The Early Retiree Travel Thread

k6chris

So, if you want to explore Europe, what is the most enviromentally sympathetic way of doing it??

Spreadsheetman

Marine_life wrote: »

...
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?

I’ve long been inspired by this couple (https://wherewebe.com/). and I hope to be able to match at least some of their relentless enthusiasm.

I'm not that keen on travel generally and don't intend going beyond the UK and Europe apart from a couple of bucket-list trips to the USA and New Zealand (maybe Japan?). The developing world doesn't interest me at all - beside which I hate being seen simply as a mark to be fleeced by the locals.

No real idea of budget yet, but I will be spending more on travel in the future than I have for a while as I haven't been outside the UK since I got serious about saving for retirement. Trips will be longer with more time spent in each location and a definitely leisurely pace.

Current plan is to go via Eurostar + train whenever possible as I hate everything about flying, it's just a miserable experience. I've done enough on business to last a lifetime.

[Deleted User]

Anywhere that has an IHG hotel - I have millions of points to spend, from decades of living in them (on expenses) during the week

nigelbb

k6chris wrote: »

So, if you want to explore Europe, what is the most enviromentally sympathetic way of doing it??

On foot or bicycle.

Liffy99

Ok, since retiring at 60 it's been a slow start to adventure due to a couple of health issues, but now feel we have finally got going with retirement leisure. Neither of us have to work again - we are not 'wealthy', but lead affordable lifestyles and are protected by a mix of modest index-linked and non-indexed pensions and investments.
So, on to the questions first;


1. How much is your retirement travel budget, split between:
a. Domestic vacations £500 - £1500
b. Long-haul / international vacation £1500 - £2500
2. Do you anticipate spending more in retirement that before you retired?
More trips but less cost - see below.
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?) No, but we will try to reduce flights from next year (not that we used to take that many).
4. Where are you going and why? Europe and the UK this year. We would love to go further afield (U.S., Canada, Vietnam ?) next year but do have concerns about environmental damage with flying.


A huge liberator for us this year though has been joining Trusted House Sitters - a home and pet sitting service. In short this means we get free accommodation in exchange for looking after someone's home and animals (anything from a goldfish to a small farm !). Sure we have to pay for travel and food but as we like walking anyway (handy when dog-sitting) it's halved the cost of breaks for us. This year we will have undertaken 3 sits in the UK and others in Greece, Italy and France. Well worth a look and if you use the link below you get 25% off the normal registration fee of £89.


https://www.trustedhousesitters.com/refer/RAF239359/


Other than that I really want to build back up to some cycle touring - we managed Somerset to North Yorks over a week last autumn but have really enjoyed several weeks crossing France, Ireland, Holland, the Hebrides and more in the past. It's a great way to travel - not too slow to slow to feel you are not seeing much, not too fast to be able to stop and take in the sights. We don't camp though - lightweight B&B baggage rules !

arnoldy

As well as some queasiness about the environmental impact of long (especially) haul travel I think the ‘homogenization’ of the world has reduced the allure of overseas travel. Yes you fly half way across the world and there are the golden arches or KFC. The hotels have internet and home is 2 seconds away by text or e mail, making the whole experience feel safe and bland. The TVs are all showing the much the same as at home. And your fellow travelers are UK/Europe/Australians etc.
I suppose some parts are off the beaten track – relative to 40 years ago most parts are not far off the well-trodden path though.
In the 1970s inter-railing around Europe for example, your parents often didn’t know where you were, phone calls home were prohibitive and often impossible, any big issue you had to sort it yourself. Roll 2019 and the ‘adventure’ to Vietnam is a text away to Mummy if there is a problem and 4G connects to internet so everything is available – for example transport schedules.
Just for interest my favorite places are Italy, Greece and I would probably have tissue rejection on Dubai or Florida (but not other parts of USA)

jimi_man

1. How much is your retirement travel budget, split between:
a. Domestic vacations

We enjoy walking, so plan to do a fair amount of walking within the UK. Some of that may involve staying away – we’d like to walk the South Coast footpath (in sections) which takes a while and would involve staying away

b. Long-haul / international vacation

We have a boat in the Med so do around six weeks sailing during the summer, and would like this to continue – maybe doing a bit more on top of that. We also like long haul travel and enjoy the Far East in particular as well as other places, so would plan a LH trip once a year – usually around January time. I also go skiing once or twice a year.

2. Do you anticipate spending more in retirement that before you retired?

Hmmm, I’m not sure. We do all of those things now, apart from the walking so I suppose, yes we will be spending a bit more. With time less of a factor then maybe we can search out cheaper deals so the increased time away might be offset by reduced costs.

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?)

We have access to business/First travel at the moment and it’s very nice. However when you have to pay for it yourself, I really don’t think it’s worth the cost. Most places can be got to with a direct flight which actually, is over pretty quickly and for the extra £500+ (at least) that each flight costs, I’d rather put that to a nicer hotel, better food etc. I know you can use Airmiles, but they have a cost too and it’s still expensive. However spending longer away is an attractive prospect. Though spending longer in the same place isn’t. We find that moving around to a few different places really gives the feeling of a long holiday.

4. Where are you going and why?

Been lucky enough to do a lot of LH travel over the years, but as above, still enjoy the far east so will definitely go back there. We’d like to do a safari, see a little bit more of South America. I like diving, so there are some central American places to tick off too.

MallyGirl

1. How much is your retirement travel budget, split between:
a. Domestic vacations
We have just had our van converted to a camper so I hope to see a lot more of the UK and Eire. It is set up to take the dogs too. Once DD has finished school in a year's time I expect a lot of weekends away long before we retire (which is looking like 6 years time)
b. Long-haul / international vacation
This is going to form a big part of the last few years of work and early retirement once we are empty nesters. We did a 'trip of a lifetime' to Vancouver Island to see bears last year but we have already decided we want to go back and do it again slightly later in the year when the salmon are running. We want to go back to New Zealand, find the Northern Lights, see Polar bears, go to Costa Rica, go to Nepal, do another safari, see Iceland, travel Europe (in the van maybe)
2. Do you anticipate spending more in retirement that before you retired?
On travel - yes as we won't be time constrained.
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?)
We have already decided to never do LH flights in economy again. Holidays will be longer and slower paced - because we can.
4. Where are you going and why?
a wide variety of places both home and abroad, mostly wildlife based, because it gives us pleasure.

Avgeek

As my name on here suggests I am an aviation geek. I used to work for an airline, my current work is very near an airport, I live within view of an airport etc, so travel is going to be very important to me. It's not something I've chosen to like but was born that way. Currently I have perhaps 4-5 domestic trips per year - mainly theatre trips to London, Edinburgh etc - and the same amount of long-haul trips. I am also a cruiser - I find it the most relaxing way to have a holiday and get a snapshot of places I wouldn't normally visit. I TRY to travel business class as much as I can and I know quite a few tips to get cheap flights in that cabin. Apart from the comfort that comes with that, the Avios collected on these trips gets me discounts on future flights so it balances out the extra cost quite nicely.
I'm hoping to continue doing this as long as I can when I retire in hopefully two years. I also hope that I won't really spend much more on travel because I already am good at finding bargain flights/cruises/hotels etc. - in fact my friends and family rely on me doing the research for them too.
This is my plan, but I have a couple of health issues which will possibly get in the way eventually.

zagfles

hugheskevi wrote: »

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

Indeed, and that reminds me - the other thing is how much do you consume, and how far has it travelled.

I wonder how many of the "I don't travel" brigade have a house full of appliances, furniture and products made in places like China, Taiwan etc, drink wine made in Chile or Australia, eat bananas imported from South America, clothes made in some third world sweatshop etc etc.

Also stuff like this sad "fast fashion" trend where some people won't be seen in the same outfit twice, so they buy clothes they only intend wearing once! Or those who'll insist on a new outfit if they're going to a wedding etc, even though they have a wardrobe full of perfectly good outfits. TV sets a bad example here, some presenters (particularly women) you never see in the same outfit twice.

Or couples who have a car each, yet rarely go out separately apart from to work, which they could easily get public transport if they could simply be ar**ed getting up 20 minutes earlier. We have a neighbour with a grown up family, 5 adults in the house, and 5 cars either in the drive or the road most of the time. I have never seen less than 2 cars sat there, so !!!!!! do they need a car each?

Sorry I appear to have entered rant mode, I'll stop now!