Make Sure You Travel Wisely in Retirement

Travel is one of the great pleasures of our golden years but it’s important that you travel wisely in retirement.  It all starts with careful planning and making sure that you maximize your money and your time.  A trip or vacation shouldn’t exhaust you and taking advantage of the time that retirement gives us is a great way to get the most out of traveling.

Make the planning part enjoyable.  I understand that many people love the spontaneity of life and feel that, if you plan too much you take the joy out of the process.  In my experience, nothing could be further from the truth.  Part of the fun is learning about new places and, by doing a little research, you can learn the best time to go with the least crowds and the best weather.  We also believe in maximizing any flights or cruises by stretching out the stays.  There’s a number of reasons for this and, through some unfortunate experiences, we learned to travel wisely in retirement.

Arriving Early for a Cruise is One Way You Can Travel Wisely in Retirement

For example, by booking a pre-cruise extension you do a few things.  First, you take the pressure off from delayed or cancelled flights.  We watched one couple who was forced to join our cruise three days late because of a cancelled flight.  Even worse, there was no refund for the cruise because they had booked the flight themselves.  That’s the second bit of wisdom: where possible book your flight with the cruise company.  They become responsible for getting you to the ship on time and will, indeed, offer compensation for something that goes wrong through their booking.  We have found it can be worth the difference.  The third benefit of getting to a location early is that you can book extra tours.  As senior citizens ourselves, we have found the private tours to a little more relaxed and well worth the money.  Our tour of the Vatican before opening hours was incredible.  We practically had the place to ourselves and to sit quietly in the Sistine Chapel was an experience we’ll never forget.  Private tours, if you can afford them, are one of the best examples of being able to travel wisely in retirement.  Before you say you can’t afford it, think about the money you’re spending already!  Adding a couple of hundred dollars to guarantee that you’ll see all the things you came to see is one of the best investments you’ll ever make.  And extending your trip is maximizing the dollars you spent on the airfare.

The benefits that are mentioned above for the pre-cruise apply to the post-trip period as well.  When a cruise ends, you often don’t see much of anything in the last port.  You also are herded off the ship very early in the morning.  By extending your stay, you’ll be able to make the most of your time in the last port.  We extended our stays in Venice, Rome and Sydney and were extremely happy that we did.  And, yes, it does cost more money but, as we noted before, you’re spending quite a bit of money already and the benefits that come from the additional time, especially with a tour or an extra dinner in a great restaurant, might be the memory that stays with you long after you’re home.

One of the best ways to travel wisely in retirement took a little convincing for me to do.  I don’t spend money without worry and spending the extra dollars for a higher quality airline experience was difficult for me to do.  During my time in Corporate America, I traveled frequently and, although the company was strict about always finding a competitively priced hotel and airfare, quite often those bookings were with the same company, so I earned loyalty points.  If you traveled enough times with the same airline, you were given coupons for upgrades if they were available and, with hotels, you earned points for future stays.  Joining a loyalty program is a very good way to travel wisely in retirement and you can get a credit card with a company that will give you points with any purchase.  For those people who don’t think these things add up, I’m here to tell you that we crossed the Atlantic a few times using those points and stayed without a hotel bill because of the free nights we earned.  I also learned that paying the extra money for premium economy seats (and business class if it’s reasonable) is worth the extra bucks.  First class, however, is a bit exorbitant for us even though we could probably do it on occasion and still not run out of money.  Utilizing loyalty programs for the brands that you like is another way to travel wisely in retirement.  There’s a growing trend for restaurants to form groups and offer points and discounts for future meals so those are worth looking into as well.

There are many programs that offer discounts and other benefits, and you’ll develop your own list of favorites.  It pays to do a little research and you’ll be surprised at the amount of money it’s possible to save.  Retirement is the time to enjoy the benefits of travel.  It’s time to Enjoy Retired Life!

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