travel
Repost from October 28, 2020
When you look down the road at your life, do you see yourself coasting into the finish line? Or, do you see yourself riding on a stagecoach with arms and legs flailing around your head, hat flying off and wind whipping your hair around your face? And, which vision do you like? Do you see living the rest of your life on a cushion or do you look at your life as an adventure?
If, when you think of the future, you see a life in which you put the brakes on way too soon, don’t worry. You still have time to re-invigorate your life and make it an adventure rather than a snooze fest. All it takes is the desire to turn things around. That’s it. You can start today!
Think Big or Small, It Doesn’t Matter
If you want some adventure in your life, it doesn’t have to be an African Safari. It can be anything that challenges you: whether it is a bike tour through your town or learning Salsa. You can decide to learn to use a chainsaw if that is adventurous to you. The adventure isn’t important, it is the rush that it gives you that makes the difference. It is the confidence that you feel when you reach and achieve.
Single Travel
Traveling alone sounds horrific to many women I know, but there are so many options that I promise that you will find one that works for you, if that’s what you’re looking for. Whether it is in a group or you are ready to go it alone, there are many travel agencies that specialize in both single travel and senior travel, so you are covered. There are tons of volunteer opportunities that take you around the world, if that is part of your mission, to help others. Solo travel may sound daunting, but it can be rewarding and you may meet some new friends along the way.
Learning Can Be an Adventure
Adventure can be many things to many people. It doesn’t have to mean off-roading to your yurt on a cliff side. Or riding an ostrich. Adventure might be taking a cooking class in a foreign country. I think that is adventurous. Riding in a hot air balloon is adventurous to me. Riding a bike in New York seems like a pretty big adventure in my mind. Your adventure is your adventure.
The moral of this story is this: if you are over 50 and single and looking ahead to book clubs and Pilates as the highlights of your lives, you have a long road ahead. Do not give up this early in the game. Refuse to make yourself uninteresting and do not be uninterested because if you aren’t interested in life now when can you be?
This is not a dress rehearsal. Live your life with adventure in mind.
Read MoreIf you follow Starting Over at Sixty you know that I talk a lot about travel and the confidence it takes to be able to do it alone. Well, I have been traveling for the better part of six weeks, some alone and some not, and I can tell you one thing’s for sure: there’s no place like home! I thought I would be sad as I got on the plane in San Diego to head home, but I was excited. As much as I loved every minute of my adventure, I was ready to come home. I’m not sure about the take away from that but I have some ideas.
First, as much as I loved not getting up with an alarm clock and not having to dash here and there, the time has come for me to get back into my routine. I need to not read or watch Netflix until 1:30 a.m. and it’s time to get my bottom out of bed before 8:30. That all felt great but a little lazy after a while. It is time to get back to working out more often rather than saying I am going for a run, which is really going for a walk which is honestly me walking somewhere for lunch. Hardly broke a sweat!
It’s also time to STOP EATING AND DRINKING five times a day, seven days a week. It got bad, I’m not going to lie. We started picking up dessert after breakfast every day! Bad, bad, bad.
Also, my readiness to return has to do with my attitude. I used to hate coming home from vacation, what I call re-entry. It made me grouchy and I think that had to do with going back to my anything-but-happy marriage routine: I hated to get back to that normal. Now, I have so much to look forward to and such a warm environment where I live, I think I actually missed my place, all one room of it. It is cozy and happy and safe and not filled with loneliness.
So, I really do mean, there’s no place like home. Now, it’s time to get back to the routine that I love.
Read MoreI know as a single woman in her later years, it might be scary to think about travel alone. I get it. I wasn’t sure I could even do it, but I can and I do. As a matter of fact, I have been able to gain confidence through travel on my own.
When it comes to vacations, my former husband and I had such different ideas that I now realize that I have been traveling by alone all my adult life. There is hardly any difference, except that there is not another body at the dinner table. But if I am honest with myself, that was all my husband was when we went on trips, another body. He was always very busy checking scores: it seemed to be a full-time job. His other activities were finding a sporting event in the area to attend, finding a local golf course and finding a sports bar to watch sports-anything. So, to say that traveling by myself is new isn’t quite accurate: I have always made my own plans for travel.
Gain Confidence
So, if you want to travel as a single woman but feel unsure about it, start small. My adult children live in great cities around the country, so if I am visiting them for a weekend, I usually add a day or two on the beginning or end of the trip to scout out shops, restaurants and culture (OK, no culture). That is the perfect way to to make arrangements for travel with the safety net being your children or other family members.
I have also found that registering for an event or conference that sounds interesting to you is a great way to travel alone. You meet people there to maybe have dinner with or at least sit next to for the day. I am a knitter, so once a year I go to Vogue Knitting Live in New York. I take classes during the day for a couple of days, see a play, try a new restaurant and do a little shopping on the extra day that I add in.
All these baby steps will give you the confidence to do more. And, confidence is sexy.
Some Trips are Better Than Others
So, those are easy, right? Not all travel is that easy alone. I had to spend about a week in Florida by myself last year and you might think that would be heavenly. It was not. I sat by myself on the beach all day watching lots of families having a great time. I rode a bike during the day by myself. I then would force myself to go to one of the local restaurants and get something to eat at the bar, hoping to have someone to talk to during dinner. I did not. Then I would go back to my sad little room and do the same thing the next day. The lesson learned? I don’t need solitude. I am single and I have solitude out the wazoo! I need a little interaction. Now, if I want to take a trip somewhere and don’t have a companion or plan, I look for classes in the area. Cooking classes are number one on my list because you interact with the natives. They can give you ideas as to what to do and what to see in the area. It can be anything, just use it as a way to talk and interact with locals. You have to give yourself a little push now and then when you are on your own but it is worth it.
So, now my story about confidence and learning about myself through travel. Yesterday I decided to go horseback riding, which is something I do not do. I wanted to expand my horizons, and I did. I learned that I will have much more confidence if I ever do that again because I will wear a Depends!
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I love my children and when I think of all the trips we have taken over the years I have so many wonderful memories. I will always treasure those times, but I know I have forgotten how much work it was to get everything and everyone lined up, to get everyone packed, to find activities that all three children would like, and the list goes on. Maybe some memories are better forgotten!
Being newly single and in my sixties, I was apprehensive about what travel would look like for me moving forward. Let me just say, and pay attention here, IT IS GREAT! I can’t stop making plans for travel now; I enjoy it so much. When I traveled with my husband the room was a mess, he had to have the side closest to the bathroom and a game was on the TV before I could even take my shoes off. He packed more clothes than I did and you can guess who was in the middle seat on the plane. All very trivial, of course, and nothing to fight over.
But, now that I am often traveling alone, my room is so peaceful and lovely and not messy. I might not even turn on the TV. That’s right! What a rebel. Of course, I’m joking, and I would much rather be in a happy marriage and taking trips with my husband than have a clean hotel room. This is me looking on the bright side.
A bi-product of my new, single status has been that my adult children have somehow made more time to travel with me. I have no doubt that they don’t like to see me traveling alone all the time and I could just kiss them all over for that.
And, somehow I have passed the planning baton off to them and they have picked it up without missing a beat. They are all excellent at finding activities, restaurants, things of interest, transportation. I get to just go along for the ride and I always pay so they will keep coming back for more! I just returned from an extended trip with my daughter, and I loved every minute of it. She made all the plans, and I was her happy passenger. She looked at the map, and I followed her lead. It’s was the best.
Because my adult children live in Boston, Chicago and Los Angeles, getting everyone together at one time is nearly impossible, but when we do travel together, I get to experience them as they are as adults, together. I am intrigued by their interactions with each other, and with me, as they are now, rather than as they were when they lived at home. Taking trips together creates a level playing field where their old roles vanish and we all get to know each other in a different way. I can’t say enough good things about it.
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