The Golden Years of Travel! 6 Trips That You Can’t Really Take Until You Retire Suzy Guese February 21, 2023 International Travel, Senior Travel, Travel Tips Once you retire, the world is your oyster, especially when it comes to travel. Since most retirees see travel as their top priority when they enter their golden years, we have come up with several trips you might want to take that you probably couldn’t even of dream of doing when working full time. Leave all your cares and worries behind and start plotting these once-in-a-lifetime trips. Take a Cruise Around the World Usually entailing at least three months of time, retirees should consider taking an around-the-world cruise. Several cruise companies offer these types of trips in which you start in a major city and travel around the world for roughly three months. Princess World Cruises offers an around-the-world cruise beginning in Sydney for 106 days with visits to 27 countries with 41 ports of call. Viking World Cruises also offers an around-the-world cruise spanning 5 continents. Oceania Cruises has several around-the-world options beginning in Miami, New York, and Los Angeles. An around-the-world cruise is truly something you can only do when you have the time. Plus, you’ll be able to check off most destinations on your bucket list. Take a coast-to-coast U.S. road trip One of the best ways to see the U.S. involves simply driving from coast to coast. When you have a more open schedule, you can take part in an epic road trip from coast to coast. If you take the trip in a straight shot, you’ll be driving about 2,500 miles. But you’ll probably want to take your time and see the sights along the way, which will probably take you on some side trips and backroads, adding many adventurous miles to your sojourn. You can either take your own wheels or even rent an RV for the trip. Along the way, you might decide to hit up some of the nation’s most prized national parks like Yellowstone (which spans three states: Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana), California’s Yosemite, and maybe even Dry Tortugas National Park in Florida. Hop aboard an epic train journey If you would prefer someone else do the driving on your trip, you can hop aboard any of a number of epic train journeys around the world. Train journeys focus on the act of travel, of taking the time to enjoy the journey, not just the destination. You can opt for short train journeys, like the one you can take on the Bernina Express, one of the most scenic routes in the world, from eastern Switzerland to northern Italy. Or you might choose the Train to the Clouds, which climbs 13,800 feet from Salta, Argentina to the Chilean border. Or you can go truly epic and take the classic California Zephyr from Chicago to San Francisco. There are even luxurious train journeys like the Rocky Mountaineer, a glass-domed train that travels through the rugged beauty of the Canadian Rockies. Go on an African safari The African continent is filled with awe-inspiring destinations. But you might start by considering the classic safari in Kenya, Africa’s most popular safari destination, in particular the the Masai Mara National Reserve. The best time to visit in July through October, when the annual migration occurs. Other great wildlife viewing spots in Africa include Zimbabwe’s Hwange National Park, known for having one of the world’s largest populations of elephants; Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable Forest Reserve, renowned for its mountain gorillas; and Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park. Experience the Northern Lights Conditions for the Northern Lights have to be just right. The natural phenomenon that lights up the sky in a rainbow of colors can be seen from late November to March at a latitude of 65 to 72 degrees. Retirement is a particularly good time to see the Aurora Borealis, since you’ll have the time to wait for conditions to be just right, as well as time to wait for the deals on last-minute flights. In terms of weather, the skies must be crisp, cold, clear, and cloudless. One of the best places to see the Northern Lights is Tromsø, Norway, which is situated above the Arctic Circle. The area sees the Northern Lights more than 250 nights a year. Other places you can expect to see the Northern Lights are Norway’s neighbors, Sweden and Finland, as well as Alaska and Greenland. You May Also Like: Essential Hacks for Senior Citizens Who Love to Travel Live Abroad in Europe for a Summer Thanks to Europe’s compact nature, anyone can easily hop through any number of cities in a short period of time. However, retirees have the time to do something many long to do their whole lives: live abroad in Europe for an entire summer. By basing yourself in one area, you can travel to different destinations on the weekends and live like a European during the week. How about a French villa or an Italian pensione? Perhaps you can find a retired European couple to swaps houses with? They get to see the states, while you get the European adventure of a lifetime. What trip do you want to take when you retire? Share your pick with us in the comments below.
