This week I wanted to spark a bit of wanderlust and inspiration into taking the plunge and solo-traveling when you retire.
The typical retirement image often shows couples, or families, enjoying vacations and trips in retirement. But, it might be that you’re approaching retirement and wishing you could travel, but perhaps not having anyone who is available or interested in sharing this adventure with you. Well, why shouldn’t you go out seeking that adventure on your own?
“Charlotte Simpson had been traveling for decades before she took her first solo trip. She had visited all 50 states with her late husband throughout their 31-year marriage, traveled internationally with her daughter, and had adventures with girlfriends. But when no one wanted to go on a trip to Italy with her a few years after her husband died, she set out on her own—kicking off a new love for solo travel and the freedom that comes with it. “It was so liberating,” she says.”
Falling in Love with Solo Travel After Retirement: Women Who Travel Podcast
Although at the retirement stage of life, people may not have a partner to share a trip with, in many cases, retirees simply prefer to go it alone! Exploring the world alone encourages you to meet new people, confront new experiences, and make dynamic decisions. It provides you with challenges as well as incredible experiences along the way.
Traveling with a companion quite often means you end up compromising on your itinerary or other aspects of your trip. When you travel alone, you are completely in charge of your own plan, and quite often you’ll find that you end up doing things you wouldn’t have done if you were with another person.
Trying something new, such as taking a trip on your own, can feel really intimidating if you’ve never done it before. But when it comes to travel, you won’t be alone, you’ll find that you meet many people of all ages traveling solo for the first time in their lives.
“Sometimes as you’re getting older, you might start feeling less capable. You go out there and you navigate the world by yourself? Yeah, you come back feeling pretty darn strong.”
Janice Waugh: Senior Solo Travel Expert at Solo Traveler World
A great way to find out if solo-traveling is for you is to start small. Take a weekend trip away somewhere not too far away by yourself and see how you find it. If that works out, build it up from there.
Take the plunge and you’ll find that traveling solo can be an entirely freeing experience during retirement. It will allow you to open your mind, take your time, see things from a new perspective, and really connect with who you are.
How to go traveling alone? Here are some good places to start:
Start Planning Your Trip
A great place to start is to look into online communities and chat with other solo-travelers. Do some research on where you’d like to go, the logistics of traveling there, and any advice from other solo travelers who’ve been there.
Book Your Flight
Use tools like Expedia or Skyscanner to look up the best flight prices
Find Somewhere to Stay
Decide if you want to stay in a hotel or an apartment. Sites like Air BNB and VRBO are great for self-catering apartments and houses. Or sites like Hotels.com and Expedia are really easy to search for hotels on.
Insure Your Trip
Travel insurance is more important than ever. Compare plans and policies for the best coverage for your trip using an online comparison site.
Looking for a Tour?
There are some great tours designed specifically for solo-travelers or travelers over 50, do some online research into operators and offerings.
I’d love to hear where you’re planning on going traveling, or how you went about planning your trip. Drop me a line at tammy@tammyvigue.com to share your solo-traveling in retirement story.