Six rules for traveling in retirement

Ask any person about plans for retirement, and the word “travel” will most likely be high on the list. That was the case some years ago when I decided to step back from a full-time career.

But that simple word “travel” has turned out to have a lot of trial-and-error packed into it, especially when it comes to traveling in retirement. It has taken a while, but my husband, who is still working part time, and I have learned not just where we want to travel but, just as important, how.

Early on, we tried an Alaskan cruise. There is much to be said for the cruising lifestyle, but almost immediately we realized it wasn’t what we wanted out of a vacation. We felt hemmed in by a set itinerary and annoyed by the everything-needs-a-reservation system that didn’t encourage spontaneity on any given day or evening. Too many hours were spent looking at water and distant landscapes. The discovery that I can get seasick on an almost totally calm ocean didn’t help.

We had the same reaction to group tours. While many people are happy to delegate logistics to the professionals, we found that approach frustrating. We couldn’t just break off on our own midway through the day’s itinerary to sit and people watch in a cafe or spend more than the allotted time at a single site.

Our current answer is what I have come to call “a la carte” travel. It’s our way of handling the challenges of traveling in retirement—on our own time, at our own speed—without giving up the freedom and autonomy that we always valued in earlier years.

Below are six guidelines that have made our travel a lot more fulfilling—and a lot less exhausting.

1. Travel offseason

Everyone knows that peak seasons aren’t ideal for traveling. But retirees have more of a commodity that working people lack—time for offseason trips. After all, you have flexibility for perhaps the first time in your life. Take advantage of it.

Our last three excursions to Europe have been during the relatively quiet winter months: In December 2022, we started in Bilbao, Spain, then moved on to Brussels and Amsterdam with side trips along the way. In early March 2023, we chose Geneva, Lyon and Avignon. In late February this year, we headed off to France and several places in England. We needed to pack an extra winter coat, but we avoided peak-time waiting lines and jammed restaurants—no point testing our patience and stamina, both more finite now than before I retired.

2. Choose ‘secondary destinations’

As retirees, we have found it easier to adopt a slower, more relaxed pace by focusing on destinations that aren’t always on the usual tourist grid.

That was the strategy on our trip this year when we flew from our home in Philadelphia to London, and then journeyed by train that same day to Bath, a city that one of our sons had highly recommended for its famous Roman Baths. From there, we branched out to the Cotswolds in southwest England, and Cardiff, the capital of Wales.

We returned to London for some theater but chose a hotel new to us in a part of London we have never stayed in and went to places we have never been to. These included a visit to Charles Dickens’s home and, on impulse, a Sunday afternoon choral concert at the main church in Trafalgar Square, St. Martin-in-the-Fields.

Moving on, we took the Eurostar (never done that) to Lille in northern France (never been there). One of the lesser known, less-crowded cities in France, Lille offers noteworthy architecture, museums and food that even at relatively inexpensive restaurants always served up at least one course I included in my travel journal.

3. Don’t be shy with strangers

One of the joys of traveling in retirement is unstructured time to enjoy casual, spontaneous conversations with people we happen to meet. Indeed, I find that impromptu connections with guides, drivers and even guards are often as memorable as the settings in which they occur.

For example, at near-empty Blenheim Palace in the Cotswolds, the avuncular guard in the bedroom where Winston Churchill was born answered our many questions, and then offered up a blow-by-blow account of how Winston’s mother went into labor six weeks early during a formal palace ball. She ended up on a bed in the coatroom to welcome her son into the world. True story? I’m not sure (there are differing accounts), but if we hadn’t engaged the guard with a series of questions, I doubt he would have offered that anecdote and others.

The guide on our trip to Wales, after an hour of back-and-forth chatter about our home countries, related stories about driving world-class actors Ian McKellen and Ralph Fiennes to and from theater engagements in the London/Stratford/Bath/Bristol areas. Fiennes, he said, would sometimes rehearse his accent in the back seat when he had to play an American character; Sir Ian preferred to sit silently in the front.

At the Jane Austen museum in Bath, after a tour by youthful, period-costumed guides who extolled Austen’s attachment to the city, an impromptu chat with the older, more knowledgeable gift-store manager suggested, among other pieces of interesting trivia, that, actually Austen never liked Bath much, preferring instead her home in the English countryside. (Again, there are differing accounts, but it didn’t matter. Our goal wasn’t to fact-check.)

4. Focus on just a few things

This might seem an obvious strategy for seasoned travelers, but it’s easy to slip, especially when enthusiasm for the day ahead is high after (in our case a substantial) breakfast. More can definitely be less when you’re traveling.

So we try to map out a plan of attack that is satisfying but not overly ambitious. Before we visited the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Lille, for instance, we identified five paintings we wanted to see, then made use of the benches strategically placed in front of or near them. We did the same for a visit to La Piscine in Roubaix, a remarkable design achievement for the architect who turned a former municipal swimming pool into an elegant modern art museum.

The building itself was reason enough for our outing, but we also sought out Degas’s famous sculpture of a 14-year-old dancer and nearby a carousel several feet high populated by delicately carved animals and people. I took pictures of both for my young granddaughter.

5. Stay at least three nights in each location

Packing and unpacking is a waste of energy. Cruises have the problem solved, but one way to approximate their advantage is to spend more nights in fewer places. By the second night, a hotel room or Airbnb is a moved-in place to rest. By the third night, it can become a familiar home-away-from-home.

6. Be prepared to improvise

When you travel in a la carte style, you are free to change the plans you made the day before for no particular reason. Maybe it’s the weather. Or perhaps you have a feeling that yesterday’s pace was too challenging or not challenging enough. Start the day whenever you want, and be open to impulsive detours to areas that aren’t on tourist bureau maps.

The common send-off for vacation trips is “Bon Voyage.” In the years since I retired, our trips have indeed been good voyages. In our experience, the a la carte approach beats the prix fixe one. We are free to make our own choices and find our own adventures as we look forward to where the next day will take us.

Robbie Shell is a writer in Philadelphia.