Elderly parents are always a concern, but if you get trip insurance, you can get them to pay for the trip disruption. Probably not the best idea to book to a remote place with little options and no communications, but I think most places in Europe, it would be pretty easy to get home.
We kept worrying about this with my MIL, but now she’s 98 1/2 and going strong.
Funny, one of our neighborhood pages just had someone post about a senior married couple taking a trip. The wife said her husband is reluctant to travel but his health is starting to slip (I think they are 70ish) and she wants to take him somewhere for 1-2 weeks and is looking for ideas.
LOTS of suggestions for river or ocean or Alaskan cruises. (I always think — why does everyone assume that an older couple wants to cruise?). But there were a couple of suggestions for train travel. Even using the train for travel with pit stops in cities to take a night or two to hotel. I thought that was an interesting suggestion.
I think people recommend cruises to older people because it’s such a no brainer if you want to avoid stress and planning, moving from different hotels and dragging your bags. Easy to be sedentary or active, easy to choose different excursions if one person is immobile.
Personally, I would never recommend a large boat cruise again, unless it is with kids, and they need that entertainment. Small boat, luxury, interesting destinations, get to know other passengers, they don’t nickel and dime you, no kids. The Scenic cruise we went on to Vietnam/Cambodia with only 65 passengers has been our best vacation, by far. Exotic destinations we’d never go on by ourselves, and they held our hands (sometimes literally) through it and took care of everything.
I have 2 friends that are retired with husbands that don’t care to travel. These friends have started traveling together and another single friend of ours has been joining them. So far their trips have been a week or less, but they are talking about doing a 3 week trip to France next spring.
For many years my husband didn’t particularly like to travel, and his first response to any vacation ideas was “no.”
I discovered early on that it was better for us to do what I will call “hub and spoke” vacations, where you stay in one place and do things from that place. Transitions were very hard for him, so minimal transitions were important. Now he can live out of a suitcase (but prefers to unpack - now it’s easier bc he finally discovered packing cubes are great). We can now go on vacations with lots of transitions, and he mostly says “yes,” and even suggests places/plans with me. When we went to New Zealand for 28 days I think we may have done 17 transitions. It was crazy but we had a good time.
I can really empathize for those whose partners aren’t compatible with your travel desires/style/whatever. I consider myself lucky that my H has changed some. I will say especially air travel is still pretty stressful, for both of us, and we tend to take early flights and get to the airport early, in hopes of getting to our destinations on the day we are supposed to.
I feel fortunate that H IS willing to travel (even though not very enthusiastic about any planning). He will participate and even enjoys it, but he is a homebody.
At least for my friends and me, there was an element of “we can’t do that trip because we don’t have enough PTO/child care/etc.” in the pre-retirement resistance to travel. And while that may have been an issue, what retirement exposes is that that wasn’t the real issue. Again, ty for all who have shared. It is reassuring to not be alone!
Some of us also have spouse who did some amounts of business travel, so maybe that also factors into their lessened enthusiasm. I believe that’s a factor for H—I didn’t travel nearly as much and still and pretty interested.
I’m sure that’s a factor for my husband. He traveled a lot for business - both in the United States for work and conferences, Europe for business plus a month in Japan, then Russia and China as a consultant (I did get to go to China with him for a week, all expenses paid). Plus he frequently went back east to deal with his mother in her later years. Getting him to move to San Diego was my major accomplishment.
We did travel together in the last year, including the NZ/Oz trip. But I went to Yosemite on my own, and he never seems interested in visiting son in Seattle when I go. Sadly his solo trips were related to the funerals of very good friends of his. He likes his home based routines. And on vacations together, he has to be sure there are plenty of details planned on what we’re doing/eating etc.
I think that the past year and the death of my mom and my fil have made me realize how short life is, even though both were 88 and 90 and lived a good long productive life
To me. I see all the things I still want to do. To my H, unsurprisingly, he’s happy to have those experiences in our backyard. Not that where we live isn’t wonderful and I am so happy for this life we have.
We will see what the future holds
I understand wanting to travel a little bit less. I’ve been in Rio for the week, flying to Brasilia for a couple of days, Sao Paulo for a day and then home – I’m going to do a 6 hour tour of the Panama Canal on my layover in Panama City – and then after a day to regroup, we are driving up to our house in Canada. the time in Canada is working vacation – ShawWife and I will work and go for a bike ride every day and have nice meals with ourselves and with her old family friends. We could travel in August, but I’m OK staying at home. But, we have plenty of trips planned. ShawWife has a show in Italy in February that I’ll go for the post-setup part. Probably Charleston over New Years. A visit to the West Coast to see ShawSon. I think we have another trip to Italy planned for May – I wonder if that is still on. Probably Banff next summer. I was looking at another trip to Asia. But, after as extensively as I have traveled for business and also with the family (both of our kids love travel as a result), I’m not jumping to plan other trips.
I could definitely do without visits to MIL, but ShawWife was always OK with visiting my M so I’m going to go when needed or requested.
Our main difference is that I have wanted to buy a house in places I want to spend time – earlier on, the Canadian Rockies , and now someplace warm for winter. Neither of us love Florida but it is warm and easy to get to and they speak English (I could imagine a winter place in Mexico or Central America but ShawWife does not pick up languages). She did say no to the Canadian Rockies house and has not said no to Florida but has found ways to avoid seeing houses. [I do think a lot of Florida real estate has some real downside risk – Sanibel has definitely been declining year-over-year for example].
One thing we do is a little bit of separate travel. For over 40 years, I have had an annual trip usually to the mountains (but also to the Chattooga River, the Chiracahua national monument, and the moutnains near Santa Cruz) with a dear and very wise friend for 2-3 days. We have focused on our values and then how we allocate our time. We started 40-some years ago thinking about our career aspirations – he’s extraordinarily distinguished and I’m pretty distinguished – and then over time we added relationships/wives, families, health, spirituality and our legacies. We then look at whether we spend our time in ways that our consistent with advancing our values. ShawWife has always encouraged me to take this trip. She has had a number of trips with a group of kayaking buddies and to NY to see art with other artists and even with one of my grad student roommates. I encourage this as well. The latter is mutually beneficial. I can only see so many galleries/museums in a day. She is insatiable.
Following up on some earlier posts- I had my last COVID update in Dec’25. Not sure if it’s time to update but will check.
Also had polio booster, tetanus and others before going to Africa. Glad I had the tetanus as I took a nasty fall a few weeks ago and gashed my leg on metal.
My DH would travel all the time if I would, but I am a bit fried from all we have done this year. Additionally, if we go out to see the kids/grands and stay more than a few days, he prefers hotels with a pool and gym, I prefer air BNB with 2 BR, a kitchen and a W/D. We compromised and actually found a hotel sorta between both kids, and got a 2 br/2ba with kitchen. W/D is on the main floor but I didn’t use it. Grandkids loved it when they stayed over and loved the buffet breakfast, pool, hot tub and basketball court. We will likely use it again in the future.
We are looking at a trip next spring to see the tulips in the Netherlands, then to Luxembourg, Belgium and Normandy. Problem is the friends we want to go with have some time challenges, and the window of time we could all go is not “perfect” tulips time (she wants to go when the biggest “events” are occurring) so they want to pivot to Northern Italy instead of the Netherlands. We would probably have to go ant the very end of April (April 29) into May. Any thoughts??
We would like to do some travel in January or February 2027…and we know we are late to the game for this.
Not late to the game at all, unless you’re looking at specific tours/cruises or events that have already booked up.
I think I’m going to get DH to head to AAA and their travel agent…and see what we can find. I would like to work with an agent who can troubleshoot, if necessary. Plus, maybe the AAA agent will have some options that are appealing to DH and me.
Is the thought that at some point you guys would split up, with them going to Italy and you going to the Netherlands?
The tulips was my top bucket list trip. I’ll have to check what dates we went. We spent five nights in Amsterdam, took the train to Paris, stayed there several nights and picked up a car outside of Paris. Ended up in Normandy. It was a wonderful trip. We had all sorts of weather including a heath wave in the middle.
I’m the one in this marriage who is ruining the spouse’s dreams of retirement travel. It has been a serious bone of contention between us since we retired. It was not an issue in our earlier years because our jobs kept us as much in the air as on the ground, so neither of us wanted to get on another plane or spend another night in a hotel. “Vacation” to both of us meant relaxing at home. I never knew that DH dreamt of leisure travel in retirement, and I was certain he knew what a stubborn recluse I am.
I’m reading all the suggestions posed to @deb922 and responding in my head even before she replies with, “Nope, nope, nope. You’re kidding, right? And, a cruise? Never! BTDT. I’d rather have a weekly colonoscopy.” I finally did come up with a solution/compromise that I posted on another thread that has lowered the temperature a bit on these conversations with DH. He appreciates that I have teased out what I really object to about travel, and that I’m willing to try to find some happy medium. In the meantime, he IS willing to take a few trips with some family members or his friends but without me.
It always baffles me that so many people can’t fathom that others really have zero interest in travel. My experience has been that those who love it can’t wait to bore you with photos or brag about where they’ve been or where they’re going, like it’s some kind of competition or accomplishment or wealth signal. My eyes just glaze over. There is no moral imperative to travel, and those who don’t aren’t missing anything of value – to them. It shouldn’t be so hard to understand. There is no way to make travel more attractive to someone who doesn’t value it. You’ll never change that about them. You might as well try to change their eye color. And it’s OK to be disappointed, but the solution ultimately requires that you learn to enjoy your travels without them.
I appreciate your perspective. And it is important to recognize both sides are valid. But if two spouses are so far apart, I think the key is to sit down and figure out some sort of compromise.
H has changed a lot over the years. When I first met him, he swore he wouldn’t go to DC or any big city. Got him to DC and he loved it. Swore he still wouldn’t go to NYC. In 2014 he volunteered for us to go visit lol.
But our big sticking point now is he won’t leave the cats for more than 2 weeks. I can stretch it to 16 days because I’m the planned and say it’s two weeks lol. But it’s one reason we are seriously looking at going to Vienna for a year once I retire. We can bring the cats for a year and day trip around. H claims he wants to move permanently, but I don’t think that’s the case. He can’t go more than a few days without talking to the kids and always wants to visit. That will be almost impossible overseas. But we shall see. It’s still aways off for us.
Is your husband my husband’s twin separated at birth? My husband always stresses about the cats when we travel even though we have an excellent cat sitter, and our kids live not far away.