My happy childhood is now, damn good health, enough money to travel.
2023 was Ecuador, Bhutan/Tiger's Nest
2024 was Iceland, Madeira
2025 was Australia, Peru/Machu Pichu, Vietnam/Cambodia/Angkor Wat
This year will be Italy, South Africa/Zimbabwe/Victoria Falls, Japan
Bucket list is: Antarctica, Norway/Pulpit Rock, Denmark/Viking museums, Greece, River trip on the Nile.
Don't plan on settling for cruises until I'm decrepit in my nineties, just turned 70, so far 20 years since my stroke.
The biggest mistake older travelers make, according to Rick Steves
On Feb. 23, Rick Steves will be the keynote speaker at the San Francisco Chronicle's Aging and Longevity Summit.
And on May 1, he's departing for a 50-day trip. It's hardly a vacation: He starts working from the minute the plane takes off. And when he returns, he says, "I'm going to be younger than when I left."
Steves believes travel keeps you young - the real "Fountain of Youth," he calls it. And the bestselling guidebook author and TV and radio host says there are plenty of ways to keep your mind and body honed to travel the world at any age.
The Aging and Longevity Summit is sold out of in-person tickets, but you can buy a ticket here to watch the livestream on Feb. 23.
Ahead of the summit, I had the chance to talk to Steves about his travel tips for making the most of travel at any age.
"I'm excited to be coming to San Francisco for this talk," he said. "For retired travelers who are young at heart, but they've got to deal with the reality of, ‘We're not kids anymore' - there's a lot of practical ideas that I can share."
Here are a few of them.
(This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.)
JR: A lot of people save up and plan to travel in retirement. What advice do you have for seniors who are making plans to see the world?
RS: You have to have a certain attitude when you travel. People have their physical realities. If you're not nimble anymore, well, you've got to travel a little differently.
But having said that, two takeaways I've had from tour guiding and taking people well into their retirement to Europe is: 1) it's never too late to have a happy childhood, and 2) Age only matters if you're a cheese. And those are the themes of my talk when I come to town for the Chronicle.
The most grueling thing about European travel these days is the heat and the crowds of summer. You've really gotta take that seriously. It's hot and it's crowded, and frankly, it can be miserable. So if you are an older traveler, you're much better off bundling up and going off season. In Europe, there's no bad weather, just inappropriate clothing.
I'm 70 years old. I should be retired, but I like my work too much. So I just keep working, but I keep traveling. And for me, travel is my fountain of youth. I'm going on a 50-day trip starting May 1. That's almost two months. And I'm going to be go, go, going. And when I come home, I'm going to be younger than when I left.
What are your top European destinations for seniors, especially on a budget?
If I told you Portugal was the best budget place in Europe, and you're Greek and you wanted to go to Greece, that would be bad advice. Your best "budget place" is to travel smartly where your travel dreams are taking you.
If you're of Irish heritage and you want to take the kids to Ireland, that's the best budget destination. If you're a real World War II buff and you want to go to Normandy, that's your best budget destination. If you love art, Italy is your best budget destination, even though Italy is a more expensive country. But there's plenty of ways to travel cheaply in these countries if you just use your guidebook and do a little planning.
Is there a travel habit you see older Americans hang on to that makes trips harder than it needs to be?
Yeah: You worry about little things. So many people, they're experts at anxiety. And they sit in the hotel room thinking, "What can I be anxiety-stricken with," you know? Just remember, thieves target Americans, and older ones are just ideal. So you're not going to be mugged, but you're going to - if you're sloppy - you're going to lose your phone or your wallet or your purse.
So just leave it in the hotel room. I've never had anything stolen from my hotel room. The most dangerous place for your valuables is with you on the streets of Europe. And that doesn't mean you need to be paranoid. It just means you need to be on the ball.
Another tip: A taxi or an Uber can be a very good investment if you're older. It saves time, and time is a very valuable resource. You can have a taxi pick you up at your hotel and drop you at the next hotel an hour away. It can be a good investment if you've got the money.
I pretty routinely take a taxi from one city to the next. It might cost me $150, but it'll save me half a day and a lot of sweat. And the cost of the taxi is minimized by the cost of going to the train station, taking the train, and then going from the train to the hotel. I can go from hotel to hotel by taxi in an hour or less. It's an unthinkable splurge, you might think. But! It's actually a nice budget tip if you value your time, and if there's two of you to split the cost.
Have you begun to make any age-related adjustments in your travel plans, or are there any changes you foresee making in the future?
Don't do long hikes without walking sticks, hiking poles. I love hiking poles. I go on an extended one-week hike every year in the Alps and I can't imagine doing it without hiking poles. You can rent those at any mountain town in Europe.
Are there any other devices, gadgets or other things that you always pack with you that you think travelers might not think of, especially older travelers?
I like my noise reduction headphones, so people don't talk to me on the flight. Because I've got work to do. I don't want to be impolite, but I'm not there to be social.
Are there any non-monetary ‘investments' that you recommend people make if they want to keep traveling as they age? Fitness, learning, health, relationships?
You don't need to be a weightlifter, but you need to be in good walking shape. So walking and yoga would be really important.
And I think the more understanding you bring to your sightseeing, the more rewarding it will be. So I can't get you up the Leaning Tower of Pisa for anything less than everybody else pays. You'll pay 15 bucks or whatever to go visit the Leaning Tower. But I can triple your joy if you can learn what I know about the place, just to understand what was going on years ago when that was built.
On the topic of learning, how do you stay so up-to-date on what to do and see and know about in so many different places?
I go to Europe for 90 days a year, and the idea is to update my guidebook. I work with 100 people in Edmonds, and I'm doing the same thing I was doing back when I was a college kid: I go Europe, I make mistakes, I learn from mistakes, I take notes in hopes that people can learn from my mistakes rather than their own.
I celebrate when I get ripped off. They don't know who they just ripped off. I'm going to learn that scam, and take it home, and teach people what to look out for.
The big part of what I do is I hit and I miss and I hit, I miss, I hit and I bring home the hits and I write them up in hopes that people who like to travel like I do can learn from my experience and have a better batting average and hit and hit every time.
Because we Americans have the shortest vacations in the rich world. And we all want to see more than what we should. We always want to pack in too much. So it's my job to help people design their itineraries so that they enjoy maximum travel thrills for every mile, minute, and dollar on their precious vacation.
What is your advice on travel planning for multi-generational groups? What kinds of trips or destinations are the best if you've got seniors and active young people and also kids, where everyone can be together? A cruise?
I think a cruise is a great idea. I love cruising for a lot of reasons. I made a TV show about cruising. You can watch it for free at my website, along with a two-hour lecture about cruising.
On a cruise ship, let's say there are 3,000 tourists. One thousand of them would just be looking for a floating alternative to Vegas. One third of them would be bucket-list kind of travelers, and they just want to see famous things and get back on the boat.
And then one third of them are real travelers, that like the idea of sailing at night while you sleep and every day having eight hours in a totally different place. That's who I write my cruise guidebooks for, is for the travelers who are enjoying the cruise as an opportunity to toggle from floating American-style resort to European adventure.
The cool thing about a cruise ship is you can take Grandma and Grandpa, you can take the kids. Everybody can have a lot of fun. You've got that independence, and then you get together for dinner. It's beautiful, it's utopian, I think it's great.
You are my dad's personal travel guru. He said when they did a cruise last year, their ship did not offer any excursions to Rosenborg Castle in Denmark, but he knew that was a Rick Steves ‘three star' destination. And so my parents went off privately and did it. He said it was fantastic, it was so, so good.
Good for him. He knows the value of good information, that really empowers you. And he also understands probably now that there's no incentive with a cruise company or the typical tour company to get to free you with information. They would rather keep you on the bus and so you're eating off of their menu, which makes sense. But if you're an independent-minded person, it's nice to have the power that information gives you.
Are there any other ideas or tips you're looking forward to sharing at the summit?
It's really important to stay right downtown in the action so you can get to your hotel and out of there whenever you like.
And the more you understand what you're looking at, the more you enjoy it. Take advantage of local tours that give you experience.
The measure of a good traveler is how many people do you meet, and how many experiences do you have. It's kind of fundamental. Not ‘how many things do you check off your bucket list.' And how you travel determines how you carbonate the experience by meeting locals and by having real hands-on experiences.
Here's one of mine: I was just in the Italian Riviera a couple months ago with my girlfriend and we were crushing the basil leaves, and crushing the garlic into it, and then crushing the olive oil into that, and making beautiful pesto sauce to put on the pasta. And then we made the pasta, and then we ate it. That was a beautiful experience.
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