The Early Retiree Travel Thread

OldMusicGuy

Marine_life wrote: »

When it comes to early-retirement, one of the biggest motivations for the early retiree is to spend more time travelling and visiting all of the places they haven’t had the chance to see during (or to see properly) during their working lives.

Oh no it isn't! I can't think of anything worse. Part of the issue is that far too much of my working life was spent travelling and I hate everything about it. Airports, delays, cancellations, jet lag, other people and so much more.

When we took holidays abroad I needed to be working because we didn't do it on the cheap. But the fact we did take some foreign holidays coupled with all the places I visited when working means there isn't anywhere I want to go. We also lived abroad for 2 years, which made us realise how much we love the UK.

So our travel budget is 0. We will do some gentle touring in the UK and maybe one more European trip, but that will be funded from surplus funds in any year where we do not spend our "number".

Retirement for us will be about relaxing, spending time in our local community and enjoying the pleasures we will have on our doorstep. I hope to never set foot on an aeroplane again.

melanzana

Have you actually early retired yourself yet Marine Life?

Travelling for me is Europe now, just to mention anyway. I ignored it for ages in favour of long haul when younger. But no more. Europe East, West, North and South has so many undiscovered places, it is amazing. And saving the planet too I am!

I have a great budget and can go anywhere I wish, hard work, good planning and all that. But I have taken the plunge and actually retired early. Was an easy decision for me. I am lucky don't get me wrong.

zagfles

JoeEngland wrote: »

TBH I don't think it's about richer people ignoring realities, almost everybody ignores them.

Indeed - if you ask inhabitants of poor countries if they want rich Western tourists flying to their country and spending money there, what do you think their answer is? Even those countries which would be most affected by rising sea levels.

squirrelpie

TBH I don't think it's about richer people ignoring realities, almost everybody ignores them. A poor person who gets out of poverty and eventually has the money to travel would probably fly if they can. It's about human nature and I see little evidence of the world population wanting to give up aspiration and luxuries. So I'm somewhat pessimistic about what is achievable in the fight against climate change, and don't see the point in me not flying if most other people carry on doing it.

I agree that it's not just rich people that ignore realities, but I say again that that's still no reason to ignore them yourself.
As well as 'fixing' climate change, it's very likely a necessary precursor step is educating everybody, everywhere about the consequences. Which is why I suggested donating money to that end, as you're apparently unwilling to try to do it yourself. Read the Planet B book.

What you seem to be saying is that you believe the people of the world are going to destroy it, so you may as well enjoy yourself while they do. Great plan. Sounds like Nero with his fiddle, the French princess with her cake, and the bands on the Titanic.

zagfles

squirrelpie wrote: »

I agree that it's not just rich people that ignore realities, but I say again that that's still no reason to ignore them yourself.
As well as 'fixing' climate change, it's very likely a necessary precursor step is educating everybody, everywhere about the consequences. Which is why I suggested donating money to that end, as you're apparently unwilling to try to do it yourself. Read the Planet B book.

What you seem to be saying is that you believe the people of the world are going to destroy it, so you may as well enjoy yourself while they do. Great plan. Sounds like Nero with his fiddle, the French princess with her cake, and the bands on the Titanic.

I hope you're as sanctimonious with dog owners, people who have lots of kids, people who drive to work instead of getting public transport, people who choose to live a long way from work, people who eat meat, people who live alone in a big house and the hundreds of other environmentally unfriendly habits the world's population has got into. Some of which are far worse than taking a few flights a year.

JoeEngland

squirrelpie wrote: »

I agree that it's not just rich people that ignore realities, but I say again that that's still no reason to ignore them yourself.
As well as 'fixing' climate change, it's very likely a necessary precursor step is educating everybody, everywhere about the consequences. Which is why I suggested donating money to that end, as you're apparently unwilling to try to do it yourself. Read the Planet B book.

What you seem to be saying is that you believe the people of the world are going to destroy it, so you may as well enjoy yourself while they do. Great plan. Sounds like Nero with his fiddle, the French princess with her cake, and the bands on the Titanic.

It's more the case that me deciding not to fly again isn't going to make any difference, that'd be like me trying to bail water out of a sinking ship with a thimble. If climate change is going to be tackled then it may need everybody to make similar sacrifices, and that seems unlikely in the near term. In a sense I don't have skin in the long term game since we have no kids, so people with kids are the ones who should be the most exercised about climate change.

I agree that education is helpful, but that may not be sufficient to change behaviour significantly. Humans are quite myopic in some ways, especially to a threat like global warming which is quite nebulous to every day life.

hugheskevi

I hope you're as sanctimonious with dog owners, people who have lots of kids, people who drive to work instead of getting public transport, people who choose to live a long way from work, people who eat meat, people who live alone in a big house and the hundreds of other environmentally unfriendly habits the world's population has got into.

That is a decent list of things individuals could do to help.

In my case, I walk a dog of a friend each weekend which I initially found through the website borrow-my-doggy rather than having my own dog, made the decision not to have children, cycle to work each day, live 7 miles from work (working in central London makes living very close-by infeasible but cycling and running to work means distance is not very important from an environmental perspective), follow a vegan diet and live in the same semi-detached house I've lived in for the last 10 years with my wife.

On the other hand, having 2 unused spare bedrooms in a house near London is a luxury and an environmental cost, as is having a car we don't use much. I plan to live in a large very rural house in retirement and will have a number of pets, and although I don't fly much (typically a few flights a year) that is still plenty of environmental damage. My planned 3 years of travel will be quite detrimental to environment, as despite having a low impact per week of travel compared to 'normal' holidays the length of it and the amount of overland travel is still damaging.

It really doesn't take much effort to be better (if not perfect), but most people are simply selfish when it comes down to actually doing anything that affects their own lifestyle and prefer to talk about what should be done than taking any action themselves, even if the impact on their lifestyle would be minimal. Personally I pursue what is most impact to me (despite the impact), but mitigate what I can through lifestyle choices.

Interestingly, research has shown that those who identify with being environmentally aware actually do the most harm, simply because being environmentally aware is correlated with income, and those with income tend to spend the most (ie use most resources). This is typically illustrated by a middle-class household that diligently recycles all their waste, and then has a long-haul holiday every year.

On a more positive note, early retirement is probably very good for the environment, as less goods get produced as less work is done, and hence less gets consumed

DairyQueen

OldMusicGuy wrote: »

Oh no it isn't! I can't think of anything worse. Part of the issue is that far too much of my working life was spent travelling and I hate everything about it. Airports, delays, cancellations, jet lag, other people and so much more.

+1

Same thing as you. Loads of overseas work (and leisure) travel during a 30-year career have left me jaded and pretty much travelled-out. I have also lived abroad and OH did the back-packing thing as a kid.

Over the last couple of years the thought of flying makes my blood run cold. Ditto the travel planning and prep. I appear to have morphed into a grumpy old git.

So, to answer ML's Qs:

1. How much is your retirement travel budget, split between:
a. Domestic vacations. Not yet decided but likely will take the lion's share of the budget.
b. Long-haul / international vacation. Zero long-haul once the few bucket list items have been crossed off.

2. Do you anticipate spending more in retirement that before you retired? We will have more disposable income in retirement but unlikely to allocate much to overseas travel after the first couple of years. A month's staycation isn't exactly cheap so the holiday budget will definitely increase

3. Will you make significant changes to the way you travel (e.g. perhaps upgrading to premium or business, or maybe spending longer on each vacation?). Definitely business class for any unavoidable flights but duration of hols (much longer) will be a priority. I also have a ken for rail travel and anything involving boats/sailing. In fact, any mode of travel that's relaxing and slow. Oh, and no hotels.

4. Where are you going and why? - There are still a few, very specific, overseas things on the bucket list: Amtrak across the Rockies (if I can bear to take my 30-something flight stateside), Auschwitz, war cemeteries, barge through southern France.

I really want to explore the canals and rivers of our wonderful country at a very leisurely pace. I am ashamed to say that I haven't been north of Oxford for about 8 years so a month by a Scottish Loch, or in Yorkshire, or Northumberland, or Wales, would be my idea of holiday bliss.

Workerbee999

Travel is my/our biggest motivation of what to retire “to”. While working we have been ticking off some of the long haul destinations on our bucket list and will have more of these particularly the early years and when we can chose how long to go for and when, outside of school and work commitments. Probably taking advantage of last minute offers.

But the main thing we are looking forward to is long term sailing - down to the Med and then wherever the wind power takes us for as long as we feel like (instead of the short weekends we currently get).

And when we fancy being on land again then 6 months round Australia and New Zealand in a motor home sounds great and a long road trip across Canada and the US.

Cost wise is hard to guess. Sailing can be free / no more than normal day to day living costs (as we already have the boat), but we want enough money to really experience all the places we go. I’m planning for 10-15k pa for this on top of normal costs.

crv1963

Marine_life wrote: »

When it comes to early-retirement, one of the biggest motivations for the early retiree is to spend more time travelling and visiting all of the places they haven’t had the chance to see during (or to see properly) during their working lives.

I thought it would be interesting to start a thread to try and put some numbers on travel budgets but also to capture the why’s and the what’s.

So here goes…

1. How much is your retirement travel budget, split between:
a. Domestic vacations
b. Long-haul / international vacation
2. Do you anticipate spending more in retirement that before you retired?
3. Will you make significant changes to the way you travel (e.g. perhaps upgrading to premium or business, or maybe spending longer on each vacation?)
4. Where are you going and why?

Interesting idea for a thread. Travel is very much on our agenda so the need to work a little longer currently to make this possible is the order of the day for us.

1a) Definitely more of these, possibly by getting a motorhome or by hiring a cottage for a month at a time a couple of times per year as opposed to the current week at a time every now and then. Dog ownership makes this the first go to choice for us.

1b) Plan is at least one short haul holiday per year, but also would like at least one long haul holiday of around a month at a time we have so much we want to see. Ideally we want to take a "gap year" early in our retirement to see as much as we can- depends on the dogs! Maybe motorhome across Europe and Russia.

If we have the dogs for a very long time then I expect we'll try to split the travel and go individually with one of the children either sons or nieces/ nephews- dogs being looked after by someone else is not an option, and reading about carbon footprints then I imagine ours is large- diabetic dog- but we still wouldn't part with them.

2) Absolutely we will spend more, especially in early retirement, then less so as we age- depending on health and aging. If we have the health then we'll try to do the travel. In fact the desire for travel/ hobbies is the reason we're still working now, we could retire and cover basic needs now.

3) Yes, longer time away, more leisurely modes of transport after the initial flights to the destination country/ region. Plan is for maybe six months in SE Asia, same travelling across India. Then there's Canada, USA and South America to see.

4) Motivation- to see parts of the world that we haven't.