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I'd like to know the same thing from veteran retired travelers, especially if you only traveled "some" before retirement, & even more especially international.
Just retired in Dec, have been to Belize, Roatan Honduras, Cozumel Mexico and Vegas 4 times (to babysit grandson)....I see us traveling a LOT more when hubby retires. Our plans for his "retirement trip" is a 3-4 month stent in Europe followed by a repositioning cruise and then a trip of probably 2-3 months to Asia that fall. I think when you have retired AirBNB.com is your BEST friend for long term travel/stays abroad allowing you to be able to travel well. We can stay for a month in one location (Barcalona, Spain for instance ) for the cost of a week in a hotel somewhere and travel out from there. I have found places that cost less than $1,000 per month when rented by the month.
I can give you my perspective though my wife and I retired a bit early at 45 and 42, respectively, so please keep that in mind. I will also share a story of a couple we know in their low 70's and my father-in-law's missed retirement travel plans he always dreamed about.
We've always enjoyed travel but of course when we worked, had limited amount of time to do so. On the weekends while we worked, we'd often escape in a car on a 3-4 hour regional trip. Now that we've been in retirement for over 5 years now, we still enjoy traveling a great deal and it certainly has increased a great deal since working for the simple reason we have the freedom of time now. Every other week at least we are staying some where for a few nights or a week at times and taking day regional trips in between here and there. We love where we live in the low desert foothills in AZ in a master planned community so it's always nice to come home and recharge in the piece and quiet so sometimes we'll stay put home for a week or 2 and just do things around our place. We like a nice balance/mix of travel and home. We wouldn't want to travel non-stop, nor would we want to just sit around our home all the time. My wife and I have serious hobbies we love doing and enjoy taking part in them when we are home. We also don't like to live in hotels/rental properties etc. all the time either. Most of our travel is regional via car(I still love to drive) to our favorite places along the California coast, Palm Springs, Las Vegas, Lake Tahoe, around our home state of Arizona, western national parks, etc. After traveling through most of the country and Canada, we tend to stick around traveling to places in the western US for that's the part of the country we love the most though once a year or so we'll take an extended road trip around the country or just a bit out of the western US area. While working, we didn't have the leisure to drive back and forth for days to get to a place we wanted to be so we would fly to optimize our time. Retirement really opens up the benefit of getting in a car, taking one's time without schedule restraints and see things along the way which we still love doing. As for international travel, we plan on doing some of that eventually but haven't been chomping at the bit to do so. Places like Australia and some Asian countries appeal to us at on the top of that list to check out but we frankly aren't in a rush to do so/wouldn't regret not going if it all ended tomorrow.
A few other experiences to share on the topic beyond our own experience.
1.) We know a couple in their early 70's now and retired when he was around 55. They traveled far more in retirement, all of it driving around various parts of the country, as they don't like to fly and have zero desire to visit any places internationally, outside of perhaps Canada but I'm not exactly sure even on that. Unfortunately, they have an older son in bad health that they decided to take it upon themselves to care for so that has clipped their travel wings. This couple is in excellent health, no meds/health issues, take care of themselves diet/life style wise, etc but had their enjoyment of travel cut short.
2.) Another example is my wife's dad who retired fairly early at 55. He and his wife didn't do much travel at all while working. He had lots of plans to travel when retired and did mostly some local oriented travel, but didn't do the trips he really wanted to take in retirement as he and his wife planned like the desire to travel around to lots of national parks, a long cross country trip, etc. I think the simple reason is they were thinking there's "always tomorrow". But time caught up to him, really both of them, and he let his health/weight go, got diabetes, and some of the complications that can arise from that plus other health issues and now he can't even drive and had his drivers license pulled recently.
The reason I bring these 2 examples up is if you can swing it financially, have your health, and you want to travel/see things in retirement, do it. Don't wait. In my experience with people I've known even beyond the 2 examples I've described, time has an ugly way of sneaking up on all of us and life's circumstances, both in and out of our control, can put a brake on it all very quickly with no do overs. It's sad for me when my father-in-law asks about our travels and I can see on one hand he's glad we are enjoying our time/doing things that we want, I can also see he realized his opportunity faded/he missed his chance on what he wanted to do with his dream travel plans.
Don't want to be melodramatic here, especially with the last 2 examples, but I hope these experiences can help shed some light on real life travel examples in retirement vs working and missed retirement travel opportunities in and out of our control.
I'm 66 and have been retired 3 1/2 years.
During that time we've traveled more than we've stayed home. Almost of all of our travel is domestic and by car. We love exploring the US and like to stay 1-6 weeks in one place. This year we plan to try a 2-3 month stay in a favorite destination (northern NM).
We did "some" international travel (Europe and Caribbean) in our earlier years, while we were still working, but aren't tempted these days because everything seems so overrun. Not to mention the hassle of flying and renting cars.
We have an elderly beloved pet that we leave at home and we hire a great pet and house sitter who comes by everyday to take care of him and the house and yard.
Occasionally I fly down to San Miguel de Allende MX to spend a few days with friends while DH stays home.
Occasionally DH meets one of our sons somewhere and they hike/backpack for a few days while I stay at home.
Not quite retired but that is my plan. We are going to do international travel earlier with a mix of traveling the states but get as much done early on as possible. My daughter said AirBNB is a great site. We will probably look at that as we do a lot of European travel in our first years.
We traveled the first few years after retirement. We are not traveling at all, now, and have no desire to do it. The travel bug dropped off pretty fast.
Our retirement will be in June 2016...we will be 66 and 62... We will travel by car quite a bit and throw in a European vacation here and there early on, and a cruise here and there too. We are really home bodies tho, love to be home and welcome guests - so we will see how we spend our time when the rubber hits the road. We aim to buy a house with a lovely pool in the back yard, and I can't wait to float around....
Retiring in Oct at 61. Started traveling abroad about 10 years ago..(mostly tropical countries)..about once or twice a year. I also travel in the U.S. a couple of times a year. My advice is to travel some before you retire. I'm planning on doing a fair amount my first couple of years of retirement and play it by ear after that. I find travel keeps the brain going and forces you to learn new things..which I enjoy!
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