10 What About Retirement Travel?

Leslie and her husband had dreamed of traveling to Japan and other Asian and Southeast Asian destinations, ever since their marriage in mid life. Yet they didn’t want to travel all that way only for a rushed and condensed trip. And so they decided to save their Asian tour for retirement. As retirement approached, they began planning for their dream trip. But almost immediately, they faced some surprising issues. For one, Leslie’s health had deteriorated. For another, they had a home and pets for which to care. And then, transportation, hotels, food, and other costs had soared since they first priced the trip years earlier. They still planned on going. Yet they both knew that the trip was going to take more planning and preparation than they had expected, and carry greater costs and risks. 

Travel

Retirement travel has a special attraction to it. Americans love to travel. The country is large, safe, and geographically and culturally diverse, with a fine interstate system facilitating ground travel and convenient air and rail transportation systems. Foreign and overseas travel attracts millions of American tourists, not just to Europe but also to the Middle East, Africa, South and Central America, the Caribbean, Southeast Asia, and other destinations worldwide. While still employed full time, Americans use holiday periods and vacation time for domestic and foreign travel. But working Americans don’t generally have the time or liberty for the more leisurely and extensive travel that retirees can pursue. And so many Americans look forward to retirement to pursue their travel dreams. Retirement travel, though, can raise some significant issues, best addressed well in advance. Consider some of those issues in this chapter.

Transportation

A first issue with retirement travel involves choosing which type of travel adventure to pursue. Retirees can have more, not necessarily fewer, travel options. Indeed, the world is pretty much your oyster, when you’re retired. The options begin with choosing your transportation, among airlines, cruise ships, rail systems, bus lines, motor home, one’s own ordinary motor vehicle, or even motorcycle, sailboat, motorboat, or bicycle. How you get to your destination can be not only a big part of travel costs but also a big part of the travel experience. Indeed, some forms of travel transportation, like renting a trawler to ply the Caribbean, a houseboat to tour Tennessee lakes, or a motor home for a trip out West, are the focus and main point of the trip. Decide whether your mode of travel is important to your travel dream. 

Accommodations

Trip accommodations also vary and can make a big difference in the nature and quality of your retirement travel experience. Accommodations can include any one or a combination of simple hotels, elaborate resorts, hostels, bed and breakfasts, home rentals, tents and camping, and staying with relatives or friends. Destination travel to a five-star all-inclusive resort is one thing. Road-trip travel to multiple sites, with accommodations in roadside hotels or at roadside campgrounds, is quite another thing. Accommodations as part of the transportation are another option, such as on a cruise ship, in a motor home, or on a cross-country sleeper train. The cost of accommodations can be the biggest cost of retirement travel, especially for longer, more-leisurely trips, making low-budget options like home swaps, camping, and staying with family or friends an attractive option. Balance the cost of accommodations against the quality of accommodations and the experience that accompanies the various accommodation choices. 

Activities

Travel activities also vary widely, making a big difference in the nature and quality of your retirement travel experience. Some retirees travel specifically for the special activities available at their destination, whether white-water rafting, canoeing famous rivers, deep-sea fishing, skiing special mountain resorts, going on safaris, or visiting famous art galleries and museums. Some retirees travel to destinations offering special recreations, like horseback riding, fishing, hunting, shopping, dancing, volunteer or missionary work, water sports, birdwatching, or attending musical, theater, or sporting events. Other retirees travel to special destinations simply for leisure activities like sunbathing and eating and drinking. And still other retirees travel with adult children and grandchildren for family recreations like water parks and theme parks. Consider what combination of activities in which you would like to engage in your retirement travel. 

Destinations

Destinations, though, vary more widely than any other variable in retirement travel, given your worldwide choices. Choosing destinations depends on your interests and affinities. Your retirement travel may simply involve frequent and extended trips to visit your adult children wherever they may live. Retirees also sometimes travel to see and learn about their ancestral homes, visit ancient gravesites, and maybe even meet distant relatives they’d never met or even known about before. Retirees also travel to exotic places they’d long dreamed of visiting, including barely accessible places as much as halfway around the world. But retirees also travel to common and popular destinations, such as Jerusalem out of religious interests and commitment, Tokyo for the distinct culture and fascinating city life, London and Athens for the history, and Paris to visit the Louvre. Retirees also choose destinations to see rare and beautiful geography, such as Alaska’s glaciers and Iceland’s geysers, and rare and magnificent flora and fauna, such as Tanzania’s Lake Natron flamingoes. Dream deeply of your favorite retirement travel destination, and plan accordingly. 

Goals

A good way to help you choose your travel transportation, accommodations, destination, and activities, among the endless options, is to consider your travel goals. Retirees travel for different reasons and with different ideas of what they wish their travels to accomplish. For some retirees, travel is indeed to satisfy a long-held dream. But other retirees don’t dream of exotic travel destinations. They instead long to travel to visit adult children and grandchildren at their distant homes, to hold new babies, meet new spouses, and support grandchildren at competitions, performances, and graduations. Other retirees travel for mission and ministry, whether using their medical, nursing, dentistry, engineering, construction, cooking, musical, evangelism, or other skills. Other retirees travel for education and enrichment, learning about and enjoying the arts, theater, sciences, history, and culture. And some retirees travel simply for the pleasures. Reflect over your retirement travel goals, to help you discern and book the trips you should take, in all their transportation, accommodation, activity, and destination details. 

Budget

Retirement travel can be an especially important thing for which to budget. Travel may have been your retirement dream, but if you haven’t funded that dream, then a dream, not a reality, may be what it remains. Travel can be expensive, much more expensive than simply maintaining your lifestyle at home. Everything is more expensive when on the road. And while you’re on the road, you must still maintain your home. Retirement travel can increase your monthly costs in retirement by multiples. That’s why it’s wise to have a separate travel budget and stick to it. It’s hard to come up with a travel budget without knowing your travel plans because travel expenses can vary so widely. So, early on, well before you retire, try making some tentative retirement travel plans. Then, estimate the cost of those plans. Then, work on funding the budget for those plans. That way, when you retire, you should have the money in place to pay for your retirement travel dreams. 

Booking

Booking your retirement travel can be a subject all its own. First, when you book your retirement travel can greatly affect its cost. If you have a limited travel budget, then consider booking during the offseason when transportation and accommodations may be a fraction of the high-season cost. Booking early may also save on costs and assure your preferred transportation, accommodations, and activities. But if you book early, do so with a cancellation option or insurance. The earlier you book, the greater the likelihood of something interfering with your travel plans. Also, ensure that when you book your retirement travel plans, you are doing so with reputable travel providers. Don’t pay any reservation or other fees to providers unless you are sure that they are experienced, reliable, and reputable, good for a refund if events intervene and they are unable to make good on the booking. Read booking contract terms carefully, while trying to ensure a full or nearly full refund in the event of war, skirmish, natural disaster, pandemic, or other interruption of travel. For foreign travel, ensure that your passport will remain current throughout the duration of your travel, and obtain any visa or other documents that may be necessary.

Health

Keep track of your health and health risks during retirement travel. Bring all the medications that you may need, unless law and customs inspections prohibit you from doing so. Check with your supplemental health insurer for healthcare coverage during travel. You may have a separate insurance card to show for travel coverage. If you have a serious health condition, check with your doctor before traveling to ensure that your travel is reasonably safe in your condition. Inquire of travel agents and accommodations representatives as to what to watch for locally, to avoid transmissible disease, including things like the safety of local water and food. Avoid unusual local intoxicating drinks and hallucinogenic drugs, smoking, or inhalers, as well as any other unusual local practice that appears to present potential health risks. If your retirement travel destination is unusual or exotic, research local health risks, and plan and prepare accordingly. Don’t return home sick and ailing with a long-term condition complicating your health. 

Safety

Your safety during retirement travel can be another due concern. Safety is an issue at home, too. But you generally know what to watch for at home, whereas you may be unfamiliar with the safety risks at your retirement travel destination. Even resort destinations can offer recreational opportunities, like motorboat parasailing, scuba diving, and skeet or other forms of shooting, that carry greater-than-ordinary risks. Beware, too, of swimming and snorkeling in bodies of water with marine predators, hiking on wild lands with large prey animals, and walking or hiking anywhere with poisonous plants or venomous insects and reptiles. Learn of the local dangers. Watch, too, for the special health risks of activities at especially high elevations and for dangers from falls off precipices or diving from heights into unknown waters. You get the picture. Ask local guides and representatives, and listen carefully to their cautions.

Security

Your security from assault and theft can also be an issue with retirement travel. The greater vulnerability and lesser awareness of traveling retirees can make retirees attractive targets for criminals intent on harm or theft. Learn from your travel research and local representatives the security risks. Stay out of areas from which local representatives warn you. Avoid offers of rides or other services from individual vendors, outside the regular and approved service offerings recognized by your transportation and accommodations providers. Don’t travel alone in insecure locations. Keep others in your party or group informed of your whereabouts and plans, in case you go missing, so that they’ll come looking for you. Do not travel with large amounts of cash. Follow the recommendations of your transportation and accommodations providers for the form of credit or debit card, pay app, or travelers checks, with which to travel. Keep your cards, cash, checks, devices, and other personal items on you in enclosed and hidden pockets or pouches secured to your person. More than anything, be conscious of security at all times when traveling in unfamiliar areas. Assess every new situation for security risks. Check in with family so that they, too, can monitor your whereabouts. 

Home

When traveling for extended periods during retirement, you may face issues with maintaining your home, especially if you have pets, livestock, plants, gardens, crops, or other living things needing care and attention. Begin planning early for how to address those maintenance and care needs. You may have family members or friends willing to stay in your home to meet those needs. You may alternatively be able to hire a reputable service to meet those needs or may be able to place animals and plants with neighbors, friends, or services to provide for their care. Traveling with pets may be possible under some circumstances but is generally not a good idea, for the health of the pets or for your comfort and peace of mind. Some working individuals plan to be relatively or entirely pet-free and plant-free by the time of retirement, specifically in order to be able to travel with greater freedom, greater peace of mind, and lower cost. You may have some choices to make between your retirement travel dreams and your retirement lifestyle. It can be hard to have it both ways, but creative solutions may be possible.

Reflection

Is significant retirement travel a high priority for you in retirement? Do you have a travel destination and duration in mind? If so, have you estimated the cost of that trip? And have you begun to fund the budget for that trip? Have you chosen a transportation option that makes sense and meets your budget? Have you chosen an accommodations option that makes sense and meets your budget? Have you planned the activities in which you wish to participate at your destination? Are those activities reasonably safe for you in your condition? Have you booked your retirement travel with reputable providers who have assured you of refunds in the event of a travel-plan interruption? Do you have health issues about which you should check with your medical doctor before traveling? Do any destination countries prohibit you from carrying necessary medications across their borders? Do you face special security concerns over either assault or theft? If so, are you aware of the way in which to reduce or eliminate those concerns, and will you take those steps? What do you need to do at home to ensure the maintenance and security of your home, pets, plants, and other items, without worries while you are away?

Key Points

• Extended travel is a big part of some retirees’ plans, for good reasons.

• Retirement travel can include several attractive transportation options. 

• Retirement travel can also include several accommodations options.

• Retirement travel can also include many destination activities options.

• Retirement travel includes endless destination options to explore.

• Let retirement travel goals help you choose your best travel options.

• Estimate a retirement travel budget to fund before you retire.

• Book early to reduce cost and ensure preferences but only with refunds.

• Carry necessary medications and research and respect health issues.

• Heed warnings and act reasonably as to your travel’s physical safety.

• Learn the security issues for your travel and follow secure practices.

• Ensure the maintenance of your home, pets, and plants while away.

Read Chapter 11.