They say that travelling – as opposed to hopping off on holiday for a week or two – is a young person’s game. And all of the cultural baggage associated with longer-term travel reflects this – the Gap Year, youth hostels, all-night beach parties and so on.
Travelling while you are young is great. It opens your eyes to all sorts of fantastic life experiences, gives you a taste of freedom before the small matters of careers and families land you with responsibilities closer to home.
But travelling is an equally wonderful, life-affirming experience when you are getting slightly longer in the tooth, too. In fact, for all the reasons you can come up with to advocate travel when you are still but a youth, equal and opposite arguments can be made for the merits of travelling in retirement. Here are four good ones for starters.
Time to explore
One of the big reasons given to encourage youngsters to explore the world while they are still footloose and fancy free is that they have the time on their hands to do it properly. Well, that’s true – but that also applies to people in retirement. Once you have left behind the workaday world, there’s no holiday allowance to work around, no bosses to ask for permission, you can literally get up and go as and when you want. Plus, with grown-up families, empty-nesters have no issue turning thoughts of weeks away into months-long adventures.
A nice little nest egg
Preparing financially for retirement is not the most straightforward thing. But with years to work out how to make the most of their earnings and investments, plenty of people manage to retire in what might be called a position of financial comfort. Which is often more than can be said about the wide-eyed 20-somethings setting off around the world on a shoestring. So if you do have a little money stashed away for a rainy day on retirement, what better way to use it than to explore our wonderful planet?
No more putting it off until tomorrow
Lots of us go through our lives putting our dreams on hold while we focus on managing the pressing practicalities of day-to-day life. Dreams can wait, they will still be there tomorrow – as will that pile of washing and dirty dishes if we don’t roll up our sleeves and do something about it. But, not to be too morbid about it, you get to a point where you realise your tomorrows are not in infinite supply. One day, you will have run out of time for good. So while you have the chance, why not chase that rainbow over the hills and far away?
Go on, you deserve it
After a lifetime of hard work, and perhaps raising a family on top of it, you deserve to treat yourself in retirement. Exploring the world and taking up travel as a serious hobby is the least you can do to reward yourself, if that is what you have always dreamed of.
If you are planning to spend your retirement with frequent trips away, don’t forget your multi-trip travel insurance. For frequent travellers, multi-trip insurance can save you money as well as the hassle of having to take out new cover for each trip. Avanti Travel Insurance is a specialist provider of travel policies for the over 50s, so please visit our website for more details of our bespoke annual multi-trip insurance.