On A Roll With Travel Planning
I am curious if others do what I tend to do while traveling, which is to make even more travel plans. I feel inspired when we are in the midst of a trip, and it very often results in even more ideas on what to do next. Which is the theme of this post.
The Remainder of 2026
In a few weeks we will be leaving for a one week Coastal Cruise with my mother and my spouse's sister. This will be the first cruise for them both, and we are feeling very excited based on their respective excitement. It's been really sweet to experience their growing anticipation about what awaits.
The cruise will visit Ensenada, Mexico, San Diego, Santa Barbara, and San Francisco. We have fun tours already booked through the ship to enjoy a beautiful hacienda in Mexico, a harbor cruise in San Diego, an open trolley tour in Santa Barbara, and a shuttle tour in San Francisco that will take us over the Golden Gate Bridge, among other stops.
We tailored our list of activities to accommodate my 80+ year old mother's needs, plus my own stress level. It makes things very simple to leave the driving, literally, to the cruise line, vs doing everything on our own, when attempting to accommodate two elderly travelers who are not seasoned.
The weather should be lovely along our southern and central California coastline in early November, and thus our cabin connecting balconies should see much use.
Otherwise, we'll be traveling to the Santa Ynez wine country with our wine club, and spending Christmas in Tennessee with our daughter and family, before flying down to South Florida for a New Year's Western Caribbean cruise.
In 2027 our 'big rock' trip will be a two week cruise through New England in the fall, that will begin with a week on our own in Montreal, Canada and conclude in NYC, where we'll spend another week on our own before flying back home.
In 2028 our 'big rock' trip will be a four week cruise that begins in Amsterdam and ends in Boston. Included on the itinerary are the fjords of Norway, the Shetland Islands of Scotland, a full circumnavigation of Iceland, three ports in Greenland, and a variety of French territory islands and Canada maritime provinces.
In 2029, depending on how my aging parents are doing at that point, we are looking at doing a four week cruise of Eastern Asia that begins in Indonesia and ends in Japan.
In 2030, I am wrapping my head around doing, finally, for my long-asking spouse, a gynormous trip to S. Africa and surrounding to see what are called 'The Big Five' - lions, leopards, rhinoceros, elephants, and Cape buffalo. plus, hopefully, giraffe and zebra.
Neither of the later two are yet etched in stone, but given that we would most definitely fly Business Class given the distances, they may each use up a big chunk of their respective year's travel allocations, so I want to remain aware of them now.
All of this resonates with me! We are very motivated to travel now, while our parents (or, DH's mom, his father passed away) still can. I'm taking my parents & sister to Palm Springs at the end of the month (none of us have ever been) & then the big cruise in May. Like you, it's fun to see the excitement from someone who has never traveled to Europe before (or a cruise, etc), because they have all of that first time excitement & energy! Also very much agree that selecting travel that matches where everyone is in life is a huge component of making the trip to successful.
ReplyDeleteWe have a huge bucket list of travel! Dolomites with DH is "our" big trip in 2027, but it's possible we will do Turkey (Iran situation dependent) & I have my trip with my mom & sister in May as well. It's a lot in one year, and I suspect anything else will be quite local, or a national park, etc. We both want to go to Yellow Stone, Grand Canyon, Grand Tetons & Glacier (not all at once), so we will likely get that on the books as well. - Hawaii Planner
I encourage you to go hard, hard, hard while you can, as life can change in an instant. We've been retired over 15 years now (I was in my late 40's, my spouse in his mid 50's when we first retired) and we were go-go-go for the first 12 or so years, and now are definitely evolving into the slower-go years. We are older, as are my parents, and I"m very, very thankful we had those dozen years to be completely travel-focused.
DeleteThere is not one single trip I have ever regretted taking. Any regrets would be for those trips NOT taken.
And having been to 45 of our nations 63 National Parks, including those that you listed, I encourage you to go to all four of them sooner rather than later. We hiked over 40 miles on our own in both Yellowstone and Grand Tetons, the same mileage but with Rangers in Glacier, and backpacked the Grand Canyon with the Sierra Club. We saw beauty in them that I will be thinking about until my last day. 🙂
Agreed! I also know that with lupus, my health may change at any moment, so I'm very focused on getting in as much as I can right now. Since DH is still working, it does mean he has a lot less flexibility for time off, but we try to make the most of every break we have. - Hawaii Planner
DeleteThat sounds like a Wonderful Cruise to some exciting and Beautiful Destinations! My Gym has a Stationary Bike that has a Screen where you pretend to Bike around Santa Barbara and it's so Beautiful there that now it's on my Bucket List for a Vacay someday.
ReplyDeleteI confess I never get tired of traveling our Califonia coastline.
DeleteAnd thank you for your comment!
I popped over via Sam's blog. and I do like your plan of action. We plan on doing more travel for the next 10 years while we can and our health will allow us. Right now to put pen to paper!!
ReplyDeleteOh, I'll have to pop over to SAM's blog and say 'Thank you'!
DeleteAnd yes, do travel as soon as you can, and as much as you can or care to. We are just now beginning to bump into aging issues, and that has been a reminder that our hard core travel experiences may have to change to accommodate them going forward.
And thank you for your comment!