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From my readings on this site, I seem to be in the minority on a particularly popular and expensive retirement pastime: foreign travel.
Over the years, I’ve traveled a fair part of the world, from wide-ranging business travel throughout Europe and extensive global leisure travel on every continent other than, strangely enough, the Americas (except for the Caribbean). I still travel. For instance, I was in the Canary Islands just off the coast of North Africa for a 60th birthday celebration in February, and I’m meeting a friend from London in Spain for a week in late September. Suzie and I are currently organizing a trip for next August to see a total solar eclipse.
But my enthusiasm for foreign travel has waned these last few years. Part of it, I think, is a subtle shift from the thrill of novelty to a deeper appreciation for more settled pursuits. After years of navigating airports, packing suitcases, and adjusting to new time zones, the sheer hassle of foreign travel has started to feel less like an adventure and more like a task. With so many popular destinations becoming increasingly crowded, the quiet, more peaceful moments seem harder to find.
It strikes me that most would think this is a most inconvenient time to be losing interest in travel. After all, I’m only 58 and just recently retired. This is supposed to be the time! Get to it! Travel through the go-go years, the world’s your oyster! But my travel now seems to have evolved alongside myself, tied to more purposeful and personal reasons. I have no real enthusiasm for destination travel. It has to have a meaningful reason now. Another example to illustrate my point, I’m thinking of visiting my cousin in Australia who recently lost her husband.
I think it’s okay to spurn the popular myth around retirement and the expectation to see far-flung places. If that’s not your thing, then so be it. It doesn’t mean you’re doing retirement wrong. Retirement affords you more time to explore your interests. It can be a time of self-discovery. I’ve often thought about revisiting past childhood passions. I had a very intense interest in astronomy as a youth, and I’m undertaking a foundation course in Astronomy and Planetary Science this September.
Thinking honestly about what really interests or intrigues you and spending your new found time exploring these possibilities is a good starting point. Maybe you have a passion for history or the great outdoors, exploring more of my own country is high on my retirement list. Basing some of your retirement around your interests is just as valid. Do retirement your way and don’t feel pressured into following convention.
I’ve traveled widely, and that certainly colours my perspective. I’m definitely not advocating not to travel. It does expand your horizons and can really make you appreciate your own country and lifestyle. If traveling is your retirement thing, go for it. The world offers many wonderful experiences and beautiful destinations, but maybe just make sure it’s your choice and not societal expectations you’re following, just your own real travel retirement dreams. Whether it’s destination travel or my type of personal intentional travel for a reason, do your retirement your way.
I stopped working for wages (don’t like the term “retirement”) 3 months ago. I’m 64. I have not traveled as extensively as you, but certainly some. I find myself more selective. I still look forward to travel, but to specific places for specific reasons, where I can follow my curiosities and interests. For example, I am an amateur historian, a Dickens fan and a walker – and love cooler temps. London, with easy transpo to the rest of UK, could be my single travel destination and I’d be (I am!) happy. Others see it as a crowded over-touristed destination. All depends on perspective. I agree with your suggestion that foreign travel is often presumed to be a top aspirational goals. I also agree that my fulfillment with simpler pleasures – walking my dog, gardening, reading, helping my elderly in-laws- has gone way up. Very importantly to me, I like staying consistent with my fitness routine, which is much tougher away from home.
I think our worldview matches very closely. I was in London a few weeks ago, a great city for exploring. So you don’t like the term “retired”? How about a “man of independent means,” lol?
I also enjoyed a lot of foreign travel (and living) during my working life. I still really enjoy it now. But I agree, to each their own. You do you.
If one travels extensively, it is a given that there will be problems from time to time. I’ve experienced too many for me to recount all. I won’t go into my mis-adventures with security both in the U.S. and abroad. Once, after a terrorist attack that took down an aircraft I was slammed against a wall by government thugs because as it turned out my gold filled glasses tripped security. I had the misfortune of being in Charleston SC for the entirety of Hurricane Hugo. That two week period is worthy of a memoir. I couldn’t leave so I sterilized the motel bathtub, filled it with water and covered it with cling wrap. I drank that for several days and finally made arrangements for a flight after Columbia Airport re-opened, but had to drive 120 miles