Travel: An Ontarion contrarian's view

Last spring, I read a comment in the Globe & Mail, in which a woman named Janet said,
"As a senior in good health, there is an expectation that I will travel. But I am content in my home, in my yard, in my neighbourhood, in my city and in my country. I have travelled and as my husband says, 'We were always looking for food when we were hungry and a bed when we were tired.' We are too old for that now and the idea of cruising the Danube with 100 people from Ontario has no appeal."

I enjoyed this rebuttal to the travel ethos promoted by travel sites, airlines, and those Instagram shots of a friend waving from her houseboat in Kashmir.

Le Duc is a tepid traveller, which has come as a surprise to me. Our honeymoon in Paris seemed an obvious romantic choice; little did I know it would be the sole destination that would truly please him for thirty-three years. "You'll visit any country that has Paris in it", his friend Mitch teases.

He has always encouraged me to strike out on my own, and I have. But I'm aware that travel is consumption, no matter how you frame it, and there are times when I have wondered, Was it worth it?

That value assessment is composed of both tangible and intangible factors. Huguette, who travels widely and often, took a cruise to Antartica last year. She spent over $35, 000 on a trip she concludes was terrible value. The activities were curtailed by poor weather (a possibility mentioned in the fine print). On board, her fellow travellers were unfriendly when not seasick, and on the land excursions, inseparable from video cameras.

Your travel preferences are a personal call, but one to make—and stick to. My no-go list includes destination weddings for other than immediate family; sporting events like the Iditarod (crowds, price-gouging); accompanying someone to a locale that holds no interest (Death Valley); and road trips with boring scenery, bad food, and dank motels. I won't sign on for hardship, danger or those trousers you zip off to make shorts.

Cost figures in the assessment. From airfares to lodging, prices rose in 2018, and once higher, rarely revert. I want to stay in a place within the same star rating as my home; I'm no longer willing to bunk on a friend's sofa with her eager Lab's snout in my neck. Other spending priorities may be more appealing; maybe Janet and her husband would rather have new high-efficiency windows.

Much is made of travel's broadening effect; recent articles on nationalist and racist attitudes assert that those are more likely held by persons who have never ventured outside their native countries. At the same time, some tourists stay so insulated from the host culture that they might as well be vacuum-sealed.

In Janet's comment, two phrases struck me; first, "I have travelled". This sounds as if a need has been met. It's so easy to fall into the what's'-your-next-trip conversation. Sometimes those sound competitive: your Kenyan safari trumps my weekend in Vermont—travel as status symbol.

Second, Janet quotes her husband about "looking for food when we are hungry... a bed when we're tired".

I can hear you thinking, There are ways around that. A Susanfriend spends months doing meticulous research as part of the joy of the trip; she arrives with lists of appealing restaurants, the bike rental locations, insider tips, transit maps.

Or, Janet and Mr. could book a tour, trading autonomy for ease.

Maybe their conclusion is, We can't travel like we once did, so we're done. A travel industry consulting firm divides seniors into two groups by attitude, not age: the Young at Heart, who want what they call "soft adventure", with local colour and plenty of activities, and the Old at Heart, for whom security and comfort count most.

Janet and her husband are Homebodies at Heart, bucking the stats. The industry knows that the rapidly-growing senior demographic is a prime consumer of leisure travel, and that senior women  travellers outnumber senior men by about three to one. A travel executive told me that "the women are more curious, more interested in experiences that immerse them in a culture."

Ghislaine spent every vacation for twenty years taking her daughter to visit family. Now, she has retired and her daughter is independent.

Ghislaine budgets carefully so that every late spring, she can trek one of the Camino de Santiago's routes. In May, she hiked the Camino Ingles, two weeks of challenging trail, rain nearly every day, mud, rocks and dormitory beds. I saw her the day after she returned, fairly levitating with joy. This year, she's taking the seaside route of the Camino del norte. (Here's a guide to the Camino's routes, with tips for hikers on the hiking-specialty travel side 10Adventures.com.)

The Camino is it, as long as she can walk. Ghislaine embodies the principle, Know who you are now.

Some of the worst disappointments happen when old dreams put a traveller in the wrong place, or in the wrong company. Bev no longer sees the brother with whom she climbed Kilimanjaro, after he engaged in unsporting behaviour to be first to summit.

Whether you're on a plane to see Aunt Anita in Spokane or trek up Machu Picchu, you are putting a load on the environment just by getting there. Le Duc is bearish for that reason, too. I rationalize occasional flights, and avoid especially fragile environments, but I'm not a wilderness adventurer anyway.

"I want to see the Earth before I'm under it", an elder woman told me at Elk Lake Lodge, as she shouldered her daypack, "and I consider 70 middle-aged."

As for the 100 Ontarions: should they cross your path, a sharp clap usually scatters them.