You may think it takes a lot of nerve for total strangers to advise you to pack your bags and go off and about. No, just lots of wonderful experiences and a touch of confidence. The source of that confidence is being prepared. For Deed and I travel has provided a lifetime of incredible experiences fostering growth as well as an enriched understanding of our cultural heritage as well as a view into other cultures. Travel is an opportunity to meet new people from a wide variety of backgrounds and to share ideas. It is our lifetime travel experiences that will help ease your path to the wonderful adventures that are just beyond the next village.
Let us help you to prepare for new travel experiences. Or you can go on a packaged tour. But being in charge is better and more fun. Why, I wonder, would you put some 22-year-old stranger in charge of where you go, what you experience, and how much you spend. That 22-year-old is going to have you booked on an overnight in Munich. That’s crazy. Then two nights in Vienna. Madness! Or perhaps you’re on a Rhine cruise that offers a whole day in Amsterdam. The same 22-year-old tour guide will gather you around for a lecture every 15 minutes on the half-day in Siena for a planned lecture that you can almost hear, about something that you almost saw. Then the guide will inform you that it is exactly 11:04 and you are scheduled for free time to explore Siena on your own but be back by 12:00 to have the coach driver hustle you and everyone to a fun filled lunch. More madness, but the extended Rhine cruise does offer an upgraded 260’ cabin, which is about the size of a large closet. You fart in a room that size and someone is going to get hurt. The total cost of the cruise for 2, in 2025 dollars, is about $34,000 --- if you’re lucky --- but at least you get an overnight in Munich.
We know there are group tours that will take you to Italy, Switzerland, Germany and France in 12 days and even offer, at extra cost, more packaged experiences but packaged tours deny experiences more than they provide experiences. Or on a land tour you and 25- 60 others will travel in a luxury coach with lots of room and added, at no extra cost, the harmonious sounds of sneezing and coughing over the music of ABBA. The coach is very comfortable so you can sit and wait for those stragglers who are always late or lost. At least you will have time to take more pictures from the coach window.
These are terrible tours, but you will be “decision free.” These packaged tours reserve the same hotels year after year, so they have pretty much ironed out the wrinkles, provide consistent meals, and organized activities that ensure that you are building memories. What town was that?
You will have packaged rooms, private coaches (buses), and a delightful guide. You will be expected to do nothing and in doing nothing you will learn nothing. Everything in the day, and all your experiences will be sterile and stale but presented as candy. You will never find that charming little café on the out-of-the-way side street or meet the little old Italian women in the back of the church. The Paris flea market (Les Puces de Saint-Ouen at Porte de Cliqnancourt) will remain a secret to you. As a matter of fact, to really experience the flea market requires a full day, or more, as you stroll along the narrow passageways exploring the treasures of other times.
On such a packaged tour you will see what others want you to see and do what others want you to do, and the flea market will never be on a packaged tour. The flea market, for the independent traveler, is much more than a flea market. It is a cultural banquet of visual treasures accompanied by the smells and tastes of what it means to be Parisian plus some delightful bargains. Packaged tours are stuffed with pretense. They pretend to show you Spain while you pretend to see Spain.
Not so fast. If they are as bad as I allege then why are they year after year so popular? Because they are well organized and will do exactly what they say they will do. As nearly as can be done they have taken the worry and stress from traveling into strange cultures off your shoulders.
Now back to the drawing board.
Take a walk and get some fresh air and come back and think about this packaged tour business.
Here is a major clue.
DO NOT PLAN TO SEE EVERYTHING BUT SEE WELL WHAT YOU SEE
That is T-shirt worthy. Deed came up with that one. It’s her motto. If you are still with us at this point, then we assume you are going independent. Good for you. We also assume you are 50 or older and ready for an adventure. Again, good for you.
There was a time when we thought one trip to Europe would pretty much do it for us and then we would go do something else --- but that was when we were working ourselves through our “dumb and dumber” period called youth. But we learned and so kept going back because we realized you can’t “do Austria” in 3 days --- or in 10 days or even Saltzburg in 10 days let alone Vienna. To go to Norway once is not to go.
Our Position
Deed is adamant that we take a firm and unambiguous position about the type of trip that we recommend to our readers --- and we do, in fact, recommend a type.
The essential characteristics of our trips are:
They are geared to an older traveler.
They are paced for a more leisurely independent exploration of a bite size area.
They are for longer stays in fewer places
They should match the needs and interests of the traveler.
They should not be reckless or overreaching.
The Aging Process:
First embrace the aging process. Don’t let friends tell you that the new 70 is the old 50. If you are 70 you are not 50 you are 70. Don’t run from reality. Basketball is not in your future or if it is and you’re playing B-ball with a bunch of bent-over seniors and --- that ain’t basketball. There are limits to what you now can do, but there are great benefits to aging.
For example, you now own time which in itself is almost intoxicating and worth growing old. You can say “NO!” You don’t have to worry about networking. You don’t have to make new friends. Your socks can match but they don’t have to. But age is a sliding scale --- you know where you are on that scale and plan accordingly. I was like a goat in the Swiss Alps when I was 55; now at 88 I walk the Swiss valleys and look up at the mountain tops. We still bike but now they are E-bikes. We walk every day but not as far. I hear but not as well as one might wish. I see but my lenses are now thicker. I know where every toilet is within 10 miles. And I frequently make sounds standing up, sitting down, and bending left or right. But I’m not on the couch watching Good Morning America.
Now for health. Just like age is a sliding scale so is health. What do you want to do? What can you physically and mentally do? The condition of my health is the first question that I have to be certain about before Deed and I can commit to our next adventure.
Deed’s motto in life is one of hope and trickery. Deed says, “Age is a matter of mind, if you don’t mind it doesn’t matter.” And another motto that she hammers me with some frequency is, “You don’t stop playing because you’re becoming old, you’re old because you stop playing.”
Can you see why I married her?
We now build into our travel low-keyed days. Now Deed can still go all day like her ass is on fire, but I must have a “time-out”, and what I mean by that is that there still will be wonderful things to do or experience but I need to operate at a slower, less stressful pace. That slower pace has to be built into our itinerary. Please, read that last sentence again.
Consult with your doctor but even more importantly consult with your common sense. You do not want to go to the local hospital in Sicily. Please, don’t make me repeat that last sentence.
We transitioned out of the classroom 28 years ago and have had ample time to put those years into perspective. They have been the best years of our lives. We hope they can be yours.
The trip you are building may go a long way in shaping your future.
Take adventures but avoid risks.
Plan well, travel well, and savor the experience.
We’re Glad You’re Here
Be an independent traveler.
Not only can you travel independently, but you should. Independent travel is synonymous with the joy of personal growth and offers the opportunity for superior travel experiences. As St. Augustine said centuries ago, “The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.” Travel, both the planning and the doing keeps both body and mind engaged in growth activities. For my wife Deed and I, although now “long-in-the-tooth,” planning and doing are vital to our good health, and my incredible attitude.
The other side of the coin is stagnation, and stagnation is one of the dead ends of life. Don’t let boring friends convince you that you are too old to plan new adventures. They may be too old, but you need not be. But be careful, stagnation is contagious, and naysayers are everywhere --- most often found in fluffy leather chairs.
Our definition of “independent” is that you are not part of an organized tour, and you are travelling with no more than three others friends/family. Independent travel is an open door to new adventures designed by you and for you.
Our assumption is that you are between 50 and 90+. We also assume you are in reasonably good health, ready for an adventure, and interested in traveling to western Europe including the United Kingdom and Ireland. We will have other sites with independent travel guides for North America.
I suggested to Deed that we call our blog “Old Poops on the Move”, but she quickly tossed her veto on the table. She said my idea might be misconstrued by the viewing public as a solution for a preconditioned medical problem, commonly known as the “trots”. So, we ended up with “INDEPENDENT TRAVEL FOR SENIORS”.
As our posts unfold you will notice that Deed tosses her veto on the table with some frequency. I hope that it is not read as a criticism on my part but simply as an observation.