Can we move on from travel insurance talk or start a new thread?? I get that you travel in retirement but….
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Those of you who have traveled with a tour company- what have been your best trips and which company organized them?
D and I have been to Paris several times and I would be comfortable taking H solo. I’d like to go to Italy in 2026 but wouldn’t feel good solo as my Italian is nonexistent.
We have traveled with both Trafalgar and Insight. They are really the same company, but the group was smaller with Insight and the hotels were a bit nicer, but that that much so. I didn’t think the meal quality was much different. I would travel with either again.
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If you’re looking for active Travel, Backroads is a very good company, but they are pricey. Others we’ve used, but we usually bike, are VBT (they also do Country Walkers - they are owned by a very large company), and Wilderness Voyagers. We’ve mostly been to places in the US and Canada, but have done one European trip (Italy) with VBT and are doing France and Switzerland this fall.
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Rick Steves trips, we are taking our seventh soon. Anyone who is interested in history of an area, wants zero hassle, to see the best of a region and get great local guides and a nice small group of people, I highly recommend it. Only for those who enjoy a LOT of walking and wine, though.
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Once H’s knees are replaced (this year!) walking will not be an issue. Wine has never been a problem! Thank you for the recommendations.
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ShawWife and I did a self-guided bike trip in Provence with Intura Travel, which is Provence based. She and her mother did a luxury bike trip to India with Butterfield & Robinson. Very chi-chi – they stayed at Taj and Oberoi hotels and they ran into Mick Jagger at one of the hotels. My MIL has done a number of trips with Butterfield & Robinson and has been very happy.
We also did a trip in the Giulin and Longsheng areas of China with WILDCHINA Travel. Hiking, cycling, boat trip. Very good guides. Beautiful areas that I would go back to if the geopolitical situation were different.
We are not big on organized tours. So, we have opted for self-guided tours and in China it was just us. I believe that we could have benefitted from a tour guide in a few places in Vietnam. We had three friends who took three separate upscale tours in Vietnam and Cambodia. Each gave us their itineraries and told us that this was a very exclusive and bespoke trip and we would not be able to get into the upscale things like an overnight boat trip in Ha Long Bay (which incidentally was great). The funny thing was that all three special, bespoke tours were essentially identical and used the same local providers. We called the Ha Long Bay boat company and we had no trouble getting berths. We didn’t get a driver taking us to the boat from our hotel, but a bus picked us up (and made a forced stop at a ceramics factory or something like that might not have been on the agenda if we had used a travel guide). But, there were a few places that we went where we wished we had had a guide. On the other hand, we just blocked out time to walk around Hoan Kiem Lake in Hanoi. When we did, a couple of 18 year old girls (they looked 14) approached us because they wanted to practice English and also talk to Americans. We had a fascinating set of conversations about their career aspirations including how they got jobs etc., their family aspirations (for example, they felt strongly tht they needed to start families at age 23, which precluded becoming doctors and they were at the College of Industry or something like that), and how they and their families felt about Americans (generally very positively, which was remarkable). ShawWife asked if they had boyfriends and ShawWife being ShawWife, she learned that their parents did not know they were having sex with their boyfriends and they had a number of questions for ShawWife (I don’t want to divert the thread, but somehow people want to talk to ShawWife about all kinds of stuff that they would not talk to others about). We would never have had these conversations in an organized tour. But, we also had to futz with getting from place to place in a way that would be seamless in a guided tour.
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Those sound like fantastic trips. Friends recently traveled to Vietnam, Thailand and Japan but it’s never been part of my bucket list.
I decided to try out MasterClass to add some intellectual stimulation to each day. Going to a regularly scheduled class would be difficult for the next few months, so we’ll see if this can be an alternative.
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We are going to Vietnam and Cambodia next month on a Scenic Mekong River cruise. Never been on a river cruise or to those countries. Also a few days in Singapore. This is something completely different for us.
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Ok. I’ll say it. If my husband of 40 years dies, although I’ll miss male companionship, I’m done with sex. I won’t be a nurse, or a purse, or a sex partner!
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Well, I agree with two out of your three.
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DH is always surprised at what people will tell me. My aspiration was being a counselor - my initial goal was getting a PhD in psychology — but it didn’t work out along the way as other doors opened along with pursuit of other interests. Later I would have pursued it as an empty nester, with intention of counseling couples with marital issues, but I had aggressive cancer and then with continuing extended health issues, ended up doing a sunset career using my nursing license in skilled care and rehab (and brushing up on bedside skills and using electronic medical records, plus learned some things to ‘navigate’ senior years). I really am interested in what makes people tick, and my undergraduate double major with psychology was largely based on navigating the waters with psych issues in close family members (and learning, while also having had very good instincts on ‘survival’ and personal damage control with a bipolar mother who was only diagnosed later in life when she cycled depressive). In some ways, DH is an introvert, and I am more of an extrovert.
Forcing myself to work on things I need to work on (home tidiness and personal fitness), while also have a good schedule of activities and some more time with DD1/SIL/Gkids when baby #5 is coming in March. Life is very full.
Almost always accompany DH to his medical appointments, which takes up extra time, but prevents DH from having white coat syndrome (which he had at cardiologist office when I was out-of-state) and had to get straightened out after I got back (return appointment) - the medical assistant and NP ignored DH’s response that his BP is controlled. DH had the documentation with him, but he got totally steamrolled by those two. DH has gone to urgent care w/o me, as they print out documentation and I can call them if there is a problem (and easy return appointment if needed). I definitely needed to be at bedside for his cardiac ablation procedure (staff didn’t like it, very much discouraged it) but DH was greatly reassured. Had to navigate his broken leg last Jan - PA assigned him to a MD from the group, which was not the proper person, and then had to really ‘fight’ to get that changed and also get him with the MD to obtain pain medication! I had been thrown off because of how the PA time went, and didn’t go in with my preparation (knowing the two MD that are foot/ankle - which was important with the kind of break DH had) - plus I wasn’t thinking about the fact of getting the pain medication, as DH wasn’t complaining too much about that. Seen on Monday, and no MD appointment until the following week - and Friday morning spent hours with telephone tag and working through the ‘system’ – finally sent a picture of DH’s ankle area and correct MD agreed to see him (I was concerned about cellulitis) but also of course the pain medication. DH for the week was seeming to ‘handle’ the pain, but then c/o not sleeping and pain problematic. DH didn’t want to elevate his ankle high enough due to pain.
Navigating medical is definitely a ‘skill’ to ‘master’ with life in retirement!
It has been annoying when DH has created some of the situations - he went out walking last January despite bad icy conditions (roads not drivable) and despite my pleas (you will fall, you will break something) – then I had to go pick him up (my car has AWD). He needed stitches with a finger June 2023 because he would not wait for either DD2’s BF return to our house or for me to return home, and went ahead with something that was a 2 person ‘job’ - then the NP didn’t provide an oral antibiotic nor topical, and it got infected – which caused additional appointments/ER visit/additional x-ray and CT scan.
Some of life in retirement is working through issues like how much individuals handle situations like working with medical providers and not taking risks which end up needing medical intervention. Especially when older and fall risk – of note is the GA football coach Kirby Smart’s father fell outside of the stadium in New Orleans and did die within days, had broken his hip (made our regional Alabama news because college football in the SEC is a big thing). Broken hips in elderly people result in approximately 30% of death/contribution to death - which I was surprised by that information.
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This year I started playing pickleball (there is a related thread). Too bad I didn’t try it earlier in retirement, when Covid concerns kept us home so much. We play outdoors year around here, though in winter we schedule around the good weather (supplementing with indoor paid court time). It would have been such a good excuse to get out of the house, see happy people.
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For those interested in story details about Sonny Smart “New Years Eve- when Sonny Smart took a bad fall in New Orleans- he was in New Orleans to see his son coach the Georgia Bulldogs against Notre Dame in a College Football Playoff game. Mr. Smart broke his hip in the fall, and was taken to an area hospital.Kirby Smart coached his Bulldogs in the Sugar Bowl on Thursday, no doubt thinking of his father who had undergone surgery and started to go downhill after the operation. Sonny Smart died yesterday, two days after the Bulldogs lost to the Fighting Irish. Sonny Smart was a tough football player at Samford University in Birmingham- he coached college ball in the early 70’s- he then spent 5 years as the head coach at Holtville, Alabama. He coached his son Kirby in Georgia- Kirby went on to play defensive back for the Georgia Bulldogs.”
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To be honest, in this thread I’m much more interested in upbeat posts about fitness, travel, volunteering, grandkids (even though I personally may not ever have any of my own), pets, hobbies etc. And of course I still follow the other/investment thread too.
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Yes, what next? That’s what I love to hear. I know death, disability and all that lurks, but I like to hear the fun stuff people are doing.
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My latest thing is joining a writers group at our local library. I haven’t written a thing yet but I seem to like to help with editing. I took one Coursera fiction writing course so I’m completely qualified. 
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Well, I’m flying in March to a meeting where we will go to DC to talk to members of Congress and/or their health staffers about issues important for those of us with breathing problems. Then I think we’ll take AmTrak to NYC to visit family plus a CC lunch at Harvard Club. After that, flying to TN for more health meetings and then home.
To me, combining advocacy with folks I like & seeing loved ones and friends IS fun. H gets to tag along and also seems to enjoy it. These trips are part of connection and contributing to the world.
In May I will speak at a conference and visit my BIL and SF lung doc. In September, I expect to attend meetings in BWI and then visit long-time friends in OKC.
At some point, I’m also supposed to spend a month in LA with D, babying her as she recovers from surgery. I am looking forward to all of these.
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This is about time and other things, not really financial (like ‘investment in health’), although it is called streamline financial. Go, slow go, and no go – and habits that can extend amount of healthy time. Good thoughts on modeling time in retirement, and also things you need to do in earlier years that you can do (he gave example of rock climbing) and also saying ‘yes’ and ‘no’ to things. 50’s 60’s 70’s and ‘recovery time’. Being intentional with time and ‘making more time’. Interesting about goal setting and a ‘transformation’ that a 69-year-old lady had made. Advice from feedback from clients.
If you’re in your 50s or 60s, watch this. Life Lessons from 70-year-olds
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