Six Rules for Traveling in Retirement

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

We initially tried an Alaskan cruise. There’s a lot to be said for the cruising lifestyle, but we realized almost immediately that it wasn’t what we wanted from a vacation. We felt constrained by a set itinerary and annoyed by the reservation system for everything that didn’t encourage spontaneity on any given day or night. Many hours were spent staring at the water and distant landscapes. The discovery that I can get seasick on a mostly calm ocean didn’t help.

We had the same reaction to group tours. While many people are happy to delegate the logistics to professionals, we found this approach frustrating. We couldn’t simply interrupt our own itinerary in the middle of the day to sit and people-watch in a café or spend more than the allotted time in a single location.

Our current response is what I call “a la carte” travel. It’s our way of dealing with the challenges of traveling in retirement — on our own time, at our own pace — without giving up the freedom and autonomy we always valued in our early years.

Below are six guidelines that made our trip much more rewarding — and much less exhausting.

1. Travel off-season

Everyone knows that peak travel seasons are not ideal. But retirees have one more convenience that workers don’t: time for off-season travel. After all, you have flexibility, perhaps for the first time in your life. Take advantage of it.

Our last three European excursions have all been during the relatively quiet winter months: in December 2022, we started in Bilbao, Spain, then headed 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 went to France and several places in England. We needed to pack an extra winter coat, but we avoided queues at peak times and crowded restaurants—no point in testing our patience and endurance, both of which are more finite now than they were before I retired.

2. Choose ‘secondary destinations’

As retirees, we find it easier to adopt a slower, more relaxed pace, 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 traveled by train that same day to Bath, a city one of our sons 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 to see some theatre, but chose a new hotel for us in a part of London we had never stayed in before and went to places we had never been before. This included a visit to Charles Dickens’ house and, on a whim, a Sunday afternoon choral concert at the main church in Trafalgar Square, St. Martin-in-the-Fields.

Moving on, we took the Eurostar (I’ve never done this) to Lille in northern France (I’ve never been there). One of the lesser-known and less crowded cities in France, Lille offers remarkable architecture, museums and food that, even in relatively cheap restaurants, always served at least one dish that I included in my travel diary.

3. Don’t be shy around strangers

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

For example, at the nearly empty Blenheim Palace in the Cotswolds, the avuncular guard in the room where Winston Churchill was born answered our many questions and then offered a detailed account of how Winston’s mother had gone into labor six weeks early during a formal palace ball. She ended up on a bed in the dressing room to welcome her son into the world. True story? I’m not sure (accounts differ), but if we hadn’t engaged the guard with a series of questions, I doubt he would have told this anecdote and others.

The guide on our Wales trip, after an hour of chatting about our home countries, related stories about driving world-class actors Ian McKellen and Ralph Fiennes to and from theatre 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 quietly up front.

At the Jane Austen Museum in Bath, after a tour with young guides in period costume who extolled Austen’s attachment to the city, an impromptu conversation with the older, more experienced manager of the gift shop suggested, among other interesting tidbits, that Austen never really liked Bath much, preferring instead her home in the English countryside. (Again, there are differing accounts, but that’s not important. Our goal was not to check the facts.)

4. Focus on just a few things

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

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

The building itself was reason enough for our visit, but we also looked for Degas’ famous sculpture of a 14-year-old dancer and, nearby, a carousel several meters high, populated by delicately carved animals and people. I took photos of both for my granddaughter.

5. Stay at least three nights in each location

Packing and unpacking is a waste of energy. Cruises have solved that problem, but one way to maximize your advantage is to spend more nights in fewer places. On the second night, a hotel room or Airbnb is a place to rest. On the third night, it can become a family home away from home.

6. Be prepared to improvise

When you travel a la carte, you’re free to change the plans you made the day before for no particular reason. Maybe it’s the weather. Or maybe you feel like yesterday’s pace was too challenging or not challenging enough. Start your day when you want and be open to impulsive detours to areas that aren’t on the tourist bureau’s maps.

The common farewell to vacation travel is “Bon Voyage.” In the years since I retired, our trips have been truly good trips. In our experience, the à la carte approach trumps the fixed-price approach. We are free to make our own choices and find our own adventures while looking ahead to where the next day will take us.

Robbie Shell is a writer in Philadelphia.