Low back issues often are not easily resolved - DH, 6’3", was able to resolve cervical spine issue with injections under anesthesia (the first one had some relief, while the 2nd one eliminated trouble entirely) - his pain radiated to a more minor path (major would be down the arm, his pain was radiating down his back on the one side). He had to fly often with work, and he had a lot of pain in the limited airplane seat - when it persisted, he saw a very competent spinal surgeon - and the injections were done by his MD specialist partner. Low back injections under anesthesia (three times), no real relief. More pain sitting or standing; walking and being active is better. He got a new Stressless recliner and ottoman (the bottom part of the seat on the old one had lost its cushioning after many years) and loves the new chair. We also purchased a Stressless love seat (for the other TV watching area) which he also enjoys.
I enjoy travel and more importantly love planning the trips! Right now, in the midst of planning two trips - one is an all girls trip (school friends, maybe daughters too) and another is with childhood friends and spouses. Challenging to plan for different groups/interests, but I love it. Of course, there’s always at least one moment during the actual trip, that I will say “this is it, I am not doing another one!”. H just laughs.
I’m the travel planner in our family. I used to love planning but I admit I am finding it tiring. I think the internet has changed my planning as the information is so plentiful that it makes it harder to make decisions. We have never been tour people but I think I’d consider it in the future. We did do a river cruise with extended family which was nice as no decisions to be made. Also for China we used a travel agent who set us up with private guides in each city. This was suggested by our daughter who was living there at the time. African safari is another trip where you want a guide. We leave next week for a 24 night trip to Portugal and Spain. I planned the entire trip with little help from my husband.
I have come to the realization that for trips that are more in my interests I need to just make the decision and say we are going. He always enjoys them once we are there. He is gung-ho for putting trips he likes on the calendar. Those being sailboat charters and camping trips with our trailer.
He is still working and retiring isn’t happening anytime soon but has flexibility. Time away is needed as his work is stressful.
Some Europe trip meanderings follow. In summary, the biggest cost savings came from the shared group lodgings. The most worry-free convenience was the Viking planned week.
One of our favorite trips was with in 2018 with two other couples, and it required a ton of planning. We arranged our own to/from flights, due to frequent flier factors. We stayed 4 nights in Barcelona VRBO, then a flight together and 2 nights in Toulouse France, then a a week on a rental houseboat (3BR, 3bath) 1-way on Canal du Midi (itinerary picked based on travel night slideshow we had all attended). Then one of the couples took the train with us to Paris for 7 night VRBO stay. It was a lot of work, but we split some of the duties. (For example, one of the husbands researched and arranged our tickets at Sagrada Familia cathedral.). And we’d have planning dinners at our house, looking at VRBO options together on the big screen TV. Beer dates pouring over houseboat brochures.
Last year’s Viking River cruise with one of the couples was a combo of tour and self-planning. Used AAA agent to arrange the Rhine Getaway Viking week and flights (into Amsterdam, return from Rome). She also booked us Amsterdam hotel, train from Basel to Florence, 4 nights in Florence hotel, rental car, last night near Rome airport… though we did a lot of parallel research on our own. Certainly it was relaxing during that week of Viking coordinated tours, all meals aboard (though you do miss some local color doing that).
I will admit that arranging our own tours (especially Anne Frank house!) was a pain. Used Viator booking site for the others (Rijksmuseum, Van Gogh, Uffizi, Academia, cooking class). Viator allows 24 hour cancellation, which we took advantage of when too overloaded for the Florence winery bus tour (which would have been a bit redundant with our drive next day Florence to Rome).
We have a great vacation home so probably don’t travel as much as we would otherwise. H and I are going to go Croatia this fall. Part of it is organized—Venice to Dubrovnik on a small cruise/tour. We’ll stay for 5 days afterward. I worked with a genealogist in Croatia and was able to find relatives (maternal side) and we’re going to meet up with them in the small town where they live on the Dalmatian Coast.
We haven’t done Rick Steves yet, but we’ve done many similar trips, and we love them. Ours have focused mostly on biking. There are lots of companies that do planned group trips, and many cater to retirees.
ETA didn’t need to be sent specifically to @Jolynne_Smyth
D is my travel companion until H gets his knee replacement. She and I have had fun on several trips and in July we will return to Paris for the Olympics.
It’s been almost a month since my work hiatus started and I have kept busy. Letting go of a lot of stress! Remarkably I think about money quite a bit less than I did before.
Perhaps we should start a separate thread for senior travel?
I think we already have a couple of travel threads, but I’m not opposed. “Wait a minute, and the topic will change” here 
.
Please report back on any of your Olympics experiences! Very cool!
DD and I are headed to Paris for the Olympics too. Which events did you get tickets for?
Opening ceremonies, women’s gymnastics, beach volleyball, rugby and swimming. It will be a fun mix!
I’m jealous.
I’m enjoying the spin-off thread (“General retirement travel plans”_
Relevant to this “How Much… “ thread, I think during retirement planning it is good to ponder a couple’s travel priorities (assuming there are funds to spare, which I realize is not the case for most retirees… this group tends to have fortunate circumstances).
Travel is likely to happen most in the early “go go” years of retirement. One good thing is that it travel is a luxury that can be reduced if times get tough.
A young man I know travels a lot, typically solo. Last summer, he planned a European trip using AI. He said that it worked out perfectly. He was able to enter parameters, and AI chose everything according to his parameters. I’m not quite the AI type, but it was interesting to hear his perspective.
@shawbridge and @threeofthree mentioned Banff, which reminds me of my wife’s and my honeymoon 38 years ago, which involved flying into Calgary and taking the train across the Canadian Rockies to Vancouver with a few days in the Banff area, staying at the Lake Louise Lodge, a grand hotel on the lake of the same name.
When we checked in we were disappointed to find we had an unremarkable room with two twin beds and a view of the parking lot. When I went to the front desk and explained it was our honeymoon they offered us vouchers for a free canoe rental on the lake and told me they’d see what they could do.
When we returned from the lake an hour or so later we were told our bags had been moved to a different room and there would be no change in the room rate. Our new room was on the top floor, perfectly centered with the best possible lake view, and a queen bed.
Topping it off were flowers and a bottle of champagne. It was a very nice stay.
How lovely! Yes, we stayed at Chateau Lake Louise as well! All of the Canadian Pacific Railroad hotels are just incredible. So glad they made your honeymoon special!
Jealous you got opening ceremony tickets! Both DD and I got chosen early in the lottery for events so we have events every day except one and multiple on some days (swimming, gymnastics, volleyball and beach volleyball, basketball, tennis, soccer, water polo, and track & field). But we did not get chosen to purchase opening ceremony tickets.
On non-travel topic, just want to encourage folks still working to investigate options for HSA (Health Savings Account). In my last years of working, I did very high deductible plans with HSA. Some of the HSA money was from employer. Now in retirement it’s great to have a debit card I can use for glasses, dental appt etc. (Yes, I do know balance could continue to grow tax free if I let it ride. But it helps on cash flow).
The only thing I would have done differently is to set up investment options on the HSA account earlier. It was not until after retirement that I actually had enough time to get the Fidelity id/password and learn more about it. There were pre-retirement years where it earned very low interest.
“According to a 2023 survey, one-quarter of Americans would like to retire before age 50. After decades of tolerating workaholic culture as the norm, employees are tired, unafraid to show it and yearning to yank back control of their lives. To fed-up workers willing to do a little bit of math, FIRE offers a straightforward antidote: You can just leave it all behind.”
Here is another portion: “The average American is a late starter,” Yount told me. “That’s just who we are, living in this consumption society and not having the mentality of saving often or early.” And things are no longer “9-to-5, 40 years and a gold watch” the way they were for his parents’ generation: “I’m not in the gold-watch generation. Gen X got lost, got forgotten.”
Interesting story on NY Times. The lead part of the story was a fellow that had financially struggling parents, so started his financial journey early and retired at age 25 when he had a very popular ap.
Another example followed Dave Ramsey: Heptig, who is 68, found herself in dire financial straits in her 50s, when her husband’s small business faltered. “I got really scared, thinking we will never get out of this debt and we will never retire,” she says. They took a course from the financial-advice radio host Dave Ramsey, and her husband signed up for a W-2 job. After that, they started saving madly. “We were net-worth zero at 50 years old, and he retired at 63 — so for us, where we started from, we consider ourselves retiring early,” Heptig says. She had made the same wild discovery that everyone in FIRE does: that it can really take as little as a decade to hit early retirement, from the moment you learn about it and start planning. But as Yount put it to me: “You don’t know what you don’t know. You don’t even know to go looking for it.”
Here is the link for those that are subscribers
Meet the FIRE Savers Who Retired Early - The New York Times (nytimes.com)