enormously in what they include, and the differences matter more than the headline price. I have written separately about which tour companies are worth considering, so I will not repeat the detail here. Three things decide most of the cost comparison.

Whether you get your own room

“No single supplement” can mean two completely different things. It may mean you are matched with a stranger to share a twin. Or it may mean single occupancy is already built into the advertised price.

For most readers over 50 this is the single biggest variable in the whole comparison, and the one most likely to be glossed over in the brochure. Ask what the final price buys rather than trusting the label. I have gone into the mechanics of this in the single supplement problem.

Whether flights are included

Many tour prices cover the land arrangements only. G Adventures, for instance, runs trips designed exclusively for solo travellers with a trip leader and an included arrival transfer, but international flights are generally separate and standard rooms are usually shared, with a private room costing extra. That is a perfectly reasonable way to sell a tour. It is simply not the same number as a flight-inclusive package, and comparing the two directly will mislead you by several hundred pounds. (That is an affiliate link, so I may earn a small commission if you book. It costs you nothing extra, and I have reviewed several of their trips honestly, including the parts I did not enjoy.)

Just You advertises a room to yourself with no single supplement, a Holiday Director and specified meals, and sells both flight-inclusive and make-your-own-way bookings. Solos Holidays runs group holidays exclusively for solo travellers, also advertising your own room. Intrepid welcomes solo travellers on ordinary group trips, which means the rest of the group may not be travelling alone.

Who else is actually on the trip

“Solo” does not mean “over 50”, and it does not mean a dating holiday either. Some trips have an age range, most do not. If pace and atmosphere matter to you, and after fifty they tend to, ask the operator before booking rather than discovering it at the first group dinner.

Are organised holidays only ever a week or two?

The packages I have in mind tend to run one to two weeks, occasionally stretching to a fortnight and a bit. That suits somebody with limited leave who wants a complete itinerary in a fixed window.

It would be wrong to say organised travel stops there, though. Dragoman runs overland trips from 15 days to 326, which involve camping and shared tasks such as cooking and putting up tents. That is a different holiday from an escorted hotel tour, and 326 days of it would test most friendships, but the option exists.

You can travel slowly with a group, and you can get a proper feel for a place on an organised trip. What independent travel gives me is control over where I stay and how I use the time. If I want another week somewhere, I can look into extending without needing the rest of a group to develop an identical affection for it.

A Caribbean cruise against a month in Vietnam

For my budget, a seven-day Caribbean cruise in a solo cabin is roughly the sort of money that would fund a month staying in Vietnam.

That is a personal comparison between two very different holidays rather than a matched quotation, and a fair total needs flights on both sides. A month of living costs in Vietnam is not directly comparable to a cruise fare that already includes accommodation, transport and most meals.

The point is what I want the money to buy. A cruise gives you somewhere to sleep, transport between ports and an organised holiday with the scenery changing while you do. A month in Vietnam gives me time in one place and the freedom to build my own routine.

These days the time appeals to me more, though I should admit I have a complicated relationship with the solo cruise I keep not booking. Somebody else may quite reasonably prefer a week at sea with dinner arranged.

Is travelling east from the UK always cheaper?

My money goes further in the parts of Southeast Asia where I do most of my slow travel, which is one reason the region suits me.

I would not turn that into a rule, though. Asia contains wildly different price levels and so do the Americas. Where you stay, the season, the standard of accommodation and how you spend your days matter more than the direction of the flight. Singapore is not Laos.

The useful comparison is a particular place and a particular way of living in it: a longer apartment stay, local meals, a manageable number of activities. That tells you far more than asking a compass to produce a budget.

Compare the full price for one traveller

Before concluding that doing it yourself is cheaper, put the same destination, dates, duration and comfort level side by side.

Start from the price actually available for your departure date and room choice. A promotional “from” fare usually belongs to a date you cannot use.

There are also two different questions hiding here. Could you recreate the organised itinerary more cheaply yourself? Or would you spend less by choosing a simpler independent holiday? Both are fair questions, but they measure different things. A week based in one town costs less than a tour visiting four places, and most of that gap is the travelling, not the operator’s margin.

Two things that catch people out

Cheap flights with several layovers

I have booked cheaper flights with multiple stops. When I have time, the saving is often worth the extra journey. It will not appeal to everybody, and it appeals to me rather less than it did a decade ago.

There is an important difference between a connecting journey sold on one ticket and separate tickets requiring a self-transfer. Before choosing the latter, check what happens if the first flight is delayed, whether you must collect and recheck baggage, and whether transit visas apply. Add any hotel and meal costs before deciding how much you have saved. A nineteen-hour layover you have to sleep through is not free.

Annual travel insurance and trip limits

I use annual travel insurance, and for slow travellers this deserves proper attention. An annual policy is not permission to remain abroad continuously for a year.

Check the maximum length of each trip, any total overseas-day limit, the destinations covered, activities, and declared medical conditions. A month or two away may need an extension or a different policy altogether. FCDO guidance is explicit about trip-length limits.

This matters more after fifty, because premiums rise and declarations get longer. An itinerary is only affordable if the insurance you actually need fits the budget too, and that is a number worth getting before you book rather than after.

Remember the protection you are buying

For UK bookings, financial protection is part of the comparison. An ATOL-protected flight-inclusive package protects eligible payments and provides assistance if the travel company stops trading. Check the ATOL Certificate to see what is actually covered. ATOL is not travel insurance, and the two are not interchangeable.

Do not assume a collection of separately booked flights and hotels gives you equivalent protection. Equally, do not assume every escorted trip or cruise is ATOL covered; check how the particular booking is protected.

Arranging a trip myself also means I take on the work of contacting different suppliers when plans change. That is manageable, but it is part of what the package price is buying, and it is worth pricing honestly rather than pretending it is free.

You can do both

There is no need to choose one approach permanently.

Book your own flights and apartment, arrange an airport transfer, and join a local guided day trip when you want company. Or take an escorted tour and add a few independent nights afterwards, checking the extra arrangements and the insurance.

For an introverted traveller that flexibility is particularly useful. You get the shared experience without committing every breakfast to group conversation.

It is also the cheapest way to buy the only part of a package that is genuinely worth having. Think about what you are actually paying an operator for. The guide is the valuable bit. The coach, the fixed itinerary, the 7am wake-up call and the lanyard are the parts you tolerate in order to get it. Hiring a private guide for a single day gets you the first without a single one of the second.

Check the pricing before you do the sums, though. Most private tours are costed for the group rather than the person, so the comparison against a package looks very different depending on whether you are one person or two.

I arrange everything myself now because it gives me longer stays, lower daily spending and the freedom I value. Earlier on, I valued the reassurance of a package more. Neither choice needs defending.

The best-value solo holiday after 50 is the one that fits your budget, gives you the experience you want, and feels manageable enough that you actually go. For me that increasingly means a slower month in one place, with enough time for a favourite cafe to become part of the day.

Related reading

• The Case for a Small Group Tour in Europe
• The Single Supplement Problem and How to Solve It
• Chiang Mai Slow Travel Guide for Mature Solo Travellers
• The Cruise I Keep Not Taking

This is one of six pieces answering the questions solo travellers over fifty tend not to ask out loud. The others are gathered here: The Awkward Questions Nobody Asks About Solo Travel Over 50.