If you built this year’s vacation budget around what your family spent last summer, you’re probably short. The average cost of a trip covered by U.S. travel insurance buyers hit $9,668 this summer, according to data from Squaremouth, one of the largest travel insurance comparison sites in the country. That’s not a typo, and it’s not a luxury-travel outlier skewing the average. It’s a 24% jump from the $7,794 families were paying just one year earlier, and it’s reshaping how households like yours have to think about what a “normal” vacation actually costs.
The Number That Changed the Math
Squaremouth pulled its figures from actual policies purchased for trips taken this summer, meaning the $9,668 average reflects real bookings, not survey guesses. Even travelers staying inside the U.S. weren’t spared: the average domestic trip now runs close to $6,000, a figure that would have covered a solid international trip for a family of four just a few years ago. Cross a border, and the increases get steeper fast. Squaremouth’s regional breakdown shows a trip to Greece now averaging $12,730, up from $9,737 last year, while Norway climbed 34% to $14,950. Those aren’t niche bucket-list destinations — they’re popular summer picks that used to feel financially reachable for a mid-income household.
Why You’re Paying More Without Necessarily Traveling Less
Here’s the part that should change how you budget, not just how much you budget. Squaremouth found that only 24% of travelers attribute their higher spending purely to inflation. The rest are making active choices — splurging on nicer hotels, adding excursions, or booking trips they’d previously have put off. And more than half, 53%, say they’re cutting spending in other parts of their life specifically to keep travel affordable, with shopping and retail purchases taking the biggest hit at 19%. In other words, the vacation isn’t the line item getting cut when money is tight anymore; it’s often the one everything else bends around.
Chrissy Valdez, Senior Director of Operations at Squaremouth, put it plainly: “We’re seeing Americans prioritize travel even as costs rise. Many are adjusting spending in other areas to afford higher-value trips rather than scaling back on travel altogether. At the same time, earlier insurance purchasing and growing interest in flexible coverage show that travelers are taking a more proactive approach to protecting their investment.” That matters for your budget too — spend nearly $10,000 on a trip, and insuring it early stops being optional and starts being basic financial hygiene.
A Second Data Set Tells the Same Story, From a Different Angle
Squaremouth isn’t an outlier voice here. Deloitte’s 2026 Summer Travel Survey measured something slightly different — self-reported spending on a traveler’s single longest trip of the season, rather than the total cost of an insured trip — and still landed on the same direction of travel. Deloitte found travelers expect to spend an average of $4,069 on their longest trip, up 17% from the year before, and that a full quarter of travelers plan to raise their travel budgets significantly, five percentage points more than said the same in 2025. At the same time, the share of Americans planning a summer vacation with paid lodging fell to 45%, the lowest level in six years — meaning fewer trips are happening overall, but the ones that do happen are getting notably more expensive. Deloitte’s Kate Ferrara, Vice Chair of the firm’s U.S. Transportation, Hospitality and Services practice, summed up the trade-off travelers are making: “Those who are packing their bags this summer intend to spend, indicating that many are putting a premium on experiences.”
What This Actually Means for Your Vacation Budget
Put these numbers together and a clear pattern emerges: fewer households are traveling on a whim, but the ones that do are budgeting for it like the significant financial commitment it now is. If you’re planning next year’s trip, a few adjustments are worth making now rather than discovering them at checkout. First, stop anchoring your budget to what a similar trip cost you two or three years ago — build in a double-digit increase as your starting assumption, not your worst-case scenario. Second, if your destination is popular with international travelers, price it early; the biggest jumps Squaremouth recorded were concentrated in in-demand spots like Greece and Norway, where demand is outpacing the usual seasonal pricing patterns. Third, decide upfront which categories at home you’re willing to trim — many families are already cutting shopping and discretionary purchases rather than the trip itself, and deciding that trade-off deliberately beats discovering it by accident on your credit card statement in October.
None of this means family travel has become unaffordable, but it does mean the math changed faster than most household budgets have caught up to. Whether you’re tracking Squaremouth’s insured-trip average near $9,668 or Deloitte’s per-trip spending figure of $4,069, the direction is identical: costs are climbing well ahead of typical income growth, and the families still traveling are the ones treating that rise as a planning input rather than a surprise. Build your next trip’s budget around where costs are heading, not where they used to be, and the “brutal” headline number becomes a lot less brutal in practice.
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