Those of you who are travelling - or plan to - in retirement

[LornaDuh]

Where do you go? When and for how long? Where do you stay - hotel, airbnb, campervan, cruise ship?

Do you get homesick? Do you have pets? What about your garden?

What are your future travel plans?

Just curious as it's mentioned quite a lot of this board 😊

Planning ahead too. Would love to spend longer periods of time abroad, so that we feel we are living in another country.

Finding it really difficult to source rentals for a longer (short let) and paying per night through Airbnb or similar is too expensive. Thinking two months each year.

Any advice on how to find rentals much appreciated, from those of you who do thus.

No pets now which makes travelling easier. Away a lot but these days don't do long haul. Recently back from 6 week road trip to France and Spain, off again mid Nov to Spain for another month. A week in Madiera in January. Planning Nice and the Riviera in June and Spain again in the autumn. Will probably do something in Italy and /or Greece in the Spring plus a couple of city breaks. Never go outside UK in July and August but might have a few nights away somewhere. Usually a mix of Airbnb and hotels for some stops, mainly Paradores in Spain.
Don't get homesick but like being home when we are. We avoid being away in school hols if we can as it's cheaper and DS is a teacher so easier to spend time with him then. Neighbours keep an eye on the house.

OddsReally usually fairly easy to find out of season monthly rentals via an established rental agent in the resorts you're interested in. Some offer good discounts for stays of 28 nights or more. Some Airbnbs offer these too. Conversely, some places will only allow a maximum of 28 nights per booking as after that the tenant often gains rights to stay. You might find it easier to keep your stays to a month and go twice.

We take turns, our dd covers the farm and various businesses whilst we are away, we in turn look after her crazy animals while she works or travels abroad.

I think we balance it pretty fairly, a cancer diagnosis in the mix is a bugger though.

DH has just been sailing in Greece, DD is working away in Tunisia now, DD and I then have a month in the Caribbean.

New year dd is working in California, whilst DH and I plan Scotland in the Spring and there’s talks or Norway/Sweden for maybe dh/dd next summer.

DH joined me in retirement a year ago but where he worked messed up so he actually worked till Christmas. He also worked a further 6 weeks as no one else could do what he did. his Mother was also diagnosed with cancer so he spent six weeks caring for her a couple of hundred miles away.

So our 12 week trip in our newly bought Motorhome became 6 weeks, 3 different ones instead of the one bigger trip. DS looks after the cat but has a new GF so it’s a bit trickier as he lives partially at her house now. We are also planning a trip to Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, Malaysia and Korea, we can stay with relatives in HK. I also fancy another cruise. We had planned to be away six months of the year over the next 5 years but MIL cancer and I think early stages of dementia may scupper this.

Our pet died so it has suddenly given us the freedom to be a lot more flexible about timings. This means we will be able to take advantage of holiday offers.

We have semi-independently booked a month long Canadian fly drive for next year using a mixture of trailfinders and lodges. It’s an easy country to get around and so much to do.

We did a European river cruise in September and though it initially seemed pricey all the tours are included and food was great on board. So other than the occasional coffee or drink off the boat we didn’t actually spend much more than the holiday cost.

So Canada is June and I would really love to do an inter rail holiday next September. I follow an inter rail Facebook group trying to get ideas but if anyone has done Switzerland I would love any ideas/plan/tips