When I was young, I took a trip with my sister where we took advantage of the Eurail pass, never knowing where we would end up, not quite sure what country we were in. Perhaps our innocence saved us, but as I’ve gotten older and discovered the inconvenient things that can happen, I’ve tried to make more definitive plans ahead of time.
In my 50s, a friend and I selected the towns we wanted to visit in England and rented a car, but we still had to drive on the wrong side of the road and search every day for lodging. I remember banging on the doors of B&Bs to see if they had any available rooms and whether a bathroom was ensuite or if we had to share with other guests.
When I turned 70, I decided I needed to plan every detail and not rely on chance. On a trip to the U.K., I reserved seats on the train, and a room in the hotel and car rental in the town where we would catch the ferry. So what could go wrong? The train broke down, and we had to find an alternative way to get to the ferry town but didn’t make it in time. In an unfamiliar town, we dragged our suitcases in the rain, looking for a hotel room. I won’t tell you what else went wrong on this trip, but suffice it to say that it taxed my physical and cognitive skills. It felt like I was being taught a lesson: there’s no guarantee that everything will go as planned. In fact, the more you plan, it almost seems destined to fail.
When I was younger, I could handle these challenges, but as my memory has gotten worse and my legs weaker, travel has gotten harder. So for my most recent trip, one to Europe, I jumped on the idea of a river cruise, where they would make all the arrangements, provide three meals and one excursion a day, and I wouldn’t have to look for a place to stay every night.
I imagined a slowly, leisurely pace and time to just watch the world go by. But that’s not how it worked out. To make the 8:30 a.m. excursions to different towns, my friend and I had to get up at 6:30 for breakfast at 7:30. This was made more difficult by three-course dinners at 7 that didn’t end until 8:30. For people in their 70s, this felt like burning the candles at both ends.
The excursions through medieval towns were led by young local guides who either had a schedule to make or wanted to get the tour over with. The pace was fast, the information fascinating but unrelenting. By the time the tours were done, there was little time to sit in the café and enjoy a croissant or to shop for postcards or souvenirs before we had to jump back on the bus or ship and head for the next town.
But even when we were left to our own devices, there were still challenges. My sense of direction has never been great, but it’s gotten worse as I’ve gotten older. In Amsterdam, Google Maps wasn’t much help when we got lost, telling us to go west when we had no idea which direction we were facing. Asking locals wasn’t much help: “turn right on Leidsegracht and left on Keizersgracht” was hard to understand, let alone remember by the time we got to Keizergracht. When we finally found our hotel, after wandering the streets and getting soaked, we were exhausted.
And then there’s the airports to navigate. Airports have gotten faster—or I’ve gotten slower. If you can’t keep up, you get run over. In the Dublin airport, I did something I never thought I’d do: enlist an airport cart to take me to a distant concourse because I was limping from a sore leg and wasn’t sure I could make the gate on time.
I’m not sure what the solution is. I’m not ready to give up traveling and I’m not ready to join a huge cruise ship. I no longer have the courage to drive on the narrow and bewildering streets of medieval villages. That means I need to become more familiar with the abilities of cell phones, like how to utilize Uber in a strange city or how to call a taxi when it’s raining or I’m tired. The young couple (late 30s) who accompanied us one day in Strasbourg helped us find two bookstores with a few clicks of their cell phones. If not for them, we’d still be there, staring at our screens.
I was determined to take this trip to Europe because I worried that I was running out of time to see new places. Many friends in their 80s tell me they have no interest in traveling anymore. Maybe it’s time to relax on a on a beach with a good book. Or take a long road trip through the U.S. where I get up when I want, eat when I want, and spend as long as I want admiring the bears in Yellowstone or the redwoods in California.
Aging Journal 
Traveling is so much harder as we age. Everything we took for granted or with a grain of salt becomes challenging and onerous with age. Also I think the airports are faster, probably since there are so many more people traveling now. Even careful planning is no guarantee, and certain expectations can leave you feeling cheated. You hit all the right points. Travel is great, but requires a lot of stamina and flexibility.
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Or maybe a younger person to lead the way.
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Yes!
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At 81, I’ll need a guide/copilot to even leave town. So many places I’d still like to see within a day’s drive of Denver, but I’m too chicken to try the drive by myself. There’s a whole lot of nothing between here and there, and I’d surely hit my limit in the middle of nowhere. Not in my best years would I have tackled the trips you describe. Good on ya!
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It’s too bad there’s not more public transportation like there is in Europe, so you can take a train to the mountains or the sea. It’s so civilized. In the meantime, we wait for self-driving cars, I guess.
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I’ve never cared much for traveling. If there is a wrong turn to be made, I’ll find it. I hate the worry of missing a flight or connection. It seems in traveling; I’m just looking at other peoples’ stuff. Of course, now, with my wife’s disability, travel is almost impossible. She hates that but I don’t feel put out.
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I know what you mean about the wrong turn. That’s me, for sure. I think there’s a certain kind of person who travels well–who doesn’t worry and is confident they can handle difficult situations. That’s not me.
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I am so sorry, Kathy, for your difficult travel experiences. You are not alone,. Indeed we are running out of youth. Not running out of time, but out of energy. technological knowledge, auditory processing and more. Each of these aging characteristics demands yet more adaptation. I like your last sentence….try it! Or fly to a US city somewhere and do the same thing. I can highly recommend St. Petersburg, FL, for one.
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Yes, we’re all in this together. I like your suggestion of flying someplace in this country. There’s so much to see (and so little time).
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Having just returned from a month in the UK, I can definitely relate. On my first day of a long-anticipated road trip with my sister, we discovered that we couldn’t plan for more than a two-hour drive to our next stop (I did all the driving; Janet is slightly dyslexic, and was concerned about the many roundabouts—with very good reason, as we discovered). What worked well for us was waiting until we were settled somewhere before planning our next stop. That way, we could tread the line between feeling constrained by an agenda and knowing we’d have somewhere to land next time we set out.
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I love your plan. It slows you down instead of hopping from one thing to another. I hope your stops included pubs or pastry shops (or both).
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They definitely did! We drank Aspal’s hard cider all the way around the island. And because the British don’t poison their wheat (yet), I could also eat all the pastry I wanted without having to go through the whole “do you have a gluten-free version” even once.
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What a treat!
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