Holiday ideas for 7 continents – to celebrate Saga’s 75th birthday

Today Saga is a trusted brand offering cruises, tours and holidays along with insurance and financial products – not to mention a magazine, website, podcast and more. But it began with a guest house on the Kent coast in around 1949, when Mr Sidney De Haan and his wife Margery opened the 12-bedroom Rhodesia Hotel in Folkestone. The hotel season was July and August but they wanted to extend the season into the winter months – a revolutionary idea at the time.

Their story offers a fascinating snapshot of life in that era.

It was Margery who noticed many retirees enjoying the seaside town long after the summer visitors had gone, so she and Sidney decided to target this age group as potential winter guests.

The couple first worked out the distance their potential guests might be willing to travel out of season. Plumping for a maximum of 250 miles, Sidney went on a recce to Bradford, in Yorkshire, to ask pensioners if they would be interested in the idea of a seaside holiday in the South and what they would be prepared to pay. He advertised a week’s stay at the Rhodesia Hotel, including full-board and travel, for £6.10 shillings (that’s £6.50, which equates to around £290 in today’s money).

These affordable off-peak UK holidays for retirees were the start of Saga’s groundbreaking business. It was an ingenious idea that no other company in the UK was offering: holidays solely for the older generation. Originally they aimed their business at retirees, which at the time was 60 for women and 65 for men – Saga’s over 50 age limit came later. This was not a niche market but an unheard of innovation.

During this era, rationing continued with restrictions on meat, cheese and sugar because, several years on from the end of the Second World War, the government was still managing supplies.

Efforts to boost the nation’s morale were discussed in the House of Commons, including the subject of affordable holiday accommodation, and the Festival of Britain, on London’s South Bank, showcased British achievements in the arts, science and technology to embrace a sense of recovery from the war.

At this time, holidays were rare. Civil servants received two weeks’ annual paid holiday but lower-paid and manual workers mostly did not have such privileges. Instead, day trips were by far the norm with trains taking passengers to popular resorts such as Blackpool and Scarborough in the North and Brighton and Margate in the South.

When it came to family holidays, holiday camps such as Butlin’s and Pontins catered for families but overseas travel was only for the wealthy. In fact, the now bustling Spanish town of Benidorm, in Spain, was still a tiny fishing village .

The De Haan's began to extend their choice of guest house holidays to various UK seaside destinations. Gradually, these were overtaken by overseas trips. The first went to Ostend, Belgium in 1956, and holidays to the Algarve, Portugal, started with flights from Gatwick in 1970. In the same year, Saga sold its first cruise while long-haul holidays began a decade later in 1980.

The 1990s saw Saga’s first all-inclusive holidays to Europe and in 1996 Saga Rose became the company’s first cruise ship. Fast-forward to 2019 and the purpose-built cruise ship Spirit of Discovery was launched by the then Duchess of Cornwall, now Queen Camilla, followed by Spirit of Adventure, named by Commodore Inga Kennedy CBE in July 2020. The range is extending all the time, with river cruises including a new ship, Spirit of Moselle, launched in 2025 – her godmother being Louise Robinson, editorial director of Saga magazine. This is, as well as tours all over the world, hotel stays and special interest holidays from walking to wine to birdwatching.

That’s quite a journey in 75 years and to celebrate the landmark anniversary here are some of Saga’s exciting 2026 itineraries to tempt more people over 50 to travel the Seven Continents.

Neko Harbour, Antarctica

Being on an expedition ship gives cruise guests the perfect view of Antarctica’s icy kingdom, the ultimate destination during the new 20-night Antarctica Expedition Cruise with a tour to Rio and Iguazu Falls holiday.

It’s the best way to reach Antarctica – touring South America’s gateway cities before taking a short flight to Ushuaia, Argentina, where HX Hurtigruten Expeditions’ 500-guest MS Fridtjof Nansen departs the southern-most city in the world.

Jasper, Canada

You can combine a ride on the Rocky Mountaineer railway in Canada with a week-long Alaska cruise to witness nature’s natural beauty during the 18-day Deluxe Alaskan Voyage and Rocky Mountaineer.

The train passes through national parks, forested valleys and through mountain passes before MS Koningsdam sails on a Vancouver round-trip along Canada’s Inside Passage. Along this peaceful marine highway, between British Columbia’s islands and the mainland, guests can look out for humpback whales, harbour seals, bears and eagles.

Halong Bay, Vietnam

Images of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos is a three-week exploration from peaceful ancient temples to cities bursting with life and colour.

In Vietnam, visit Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City with stops at Halong Bay, the imperial city of Hue and the booming city of Danang, while in Cambodia, Khmer temples and floating villages await.

The last stop, landlocked Laos, is a discovery of riverside caves, waterfalls and French architecture of Luang Prabang.

The Garden Route, South Africa

If a safari is on your bucket list, the Sensational South Africa tour takes you to spot the Big Five on a four-wheel drive tour of the Kruger National Park, between Limpopo and Mpumalanga.

Guests also travel the coastal Garden Route before a sailing across Knysna lagoon, the most bio-diverse of all the estuaries on the South African Coast. The holiday ends with four nights in Cape Town to explore Table Mountain and Boulders Beach.

Inca Trail, Machu Picchu, Peru

The mysterious Inca city of Machu Picchu, in Peru, is just one of the highlights during the 22-day Grand Tour of South America. The Iguazu Falls, a UNESCO World Heritage site, is also on the itinerary – along the border of Argentina and Brazil, it’s the largest waterfall system in the world.

This is a tour where the tempo keeps changing so make the most of seeing the lake-lands of Chile to exhilarating Rio de Janeiro in Brazil.

Guests need a good level of fitness to join the tour as it includes areas of high altitude.

The Twelve Apostles, Great Ocean Road, Australia

Spend 23 days on The Best of Australia group tour which departs London Heathrow for Melbourne on 5 March. From Uluru to Sydney Harbour and the Great Ocean Road to the Great Barrier Reef the tour runs at a leisurely pace with plenty of time to savour each destination.

Further highlights include meeting kangaroos and koalas in Adelaide and relaxing on Queensland’s famous beaches.

Spirit of the Danube in Hungary

Cruise ships Spirit of Adventure and Spirit of Discovery have got Europe all sewn up for 2026. Sailings include Spirit of Adventure’s 14-night Galicia and the Solar Eclipse cruise from Dover. The ship will navigate a “front row” position within the path of totality on 12 August so book your “seat”!

On Europe’s rivers, there’s a huge choice of sailings including the spectacular 14-night From Budapest to the Black Sea cruise on Spirit of the Danube.

Guests travel from Hungary through Croatia, Serbia and Bulgaria to Romania where, just before the river reaches the sea, it forms the Danube Delta where 300 species of birds make their home on reed islands, canals, lakes and marshes.

Explore our full range of holiday destinations and cruise destinations

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