The Single Traveler

The single traveler can find much to feel good about these days. One of them is not the single supplement that tour companies and cruise ships charge for the passenger traveling alone.

Some day there will be second thoughts about this unwarranted charge that can run up to two times the single rate under double occupancy quotes. However, some companies are reducing the single rates to one and one half double occupancy. So maybe progress is coming.

Now for the good news. According to travel expert Mary Beth Bond in her research on women travelers, the number of single women 35 and older totals more than 28 million in the last census. She also reports that 32 million single Americans traveled at least once a year. During my 30 years of traveling I have observed that women either venture out on their own or join a group of like minded people.

According to AllStates' Financial's Cost of Leisure Index Report, travel is the most highly-rated leisiure activity for boomers who are curious about the world and have an urge to strike out on new adventures while they have the energy and resources to make it possible.

I've noted in recent years the increasing number of articles about the boomer travel trade and how they spend more and are up for choosing more unique travel experiences. So we've finally been discovered.

Many of us have traveled to the 'tried and true' destinations in our younger years and now seek out places on a bucket list that suggests more challenging destinations.

Exotic international travel is still the domain of the older traveler and you are likely to find boomers in the majority on trips like the one I recently made, on the Trans Siberian Railway -- the longest railway in the world.

Starting in Moscow, I moved across Siberia, into Mongolia and ended in Beijing. This 16-day journey includes off-the-train touring and ample opportunity to meet and make friends with fellow travelers from all over the world, a majority of whom are way over 50!

This remarkable trip offered plenty of time to share a cornucopia of breathtaking landscapes across two continents.

There is little need to feel lonely or fearful on a trip like this one because of plenty of other passengers and their interest in getting to know each other at mealtimes and during excursions. A retreat to your cabin is always an option when you want to be "alone."

One of the benfits of single travel is the chance to change plans or itineraries without the consent of a travel partner. In other words if you feel like sleeping in on a day that had called for a sunrise wake-up call for a special tour, you can cancel and do something else.

I, for one, am likely to change my mind about travel activities every day, and getting consent from a travel partner without some aggrevation can be a problem. Enough said about that.

The over 50 crowd in the U.S. is growing exponentially, and the singles who inhabit this universe announce that they are making themselves the citizens of the world that their parents never were.

 

 

 

Follow Regina Fraser and Pat Johnson on Twitter: www.twitter.com/GranniesOnSafar

Comments

[kojoman]

12:27 PM on 11/22/2011

Odyssey of a single senior traveler: http://mysankofa.shutterbugstorefront.com/g/

PS: although there were(@) travel adventures that I had a travel mate, which beautiful, and times when it was best I traveled alone, like my first time to Africa, which was a 3 weeks vacation to Ghana that ended eleven (11) years later. The photos shown in my online galleries was taken 31 years after my first visit.. Next on my agenda is either Japan, South Africa or a 10 to 14 days (island-hopping) cruise around the Caribbean, photo-journalist trip of which I'll later create oil & watercolor paintings, for future exhibits.

[Yvette TN]

02:50 PM on 10/12/2011

As an only child, I have never allowed my "oneness" to keep me from adventure. If I waited for someone to go with me, then there is much of the world that I would still be waiting to see, food to eat, etc. At 20, I bought a one-way ticket to Europe and headed off to sights that I'd been reading about since I was 12. My experience was brilliant! Being a single female, I asked other backpacker's advice about safety, so I knew what areas to avoid. There were slave/drug boats running up the coast to the South of France, kidnapping healthy men/women, selling them into servitude. Sounds like an Indiana Jones movie, doesn't it? Did it stop me? No! But I have an increased awareness from asking the right questions and paying attention.

I had one of the best times in Ireland after meeting a group of people on the boat from France. We spent two weeks sharing in an Irish adventure, sleeping on kitchen floors in a youth hostel because of the International Jazz Festival had every room in town sold out, kissing the Blarney Stone and laughing hysterically because we found the worst toilet paper at a Museum in Dublin (it was literally wax paper). We were traveled together, but still independent of one another, no one was bothered if someone chose to do something on their own. No judgment but lots of great sharing.

[E K KADIDDLEHOPPER]

04:12 AM on 10/11/2011

These same people who do not want us to have fast ferries do not want us to have high-speed rail. There is an ignorant, backward segment that does not want us to have ANY passenger rail. Although our slim AMTRAK system had a passenger increase of over 6% this past year, there are those in Congress who want to withdraw ALL funding for AMTRAK and deprive our people of this comfortable, safe, efficient, and virtually pollution-free method of travel. We are fast falling behind developed nations, such as Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, China, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Belgium, England, Netherlands and others in high-speed rail. Nations now building or planning to build efficient high-speed rail include Russia, Kazahkstan, Turkey, Poland, Czech Republic, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Portugal, Austria, Thailand, Malaysia, Mexico, India, Brazil, Ukraine, Argentina, Australia, Laos, Myanmar, South Africa, Morrocco, etc. It is a shame that our elected representatives will not allow our nation efficient and comfortable high-speed rail!
There is a direct correlation between education and high-speed rail. The United States is falling behind in education, and our elected representatives refuse us high-speed rail. Europe, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, China and others are on the upward curve in education, and they have high-speed rail. Central America, South America, Africa and Middle Eastern nations have low education levels, and they have no high-speed rail presently. Most internet scams and illegal drugs come from these areas of low education.

[GHarry]

04:19 PM on 10/10/2011

America needs more relatively fast sea ferries like those found in Europe and Asia. It's ridiculous that we can't travel from the Southern mainland to the Yucatan or Caribbean destinations without flying or taking a cruise ship. The reason, obviously, is influence wielded by the airlines and cruiselines, and the obsession with terrorism has just made that situation worse. It's just another example of how America's crony capitalism is actually causing this country to fall behind other nations in providing basic services.