Find Your Travel Style
Our Travel Style and How It Has Evolved
Every retiree has their own retirement travel style. Some chase sand and sun to feel that forever vacation vibe. Other retirees crave adventure, and still others want the familiarity of those cozy cafe haunts where everybody knows your name & your order.
There are many opinions online about the best travel style for retirees. There is only one truth- those folks aren’t you. Only you know how you want to travel.
Before you and anyone you travel with hit the road, there are a number of important questions to answer. Before you begin your journey, make sure that agree on the travel budget. How much will you travel and where will you live the rest of the time? Do you plan to sell it all and travel full-time, keep a lock and leave home like a condo or a townhouse in a community, or will you just travel a few weeks at a time and keep your current home?
What is your travel pace? Do you want maximum experiences at a fast pace, leisurely walks through museums, or a reserved seat at a cafe for people watching? This is an important time for frank discussion, because there is nothing worse than planning an entire trip and then finding out only one of you is enjoying it, while the other is bored, overstimulated, or exhausted.
Where and when do you plan to travel? Make a list of potential adventures and then see how your travels can be laid out. Consider regions with a number of destinations you want to visit and choose your preferred seasons for travel. For example, we plan to travel during shoulder seasons and spend summers and holidays at home with our adult children who are teachers with summers and holidays off.
What is your budget? Can you swing top-tier hotels and fancy dinners, or AirBnBs with a kitchen and home-cooking? Do you plan to hire a local guide for a customized tour, or take a tip-only walking tour with a randomly assembled group of tourists?
How are you getting around? Are you flying or cruising, renting a car or taking public transit, using rideshares or hopping on a bus? You don’t have to stick to any form of travel exclusively (we use airlines when we can’t book a repositioning cruise) but you need to know what your non-negotiables might be.
We had many discussions on what we wanted our retirement to look like. We thought it was important to retire with a plan for the next chapter, to have the big discussions and make sure we were aligned on where to go, how to get there and what to see. We came to a number of conclusions and realizations:
We are not necessarily budget travelers. However, we always look for ways to have a quality experience while paying the least amount possible.
Planning travel is a big part of the adventure. The thrill of the hunt and creating a customized itinerary is as much fun as the journey. We pour over pictures and guidebooks, consult Youtube content creators & local guides in planned destinations to build the roadmap.
We use discounts on accommodation aggregators such as Booking.Com so we can build loyalty discounts. We also rely heavily on Trip Advisor. We consider short term stays in apartments, and stay in B & B’s to be able to enjoy our time with residents. The wonderful conversations we have had at B & B’s have been some of our favorites!
We rarely use AirBnB due to their excessive cleaning fees and strict cancellation policies. Occasionally, we might search there but we find other platforms more flexible as we never book a room that can’t be canceled. It’s worth the few extra dollars for the flexibility it gives us.
No matter where we look, we are careful to read reviews from multiple sources for all accommodations and we make sure the fees do not add too much to the overall cost of the stay.
We use credit card hotel points to offset accommodation spend and frequent flier miles for long haul flights. We pay cash for short hops and earn points on our Chase Sapphire Reserve to use for future hotel stays.
We also book many of our hotel stays on our IHG card. Using points allows for cancellation, every fourth night is free and there are no taxes and fees on points bookings. Resort fees may be extra.
We only use a travel agent when we book cruises. Otherwise, we DIY our routes, transit, accommodations and tickets to “must see” sites. We don’t want to travel across the world and find that a lack of planning that I didn’t get to see what I wanted.
We book the occasional local guide when it is the best use of our time. For example, when we were in Japan, we booked two guides for private tours. It cost quite a bit, but spending a day with a local resident, having wonderful experiences and covering a lot of ground made it worth every penny.
We don’t mind getting up early or visiting later to avoid crowds at museums and local attractions, and we always look for free options if they are available. We also try to watch out for holidays where sites might be closed.
We know some people want the simplicity of having their entire trip booked for them and we see the wisdom in that. If that will allow you to travel, then you should go for it! After a time, we may do group tours in our slow go years. Until then, we will travel on our own schedule as we begin this adventure. We have the beginnings of our first few trips laid out, and we will report on our adventures and hope to see some of you on the road!
