The Early Retiree Travel Thread

ratechaser

So leaving aside the environmental discussion ...yes, travel will undoubtedly be one of the major motivators for me & Mrs RC in 10 or so years time (assuming I don't chuck it all in earlier).

Hard to put a domestic/international split view, but I still have in mind buying a place in the West Country, and also somewhere like Portugal. So they will be good baseline travel destinations. I could easily see the 2 of us spending another £20-25k a year on other destinations. As I've mentioned elsewhere, I will NOT be doing long haul economy (or even premium economy if at all possible!), and I definitely want to go off the beaten track - Alaska, interesting parts of South America, some parts of Asia, Svalbard, maybe bits of Africa, and so on. All the places that we probably wouldn't have naturally chosen for a family holiday with kids in tow. Plus as long as I'm able, I want to keep skiing, which isn't the cheapest hobby.

And I'd better plant a few trees along the way

Freecall

Spreadsheetman wrote: »

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?).

Brilliant.

I'm not that keen on alcoholic drinks and rarely drink more than one glass of scotch an evening apart from a couple of pints on the way home and the odd bottle of claret or burgundy at the weekend (maybe champagne?).

:rotfl::rotfl:

melanzana

ratechaser wrote: »

So leaving aside the environmental discussion ...yes, travel will undoubtedly be one of the major motivators for me & Mrs RC in 10 or so years time (assuming I don't chuck it all in earlier).

Hard to put a domestic/international split view, but I still have in mind buying a place in the West Country, and also somewhere like Portugal. So they will be good baseline travel destinations. I could easily see the 2 of us spending another £20-25k a year on other destinations. As I've mentioned elsewhere, I will NOT be doing long haul economy (or even premium economy if at all possible!), and I definitely want to go off the beaten track - Alaska, interesting parts of South America, some parts of Asia, Svalbard, maybe bits of Africa, and so on. All the places that we probably wouldn't have naturally chosen for a family holiday with kids in tow. Plus as long as I'm able, I want to keep skiing, which isn't the cheapest hobby.

And I'd better plant a few trees along the way

We have owned apartments in Nice and Girona. All sold now. Too much responsibility and upkeep, and management fees and local taxes and so on.

We now rent and it is fantastic. No worries about all that stuff and upkeep. It works great for us.

But each to their own.

Ganga

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.

Surely the band on the Titanic played at the end to try and give the passengers some sort of solace rather than " let them eat cake " attitude

ratechaser

melanzana wrote: »

We have owned apartments in Nice and Girona. All sold now. Too much responsibility and upkeep, and management fees and local taxes and so on.

We now rent and it is fantastic. No worries about all that stuff and upkeep. It works great for us.

But each to their own.

And my parents had a villa in Spain and timeshare in Tenerife :eek: ...so I have some perspective on where things can go badly. Rest assured we will be giving a lot of thought before committing.

The Portugal idea is at least partly contingent on whether current tax benefits on pensions still exist in another 10 years. If not may have to look for a different cheap sunny tax haven :cool:

bugslett

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.

.

Not needed a passport since 1991, apart from a brief two day visit to Lyon for work, where I saw the inside of an exhibition centre and the airport - yep, french air controllers on strike.

Consequently I was thinking an around the world cruise, 53 countries, 112 ports, some 2 or 3 nights.

I would like very much to see south america and a friend and I plan to roadtrip round Norway next year.

However my budget ( not that it was fixed as i just have some figures floating round my head rather than something so tedious as a spreadsheet:p), has been spent on a narrowboat instead. 3 year old, 50' of gorgeousness. It's something I've wanted for around 30 years and in 10 years time she will still have some value.

Picking her up in September hopefully, so if you see Elsie Alice as you walk down a tow path, please say hello. And if I'm by a lock, please help:D.

zagfles wrote: »

There's loads of other things as well, apparently a dog has a bigger carbon footprint than an SUV, but dog owners don't tend to take kindly when you lecture them about their pet's carbon footprint. As I found out after a dog owner tried lecturing me about my travel carbon footprint

Eating meat is another, the rain forests are being cleared to make way for grazing cattle to feed the world's demand for meat.

So I'd prefer to give up meat and pet ownership to travel :cool:

I dont take kindly to people lecturing me about my 3 dogs carbon footprint as I dont lecture other people about theirs.

I did go through a short phase of thinking air travel must be second in evilness to torturing fluffy kittens, but it turns out the UK is responsible for 2% ish of carbon emissions, of that 2%, 3-4%ish is air travel, so I stopped being het up.

For clarity, since giving up work i dont need a car much at all (No way was i doing a commute of nearly 2 hours each way when i did work on public transport. You'd think i live in outer Mongolia...), eat very little meat, dont buy much junk, i dont have children, so i have some pluses to counteract the hounds. I have no family, my dogs mean a lot to me.

k6chris wrote: »

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

I believe Saint Greta gets the train from Sweden to Switzerland and London in order to lecture the grown ups.

Terron

Marine_life wrote: »

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?

1. I don't budget like that. If there is something I want to do and I can afford it I will. But at a guess it will be about £5kpa (starting any time now). There are places I would like to go that would be long-haul. I might go and watch England play tests abroad.


2. Yes. Before I lost my job (in 2013) I used to spend around £2-2.5k pa on holidays,Since then I have been semi-retired but haven't had the money to spare until last year.


3. On long flights (3 hours plus) I would pay for extra leg room. I will probably try busines/first class at least once. (I did once fly better than first class though.)


4. I have an interest in archaeology. I have been to quite a lot of places in Britian and Europe (and Egypt once), but there are many more sites to see.

Anonymous101

Spreadsheetman wrote: »

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.

I couldn't reccomend Japan highly enough. I've traveled to a fairly broad spectrum of countries and Japan has to be up with there the best of them. Its the only place I've visited where coming back to the UK really felt like coming back to a much less civilised country. It's a beuitful country with such a wide variety of landscapes and climates. The culture is clearly totally different but we found it very easy to travel around. Never had any concerns for safety or anything like that. I can't wait to go back!


I liked New Zealand but was a bit too quiet for me in my early 20's. Again a beautiful place. I think i'll go there again at some point but not sure how much of a priority I'd make it. I did much prefer it to Austrailia though!


Have you ever been to any of the countries in the developing world? I agree in the tourist hotspots you can feel as though you're just a walking pound note but generally I've found that the poorer the counrty the nicer the people!

p00hsticks

zagfles wrote: »

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.

There was a program on th BBC recently (I can't recall the name of it) where Mike Berners Lee (Tim's brother and carbon footprint expert) went into a household and asked the family to sort their weekly shopping into order of carbon footprint.

Wine from Australia actually has a comparitively low carbon footprint - it's shipped by tanker from Oz and bottled in this country - as do bananas, which also travel by boat.

Chinese and far eastern appliances and clothing will also arrive by boat and so their carbon footprint is also likely to be ar lower than you would initially think ,although as you point out there are other ethical concerns with regard to the sweatshop economy.

The highest carbon footprint items were those imported by air freight (e.g. asparagus) and red meat, even if produced in this country.

lisyloo

zagfles wrote: »

Why wouldn't she? In less than a year she'll be dead and she's supposed to just sit here and wait rather than enjoy her last few months of life? Because there's a possibility of financial loss?

We had a regular poster here who travelled while terminally ill. I'd do the same. In fact I aim to die abroad since funerals are a rip-off in the UK and it'll give the family an excuse for a holiday :rotfl:People get married abroad so why not funerals?

Well I guess it depends on how much money you have and what you want to do with it e.g. leave it for your kids.

The cost of getting airlifted, repatriated or diverting a cruise ship to within helicopter range (I’ve been on a Cunard ship that did that) could be into 6 figures.

I can see why people do it (travel uninsured) but also understand why they wouldn’t.
If you are incapacitated you won’t necessarily be able to leave instructions e.g. do not airlift (DNA?)

There is a halfway house of travelling around the UK and having the NHS on hand.

I’m 51 and I’m planning on not leaving it too late especially as my current hobby (scuba) is quite physical.
I might take a gap before retirement.
Why leave it until you’re ill or less able?