10 Travel Tips for Seniors

With people living longer and healthier lives, more seniors than ever are travelling and seeing the world. This enriches both the sojourner and the fortunate countries receiving a more mature and affluent tourist—one who can more fully appreciate what the destination has to offer. There are, however, a few things for the senior vacationer to consider. Following, are 10 travel trips for seniors:

1. Take Advantage of Senior Discounts

You have lived a long time, worked hard, and contributed to society. Many times the public will actually try and reward you for this. For instance, in the United States the National Parks offer a discount to senior citizens. Before you go to a museum, park, or elsewhere, check to see if there is a senior discount offered. This will help you save money on travel, and allow you to treat yourself in other ways.

2. If You Have Health or Mobility Issues, Consider A Younger Travelling Companion

One of the unfortunate things that can happen with aging is the decline in mobility; this, however, does not need to stop you from seeing the world! If mobility is an issue for you, and you are single, consider a younger travelling companion. There are many younger people longing to see more of the world, and let's face it, it's normally the crowd over 50 who has more cash. Consider offering to pay for most of your companion's way in exchange for her help. Be sure, however, to make the terms of your companion's responsibilitiesclear. For instance, you may require that your companion help you to and from museums, restaurants, etc. Are you comfortable being alone, or would you like your companion with you at all times?Are there certain hours in the day which you would like your companion to be available? (Young people often like to stay up late, and may wake up late). Define these terms before the journey. If you don't have a trusted child, grandchild, or friend with whom you feel comfortable, get a referral from someone. The chances are that the younger person will be thrilled, and it will be a mutually beneficial relationship and experience.

3. Travel to Your Destinations Slightly Off-Season

One of the enviable things about being retired or on a pension is that you no longer have to "punch a timeclock." You can come and go much more easily when you please. Why not beat the crowds, and travel somewhere slightly off-season? For instance, travel to the Greek Islands in September rather than mid-summer when most of the tourists are there. Most people over 50 want a more relaxed journey and don't care as much about the "see and be seen" mentality during peak season (one of the advantages of maturity). Rates are usually lower slightly off-season, and it's a great way to cut costs.

4. Enjoy Senior Rewards – You Have Earned It!

Most younger folk have respect for the older crowd, and want to show that respect in various ways. For instance, a young man may offer that you take the first cab coming down the street. Thank him warmly, and then take the cab! You have paid your dues to society by working hard, and contributing to the overall good. If an airline employee or someone else offers you the option of going to the front of the line, go, and don't feel guilty about it. You have taken your turn at waiting in line like everyone else for years.

5. Look at Travel Options of Over 50s Only

Are you looking for more luxurious and exclusive travel options? Why not consider an over 50s only home swap through IVHE. You can swap your home or vacation home with a more mature crowd. This is a great opportunity and can help you save money. Find out more about luxury home exchange options.

6. Be Spontaneous – You Are Not as Tied to A Schedule

Even if you're normally a very regimented person, why not consider travelling spontaneously? Surprise someone you love with an impromptu getaway. Interestingly, creating a spur-of-the-moment travel adventure can actually save you money, in some cases up to 50% off your accommodations.

7. Consider a Luxury Home Exchange Option

Remember when six persons sharing a hotel room seemed like fun? If you're like most people, this was probably when you were young. As we mature, so does our need for more space and finer accommodations. A luxury home exchange option with IVHE.com is a great way to give you and your loved ones the space and amenities you have grown to expect; additionally, it lets you use one of your biggest assets, your home or your vacation home to your advantage.

8. Invest in Travel Insurance

Travel insurance can cover the cost of everything from an unused airline ticket to medical services while traveling. The good news is that seniors can more easily afford to pay for travel insurance; the bad news is that they are more likely to need it due to underlying health conditions. Not only are the elderly more likely not to be able to leave on holiday because of ailments, but seniors take longer to recover once injured or sick. If you are hurtor ill on vacation, make sure that you call your travel insurance company to file a claim and ask them to define what will and will not be covered. And remember, you can appeal a decision with a travel insurance company just like a regular health insurance company.

9. Call the Airline In Advance If You Have Special Needs

The airline industry is well-acquainted with travelers who have special needs. Make sure you call ahead well in advance of your travel date, and call again close to your travel date to confirm wheelchair use or other special requests. If an employee assigned to help you does an especially good job of taking care of you, don't forget to tip; this encourages good service in the future, and will help to make the journey of others with distinctive needs more pleasant.

10. Fly First Class On An Overseas Flight If You Can

We all know how much more expensive a first-class ticket is, but the older you are, the more you should consider giving yourself this gift. Most of us have been in coach and longed for a chance to stretch out our legs and lie flat. Many airlines now offer beds during overseas flights, and the difference is astounding! Not only can you arrive at your destination less jetlagged, but it is simply easier on your body. But whether you are flying coach or first class, make sure you get up to stretch your legs! According to the American Society of Hematology, seniors are more likely to develop a blood clot during flight ; getting up and walking around can help to alleviate this risk.

While there are factors for seniors to consider when travelling, don't let it stop you. The blessings of a pleasant journey are hard to quantify, and will engender many happy memories. Enjoy your golden years and bon voyage!

Music Jamboree: in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia …

On stage, the old-time band is rollicking along: banjo, guitar, fiddle and double bass prompting the audience to show off their flat-foot dancing. An elderly guy in dungarees, battered felt hat and work boots twirls his partner. A spectator leans towards me: “That’s actually what he wears. It’s not an act,” she says, before diving off to find a partner of her own. It’s the Friday Night Jamboree at Floyd Country Store in Virginia’s Blue Ridge mountains – and you can forget about lonesome pines. This joint is jumping.

The store, which dates from around 1910, really is a store: traditional beamed frontage, unfussy wooden interior and exactly the rural, small-town America image I pictured before starting my road trip along the Blue Ridge Parkway. For seven days a week it serves the town of Floyd (population about 400, just the one stoplight) and Floyd County with everything from pots and pans and work clothes to ice-cream and candy. But old-time, bluegrass, Americana and the Appalachian sound is so pervasive that the store has also become integral to the music scene – and a key stop on the Crooked Road, Virginia’s Music Heritage Trail.

The Jamboree sprang up in the 1980s because the store’s owners at the time were musicians and, rather than being interrupted by inquisitive locals while jamming, they opened the doors and let the snoopers become their audience. Now every Friday night is the Jamboree ($5 entry), every Saturday is Americana afternoon (free), Tuesday Tunes is a songwriters’ get-together (free), and once a month, on a Saturday evening, you can attend the Floyd Radio Show ($12 in advance, $15 on the door), which is also broadcast live online and available as a podcast later.

Although this is moonshine country, the store doesn’t serve alcohol – but that doesn’t stop the Jamboree from being a rattling good night out. The crowd is lively, the welcome warm and no one criticises your moves on the dancefloor. Between acts, co-owner Heather Krantz – who, with husband Dylan Locke, took over the store in 2014 – gets on stage and, with a prize up for grabs, asks who has come the furthest to be here. I miss out to a couple whose “Scotland” narrowly defeats my “Nottingham”.

Stepping outside for a brief banjo breather, I see another aspect of Floyd’s musical cool as bands, buskers and friends play in designated bays along the main street. The night air now has a chill but the lights of the store burn on and a group is singing Paradise by John Prine. It’s not quite the perfect title … but it’s not far off if you love the music of these mountains.

A campervan trip in outback New South Wales, where dirt is red and stars blaz

Heading out of inner-city Sydney in our enormous Apollo Euro camper, the roads narrow, the sweat forms on my brow and I ask myself what on earth I’m doing driving this 7.9-metre-long beast.

 We – two adults and our two small children – are heading for the red dirt; specifically, the remote north-west of New South Wales, which travellers both Australian and foreign opt to pass on in favour of Uluru/Alice Springs or the Kimberley region of Western Australia when seeking an outback “experience”.

We’re reasonably keen campers but when the offer of a van materialises from Apollo campers, the thought of not having to put the tent up each night is quite exciting.

Inside, the Euro camper feels fairly roomy, at least before we unpack our bags. There are two table and chair areas, both of which become a double bed. There’s also a bed above the cabin, which, unsurprisingly, our five-year-old favours. The straps that need to be put up to stop kids (or adults) rolling out make it a bit of a pain when our two-year-old cries in the night, however, and we all switch beds a few times.

We arrive in Dubbo – home of the Western Plains zoo – a good eight hours later thanks to my cautious driving and the constant requirements of small children. I can’t really see anything behind me when I’m driving such a large van and it’s a little unnerving. There’s a reversing camera but, be warned, try to reverse this thing without a guide and you’re asking for trouble. I drive with the camera on when we’re in towns but it doesn’t help a great deal. It’s not designed for forward driving, even if it does reassure me a little.

In Dubbo we stay at the BIG4 campground, where a night on a powered site for a van like ours costs $57 for the family. In the morning the kids fall in love with the play equipment and bouncing pillow – think bouncy castle minus the walls. The setting is convenient, almost within shouting distance of the free-range zoo, even if the piped (and loud) commercial radio in the bathrooms, coupled with the replica suburban streets is, for the purposes of our city escape, not ideal.


At the zoo, the kids have been sold on a drive-through safari in which lions claw at the car. In the end we rent bikes with trailers ($40 for a bike and a “bike-n-tow” on top of the two-day $131.40 family ticket) and make our way through the vast setting, catching the usual big favourites; an energetic tiger, giraffes and elephants standing out for the kids. Biking through the bush makes it a special day. It’s the most kid-friendly thing we have planned so it’s a relief when it gets the thumbs up from our five-year-old.

That afternoon we join a large group of “grey nomads” at the free Terramungamine campsite just outside Dubbo. Here, evidence of the clans that called – and still call – this land home is etched into the outcrops along the river in rocks used for tool sharpening. Dozens of deep grooves from ancient tools are visible.

As the light fades I sit on the riverbank, the kids flop out to some Dora the Explorer on the van’s TV (this is a grown-up’s holiday, too), and what seems like hundreds of sulphur-crested cockatoos, galahs and corellas make their way along the river, jostling for a roosting place high up in the sturdy red gums.

In the morning, black cockatoos soar high above the campsite. We follow the highway north, taking in the faded charm of towns including Gilgandra and Coonamble, the rugged beauty of the Warrumbungles, and the beginning of the great, flat plains of NSW’s north-west.

Pulling in at Walgett, we’re a world away from Sydney and we’re reminded of the diversity – physical, social and economic – of this state. We stock up on supplies at the supermarket, the tyranny of distance evident in the high prices locals must pay for staples.

Walgett is the first town where the toilet “cassette” needs emptying (in an approved dump spot, of course), and it must be said it’s a repulsive job. We’d been mulling an outright toilet ban owing to the unsavoury smell emanating from the little cupboard of yuck, pondering what it would be like in an outback summer. After Walgett we vow not to use the toilet again.

On the road again we note that the long-running drought in this country has eased and heavy rains have turned the land from shades of yellow and ochre – at Brewarrina, you start to get that sense of “outback” so often defined in the popular consciousness by the presence of the red soils – to the luscious greens of fresh grasses. The land is now in bloom with yellow flowers. With a dead straight road shimmering ahead, a deep blue sky and flashes of iron-rich earth, it’s a beautiful scene.

We stop to admire a flock of emus and the kids strain their necks – while it’s fun for them to sit at a table while we travel, the windows of the camper are too high and a bit small for little ones to get a good view. They unbuckle to check out the gangly birds at the side of the road.

Brewarrina, with a population just over a thousand, is not a typical holiday destination. It’s clear there are problems of crime, disadvantage, drug abuse and broken families (that’s what has brought me here before for work as a film-maker). But in remote Indigenous communities people face the same struggles. It’s something visitors to the outback must contend with and, hopefully, learn from. The people of Brewarrina and other places, after all, are guardians of a remarkable cultural heritage which enriches the whole nation. So what if there are a few dumped cars around.

Mass tourism is a long way off. But just outside of town the new Beds on the Barwon has the edge on competitors should the numbers of visitors seeking cabins and a lovely campsite pick up. It’s $30 for a powered site ($20 unpowered) on the river, and there’s only one other couple camping here when we pull in. As the golden light of the sunset makes its way through the gums and another chorus of outback birdsong fills the air, we gather wood for a campfire, confident this is the most peaceful place in the world.


Two-year-old Rosa throws a huge tantrum before bed, momentarily breaking the serenity. With two kids, the van is now a rubbish tip. There are quite a few cupboards but books colouring pencils and socks are strewn across the floor – so it’s a bit like home. The grown-ups are fraying at the edges but it’s easy to get some space by taking a breather outside. In wet weather I’m not sure this would be doable.

At night our son, Frankie, and I play with a smartphone app to make sense of the staggering numbers of stars above. Out here you see more than constellations; with the milky way tearing across the heavens, huge patches of both cloudy light and dark are visible: we make out the emu known to holders of Indigenous sky-knowledge.

Over breakfast a feral goat makes its way along the opposite side of the river, followed by a kayaker. He says the goat has been showing him the way for the past two kilometres. He’s paddling from Goondiwindi in Queensland to Wentworth, where the Darling river meets the Murray, a distance, he reckons, of 2,000km. I pledge to do something similar, one day, but before that take a hard-earned doze by the river as the kids have their afternoon nap, spying an eagle, a kite (I think), pelicans and what look to be budgerigars.

At dusk it’s time to visit the Brewarrina fish traps. Created by the Ngemba people millennia ago, they are a solid reminder the area was an important cultural centre long before the arrival of Europeans. Neglect and downright destruction mean it’s hard to make out what is what alongside the modern weir and the clever fish “ladder” that has been built to let fish return upstream. But the river’s looking healthy and there are scores of reeds giving the place a nice feel. We chat to some friendly drinkers on the bank who try to help us make sense of it.

After a morning catching up with friends, we head for Gundabooka national park, via Bourke. We know we’ll have enough food, water and, hopefully, battery power for Dora the Explorer, but we get a rude awakening in Bre. The car won’t start. Two elders help us give the beast a push start, thank you very much. Our friends seem worried the city people don’t know what they’re doing. They’re probably right, but by the time we get to Bourke the battery appears to have been re-energised. We check out the port, a few old buildings, note the number of brand names and companies with “Back o’ Bourke” in the title, and get on our way. It’s worth a stop (in the outback, everywhere is worth a stop), but there’s not much to keep us in what has become a tight itinerary.

About 50km south of Bourke we put the pedal to the metal; despite the fear of battery trouble it’s time to veer off the highway and take on more than 20km of dirt track to one of the campsites at Mount Gundabooka. If we thought camping in Brewarrina was peaceful, this is ridiculous. I walk away from the fire at night, as far as I dare in the dark silence. It’s so quiet that the ringing in my ears is almost overwhelming. An owl is calling from what could be several kilometres away. The stars, again, are astounding.

In the morning we walk to the top of Little Mountain through the mulga scrub, a view of Mount Gundabooka and the surrounding flats the reward. I note with some relief there is Telstra coverage should the van not start. It does, and we head for one of the two Ngemba rock art sites in the park. It’s another long red-dirt track to get here, followed by a 15-minute walk into a rocky valley. There’s still water in the creek; large tadpoles are crowding each other out in the remaining waterholes. The art blows us all away; simple figures of people, emus and other patterns drawn in a different time.

Before the epic push back to Sydney, we pause in the historical mining town of Cobar to make the kids some dinner. After numerous stops to admire our country’s rich Indigenous heritage and long, long history, here’s a tourist attraction at the other end of the scale. We peer deep into the earth of the huge open-cut goldmine, a strange but intriguing sight.

It’s all been a whirlwind; in just under a week we’ve seen a great deal and the changes in our surroundings have been immense, all within a single corner of this admittedly large state. We look down as a huge (but tiny) truck meanders up to the exit, laden with ore from which gold bullion will be produced.

Then there’s another beautiful golden sunset across the flat plains, still stretching as far as the eye can see.

Forbidden City Beijing, China (Palace Museum)

Lying at the city center and called Gu Gong in Chinese, it was the imperial palace for twenty-four emperors during the Ming and Qing dynasties. It was first built throughout 14 years during the reign of Emperor Chengzu  in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). Ancient Chinese Astronomers believed that the Purple Star (Polaris) was in the center of heaven and the Heavenly Emperor lived in the Purple Palace. The Palace for the emperor on earth was so called the Purple City. It was forbidden to enter without special permission of the empeor. Hence its name 'The Purple Forbidden City', usually 'The Forbidden City'.

Now known as the Palace Museum, it is to the north of Tiananmen Square. Rectangular in shape, it is the world's largest palace complex and covers 74 hectares. Surrounded by a 52-meter-wide moat and a 10-meter-high wall are more than 8,700 rooms. The wall has a gate on each side. Opposite the Tiananmen Gate, to the north is the Gate of Divine Might (Shenwumen). The distance between these two gates is 960 meters, while the distance between the east and west gates is 750 meters. There are unique and delicately structured towers on each of the four corners of the curtain wall. These afford views over both the palace and the city outside.

It is divided into two parts. The southern section, or the Outer Court was where the emperor exercised his supreme power over the nation. The northern section, or the Inner Court was where he lived with his royal family.

Until 1924 when the last emperor of China was driven from the Inner Court, fourteen emperors of the Ming dynasty and ten emperors of the Qing dynasty had reigned here. Having been the imperial palace for some five centuries, it houses numerous rare treasures and curiosities. Listed by UNESCO as a World Cultural Heritage Site in 1987, the Palace Museum is now one of the most popular tourist attractions world-wide.

Construction of the palace complex began in 1407, the 5th year of the Yongle reign of the third emperor (Emperor Chengzu, Zhu Di) of the Ming dynasty. It was completed fourteen years later in 1420, and then the capital city was moved from Nanjing to Beijing the next year. It was said that a million workers including one hundred thousand artisans were driven into the  long-term hard labor. Stone needed was quarried from Fangshan District. It was said a well was dug every fifty meters along the road in order to pour water onto the road in winter to slide huge stones on ice into the city. Huge amounts of timber and other materials were freighted from faraway provinces.

Ancient Chinese people displayed their very considerable skills in building it. Take the grand red city wall for example. It has an 8.6 meters wide base reducing to 6.66 meters wide at the top. The angular shape of the wall totally frustrates attempts to climb it. The bricks were made from white lime and glutinous rice while the cement is made from glutinous rice and egg whites. These incredible materials make the wall extraordinarily strong.

Since yellow is the symbol of the royal family, it is the dominant color in it. Roofs are built with yellow glazed tiles; decorations in the palace are painted yellow; even the bricks on the ground are made yellow by a special process. However, there is one exception. Wenyuange, the royal library, has a black roof. The reason is that it was believed black represented water then and could extinguish fire.

Nowadays, it is open to tourists from home and abroad. Splendid painted decoration on these royal architectural wonders, the grand and deluxe halls, with their surprisingly magnificent treasures will certainly satisfy 'modern civilians'.