Retirement trips...

[SpokaneCY]

The post about birthday trips got me thinking about retirement. Honestly EVERYTHING gets me thinking about retirement.

For those planning to, or have already, retired - did you celebrate the occasion?

I'm done in 6-18 months (wife will follow me a few years later) and I'm planning a Switzerland by rail trip modeled after a PBS show on great rail journeys. In general, we'll take 2 weeks to travel all across (and up and down) Switzerland using only their amazing train system.

When my wife is done, our joint trip is looking like living in Italy for 3-ish months in some berg with easy access to the train stations. The goal there is to live as an Italian (absent the hair, hand gestures, mistress, Fiat) and taking lots and lots of SLOW time to get further into the country. My vision is nobody wakes up early, nobody puts on white tennis shoes and nobody ramrods through churches, town squares, mountains, etc. but rather MEANDERS!

 

[BryceC]

When my parents retired, they sold their house, and bought a small RV, and drove to Alaska. They lived in that RV for almost 4 years roaming like the countryside like Mad Max. I couldn't do it but it's crazy to think about having that much time to explore.

 

[dmclone]

For train travel, I found this site to be very good.

https://www.seat61.com/Europe-train-tickets.htm

On my last trip to Europe we mostly used rail but spent a couple of days driving to places that we're not connected to rail. We bought some tickets ahead of time using loco2 and trainline.eu. It saved us a lot of money to buy way in advance. For short trips, we just bought them through a machine. When I penciled in the numbers, a railpass didn't make financial sense but you may get a senior discount.

Hopefully by the time I'm ready to retire I can still get around good enough to do a long trip like you have planned. Just in case we're not, we still go on trips to places in Europe that require a younger body. We really wanted to do Switzerland this last time but it's just so expensive for everything.

 

[jmkc12]

While in Switzerland if you can stay in Murren for a night or two it's definitely worth it in my opinion.

 

[SpokaneCY]

For train travel, I found this site to be very good.

https://www.seat61.com/Europe-train-tickets.htm

On my last trip to Europe we mostly used rail but spent a couple of days driving to places that we're not connected to rail. We bought some tickets ahead of time using loco2 and trainline.eu. It saved us a lot of money to buy way in advance. For short trips, we just bought them through a machine. When I penciled in the numbers, a railpass didn't make financial sense but you may get a senior discount.

Hopefully by the time I'm ready to retire I can still get around good enough to do a long trip like you have planned. Just in case we're not, we still go on trips to places in Europe that require a younger body. We really wanted to do Switzerland this last time but it's just so expensive for everything.

Your train tickets - were they useful on all trains - hop on and hop off deal? I keep thinking of the old "eurrail pass" but guessing there are way more economical options now?

 

[SpokaneCY]

While in Switzerland if you can stay in Murren for a night or two it's definitely worth it in my opinion.

Just took a quick look and that would be the quintisential Swiss experience! Gonna put it on the planning list - thanks!

 

[ImJustKCClone]

We've been doing road trips since our retirement November 17th, 2017. It has been very freeing to drive and stop where we get tired, rather than pushing to get somewhere & back home again. If we decide that New Mexico is on the way home from College Station, TX, or that it makes perfect sense to go up across Niagara and back through Canada and Michigan after going to a basketball tournament in Ohio, we can do it without having to worry about the extra time spent on the road.

Our first big trip will be on the first anniversary of our retirement. Actually, one day later - we leave for the Maui Invitational on the 18th.

We have other big trips either planned or on the bucket list. I want to hit all of the continents...South America is next spring, then we have Africa, Australia, and Antarctica left after that.

 

[Cyclonepride]

I've got a while yet, but I think we're planning more on a retirement move to somewhere where the winters are much better.

 

[dmclone]

Your train tickets - were they useful on all trains - hop on and hop off deal? I keep thinking of the old "eurrail pass" but guessing there are way more economical options now?

The Eurorail pass still exists but it's the one that didn't make financial sense for OUR trip. We bought specific tickets with specific times. With the eurorail pass you can choose number of countries as well as number of days. So for example, you could say I'm only going to travel in Switzerland, France, and Italy and a maximum of 14 days of actual travel over a month. For our trip, it looked something like this:

Paris to Amsterdam $40 pp
Paris to Reims $30pp
Reims to Paris $30pp
Avignon to Reims $40pp
Avignon to Arles $6pp
Paris to Avignon $60pp

So about $206 per person and only one train was not high speed. If we would have instead bought the Eurorail pass it would have been over $500 per person and a lot of times you still have to make reservations. The Eurorail is not like the old days where you can always just jump on a train and be assured of a spot. That seat 61 web site does a good job of telling you what you should do based on the type of trip you're doing.

If I went to Switzerland I would for sure do something like this.

https://www.seat61.com/GlacierExpress.htm

 

[Clonefan32]

I had some retired clients in the other day that said they'd be gone for a few months. I asked them where they were headed and they had no idea. Just "gone".

I just found that response so neat. They'd just kind of figure things out on a day-to-day basis.

 

[SpokaneCY]

We've been doing road trips since our retirement November 17th, 2017. It has been very freeing to drive and stop where we get tired, rather than pushing to get somewhere & back home again. If we decide that New Mexico is on the way home from College Station, TX, or that it makes perfect sense to go up across Niagara and back through Canada and Michigan after going to a basketball tournament in Ohio, we can do it without having to worry about the extra time spent on the road.

Our first big trip will be on the first anniversary of our retirement. Actually, one day later - we leave for the Maui Invitational on the 18th.

We have other big trips either planned or on the bucket list. I want to hit all of the continents...South America is next spring, then we have Africa, Australia, and Antarctica left after that.

Are you RVers? Floated the idea to my wife of a smaller RV so we can hit national parks at our leisure (a new favorite past time) but she's more of a house cat than I thought. Like the idea of the VW Vanagon (or similar sprinter van?) since it opens up your schedule for the shiny things that grab your eye on the road.

 

[SpokaneCY]

The Eurorail pass still exists but it's the one that didn't make financial sense for OUR trip. We bought specific tickets with specific times. With the eurorail pass you can choose number of countries as well as number of days. So for example, you could say I'm only going to travel in Switzerland, France, and Italy and a maximum of 14 days of actual travel over a month. For our trip, it looked something like this:

Paris to Amsterdam $40 pp
Paris to Reims $30pp
Reims to Paris $30pp
Avignon to Reims $40pp
Avignon to Arles $6pp
Paris to Avignon $60pp

So about $206 per person and only one train was not high speed. If we would have instead bought the Eurorail pass it would have been over $500 per person and a lot of times you still have to make reservations. The Eurorail is not like the old days where you can always just jump on a train and be assured of a spot. That seat 61 web site does a good job of telling you what you should do based on the type of trip you're doing.

If I went to Switzerland I would for sure do something like this.

https://www.seat61.com/GlacierExpress.htm

That was one of the trains they highlighted... Thanks for the info too!

 

[ImJustKCClone]

Are you RVers? Floated the idea to my wife of a smaller RV so we can hit national parks at our leisure (a new favorite past time) but she's more of a house cat than I thought. Like the idea of the VW Vanagon (or similar sprinter van?) since it opens up your schedule for the shiny things that grab your eye on the road.

So far these trips have been by car because they had specific destination goals (a birthday in College Station, a basketball tournament in Dayton, etc). We have an RV - a 1991 Winnebago Chieftain - but the problem with RV's is that if you go somewhere, you are stuck at the campsite and side trips are difficult. Lew has to get Bambi (a little red convertible) fixed up for a tow-behind before we can really start to travel with it.

Edit: that's on his honey-do list for this winter.

 

[2forISU]

Live on the beach in Portugal (Algarve). Cheap, beautiful weather, great food, incredible beaches and lots of wine.

 

[CyCrazy]

About 30 years out but I want to go to Germany, Austria, Chezch Republic for a couple of months.

 

[dmclone]

Another place in Switzerland that looks amazing is Lauterbrunnen. I'm sure it's overun with tourists because it looks so amazing.

 

[dmclone]

The tricky thing for someone like myself is to just go off the cuff and plan rail, hotels, etc. on the fly. I'm so anal that I plan all the hotels/airbnb's in advance so that it locks me into spending a certain number of days in a certain area. If I had a whole month or more where I was completely flexible, I could come up with an amazing trip. When you go for 10-14 days you really feel like you need to be busy every day doing something or you're wasting your time. With a month plus you wouldn't feel bad about those days.

 

[Cyclone.TV]

Go pick out that casket!

 

[SpokaneCY]

The tricky thing for someone like myself is to just go off the cuff and plan rail, hotels, etc. on the fly. I'm so anal that I plan all the hotels/airbnb's in advance so that it locks me into spending a certain number of days in a certain area. If I had a whole month or more where I was completely flexible, I could come up with an amazing trip. When you go for 10-14 days you really feel like you need to be busy every day doing something or you're wasting your time. With a month plus you wouldn't feel bad about those days.

Funny story -- a few years back our big trip was Spain for 2 weeks. I had planned everything myself and even went to the point of getting an 8' long piece of butcher paper to list the days, where were were, travel plans, sites, etc. sticky notes, multi-colored markers - like an HR facilitator on acid and steroids... I'm raging ADD so this was NOT in my wheel house but DANG was I proud of it!

3 days before we left I did the final "dry run" with my wife as I walked her through my elaborate plans. Day 1 fly into Barcelona and drive to our condo in Seville. Day 2, tickets to Sagrada Familia, etc...

My wife says - you meant Tarragona and not Seville, right?

Yeah, yeah, whatever the name of that first city is... Then it hit me - like pit of the stomach aching bad.

I had booked our lodging BACKWARDS from our travel and Seville was a short 10 hour drive away after a refreshing 20 hour plan trip while the first part of our trip was all in Barcelona.

So we grabbed a phone, pulled up Hotels.com and re-booked lodging (at our cost) that aligned with travel in about half hour, and while we spent a VERY unexpected $1,500 (couldn't cancel some hotels, paying for new hotels new plane connections, rental car lost deposit, etc.), the trip turned out much better.

My wife has now decided to take a firmer hand in our vacation planning. Smart woman.

 

[ImJustKCClone]

The tricky thing for someone like myself is to just go off the cuff and plan rail, hotels, etc. on the fly. I'm so anal that I plan all the hotels/airbnb's in advance so that it locks me into spending a certain number of days in a certain area. If I had a whole month or more where I was completely flexible, I could come up with an amazing trip. When you go for 10-14 days you really feel like you need to be busy every day doing something or you're wasting your time. With a month plus you wouldn't feel bad about those days.

My sister plans her trips like that (and like our father did)...down to the trains, planes, restaurants, hours open for museums, etc. It would drive me batspit crazy to be that regimented again.