AARP recently released 2026 Travel Trends: A Survey of U.S. Adults Age 50-Plus, a report that offers a timely reminder that older consumers are not retreating from new experiences. Quite the opposite: They’re prioritizing and actively redefining those experiences through hands-on planning and engagement.
For the AgeTech ecosystem, these trends reinforce a broader fact: Older adults are embracing tools and services that help them stay connected, independent and fully engaged in life. And for innovators, travel is just one more lens through which to see the growing demand for solutions built around real-world needs and real-world behaviors.
Let’s take a look at some of the top-level takeaways from the report and what they can reveal about the AgeTech ecosystem more broadly.
Trend 1: Planning Is More Active, Intentional and Hands-On
Older adults take an enthusiastic, hands-on approach to planning their travel. The report shows that more than half of domestic trips for 2026 were either already booked or being planned by the end of 2025, and international trips are twice as likely to be booked in the same time frame. Older adults, especially those aged 50–59, show growing interest in using AI to plan their travel, and the overall use of AI for travel planning among older adults has doubled in the past year.
This active engagement comes as no surprise, as across the AgeTech ecosystem older adults are becoming increasingly proactive with using technology to improve their lives. This trend confirms what AgeTech innovators and others already know: The stereotype of the “tech averse older adult” is largely unfounded, or at least outdated. AARP’s 2026 Tech Trends and Adults 50-Plus report reveals — for example — that digital services are entwined with the daily lives of older adults, just as they are for younger generations. In a given three-month period, older adults used on average 14 digital services for a wide variety of purposes, from shopping, communication and checking the weather, to playing games, streaming entertainment and tracking health and fitness.
Indeed, across healthcare, FinTech, entertainment, aging-in-place solutions and more, people 50-plus are looking for low-friction solutions to everyday problems, opening an opportunity for innovators who can provide technology that reduces complexity without removing control.
Trend 2: Experiences Matter More Than Ever
For adults 50-plus, travel crowns the list of top three priorities for discretionary income (86%), reflecting travel’s enduring emotional and personal value. Besides providing an opportunity to spend time with family, 47% of older adults report their motivations for travel include getting away from everyday life and to relax and rejuvenate.
Of particular note, visiting a bucket-list destination ranks high among motivations for travel, and is the chief reason older adults plan international travel. In short, when it comes to traveling, the experience itself matters and is a powerful way to support well-being.
This tracks nicely with the growing number of solutions we are seeing across the AgeTech Collaborative™ (ATC) ecosystem focusing on helping older adults stay connected and engaged through unique and shared experiences. Startups such as Vermut, Wyzr and Bream specialize in helping older adults make new friends with like-minded people and encourage meaningful connections by facilitating real-world interactions, such as communal dog-walking excursions, working toward health and wellness goals together, or just exploring their city and what it has to offer.
For those who aren’t easily able to get out and about, other startups bring memorable experiences to their users, wherever they are. With Discover Live, older adults can find adventure with other “travelers” during live virtual tours of far-flung destinations in places like Italy, Egypt and China. Using the immersive magic of virtual reality (VR) headsets, Rendever makes all sorts of experiences simple and accessible — from games and VR-augmented fitness routines to virtual trips around the world.
Trend 3: Travel Is Increasingly Social and Multigenerational
Spending quality time with family and friends is the leading motivation for travel among older adults, with 57% reporting it as their prime reason for hitting the road. And travel is becoming more truly multigenerational, with 26% of family trips involving three generations. Most older adults (76%) report the main reason for such trips is to strengthen family bonds, followed by creating lasting memories (71%) and celebrating life’s milestones together (33%).
Vacation planning is a complex undertaking, and this trend toward multigenerational travel highlights the importance of platforms that allow family, loved ones and caregivers to orchestrate across time and distance— not just to organize trips, but more broadly to coordinate information and action in other high-detail areas of life, such as medical care and finance management.
Many ATC participants offer solutions and services that do just that. With its secure online vault, LifeSite enables users to digitally and safely store a lifetime’s worth of important documents — passports, birth certificates, wills, financial information and more — while making it easy for family members and other trusted individuals to access that information in the case of an emergency or other life event. FinTech startups SupportPay and MyFloc simplify finances, providing a platform that lets family and caregiving teams track and manage expenses, coordinate schedules, streamline communication and more.
Trend 4: Accessibility Shapes the Experience (Not the Decision)
About 15% of older travelers require some form of accommodation due to a disability or health condition, but that does not reduce the number of trips they take (about 4 per year on average) or how much they spend on travel ($5,715 anticipated for 2026). Rather, accessibility needs are more likely to shape how people plan, book and experience their trips.
This highlights an important theme for the travel and other industries: Accessibility is not a niche concern, but a key factor in serving a large and active market. This reflects the principles of user-centered design, which the AgeTech Collaborative has long championed — avoiding the trap of a “solution in search of a problem” and instead creating solutions from the ground up by carefully centering the real-world, felt needs of their users.
ATC startup Joe & Bella is a case in point. Producing stylish, premium clothes with innovations that make them easy to put on and take off, its garments are perfect for helping travelers maintain independence when they may not have the same assistance they have at home or when they have to navigate the challenges of airport restrooms. With its smart cane technology, WeWalk helps those with mobility or visual impairments go wherever they want, independently. The cane itself provides obstacle detection, and it also uses AI to deliver step-by-step voice guidance to assist navigation in more than 3,500 cities worldwide— allowing users to find restaurants, track public transportation, get information about nearby landmarks, and more.
Trend 5: AI Adoption Is Growing — But Still Evolving
One of the most interesting findings in the report is the use of AI specifically for travel planning, which has doubled in the last year among adults 50-plus to 16% (up from 8% for those planning 2025 travel). Broken down by age band, adults 50–59 are much more likely (28%) than other age bands to use AI to find deals, identify unique experiences or curate personalized itineraries.
Despite this growth, adoption of AI for travel planning is in its infancy: More than three-quarters of 50-plus travelers (76%) are not likely or not sure about using AI to plan their travel. For choosing travel destinations specifically, older adults turn to old-school methods — personal research and recommendations — instead of using AI or social media. For those who do use it, however, social media helps them research places to stay, eat or visit, along with providing inspiration for destinations or activities.
This trend is consistent with the broader pattern of AI adoption by older adults. AARP’s 2026 Tech Trend report notes that the overall use of generative AI has doubled every year since 2023, yet in 2025 that peak is just 30% of older adults. The curiosity is there, however, and it's growing. About 40% either use or are interested in using generative AI to research topics of interest, getting help with job-related questions or finding inspiration for creative tasks. Moreover, among older adults, the perceived helpfulness of AI has risen sharply (75% now believe AI is very or somewhat helpful), and most (77%) are likely to use AI in the near future.
Taken together, these travel trends offer more than a snapshot of how older adults are planning their next trip — they reveal how adults 50-plus are actively shaping how they want to live and experience the world, using tools and services that help them stay independent, connected and purposeful. For AgeTech innovators, the message is clear: Older adults are not a niche market to accommodate, but a dynamic population whose needs and preferences are shaping the future of innovation.
To learn more about the trends in travel among older adults, check out the full report.
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