Prioritizing Rest for Older Adventurers
As seasoned mature travelers, we've learned that sleep is
the ultimate travel hack for older explorers.
Skipping sleep,
especially on long flights or when adjusting to new time zones
can create havoc in moods, energy level and even decision
making. Whenever possible we no longer take red-eye flights. Air
travel has become more complicated in recent years and it's
enough to handle the new requirements, the lines, and the
disorientation of time zones without adding severe sleep
schedule interruptions. Besides, what's the rush?
A well-rested brain is a clear-thinking brain. Proper sleep
fuels your energy levels too. Travel can be stressful and sleep
deprivation just amplifies it. Getting enough rest keeps your
mood balanced, and that's a good thing.
Billy and Akaisha in Sorrento,
Italy
Also, we don't
push ourselves and we schedule rest days.
Sometimes an
afternoon nap is the height of luxury, and can be the pick-me-up
needed for the rest of the day, especially if there is an
evening event planned. We’re retired,
so why not enjoy it? Allowing
time for rest instead of continuous motion can be delicious.
Now we allow two down days to get organized and rested after a
long-distance trip. This means we learn about our neighborhood,
do some food shopping and just get settled into our new place.
Sightseeing, museums and other attractions can wait until we are
ready.
In years past we’d blow into a new location without a care, knowing
we would find
some kind of hotel arrangements. Now, we
are more inclined to reserve a room for our first night in a new
city or town, or at least have a definite address where our taxi can
take us. Once we arrive, we can scout out a more suitable hotel if
we aren’t pleased with our first choice. We also check the beds for
firmness, get a quiet room off the street if possible and we pay a
bit more for better quality.
For our last two trips to Europe we fully booked everything in
advance. It was too risky to show up only to find many places
booked.
Billy and Akaisha in
Chacala, Nayarit, Mexico
Fueling the Machine
We don’t skip meals and run on
empty.
Solid, quality, protein-based
meals and snacks have always
been a focus for us. We’re the machine that makes
our
lives run, and this machine needs proper fuel. Light-headedness,
indecision and fatigue due to lack of nutrition
contributes to needless bickering and is something we avoid at all
costs. Why make things harder on ourselves?
We are sure to eat at
regular intervals and to bring travel food with us on buses,
trains, planes and - even if we don't use it - we have it stocked in our
hotel fridge for another time. Many times we just want to relax in
the room first and having something to eat is a major plus. Dehydration is
another important consideration and we remember to bring bottled
water with us wherever we go.
Divide up Duties - Teamwork Makes the Travel Dream Work
We
travel full time, and it's more
pleasurable when duties are shared.
Destinations and travel routes
must be determined, and figuring out which sort of transport we'll take
and whether or not visas are required all need to be researched.
Tickets might have to be purchased
ahead of time, lodging located, and arrangements for financial
management to cover expenses while on the road has to be thought
through. Even packing travel food is an essential element of
successful journeying. In your partnership, decide who will take
care of what, realizing that each of these categories is important.
Consider other
travel necessities like local currency exchange, and cell phone
plans and the ability to connect to the internet.
Billy and Akaisha in
Cefalu,
Italy
When we leave our hotel room we
have a system that prevents sour surprises.
Billy goes down to firm
up our bill, and I do a "room check" or "walk through" before we
turn in our keys. I look under the bed, in all the drawers, in the
bathroom, and on all the shelves to be sure we haven’t left
something important behind. These days it can mean extra electronic
cables, a router or phone chargers. This prevents lost and forgotten items
from becoming an issue and interrupting our travel plans.
When we traveled through both
islands of
New
Zealand on the
Magic Bus, Billy would stay with the
crowd to grab our luggage while I went ahead to choose our room and
pay for it. This allowed us to get both the best choices of rooms and our
bags without wasting time waiting in two lines.
When it comes to choosing lodging, we communicate together what we
need and what we are looking for. Sometimes we want an apartment
with a kitchen, lodging close to the train station or in the center
of town for access to restaurants or museums. Other times we enjoy
the full amenities of a hotel, maid service, a swimming pool and
airport pickup.
It helps to be clear with each other and analyze
what each location offers and how it fits the trip we have planned.
The Adventurer's
Guide to Early Retirement, 5th Edition
A New Perspective
Commit to Paper Instead of to Memory
Making notes of where we have
hidden our valuables in our home base location while we are on the road has
proven important several times.
We write things down on lists instead of
committing them to memory and we’ll email that list to ourselves so we don’t
lose it. Being away from our home bases for months, even a year or more at a
time, can cause us to forget our best and most secret hiding places. If
we put our treasures or documents in such a good place that even WE can’t
remember where they are, returning home can be a stress-filled event.
Now we
simply check our list and refresh our memories.
Less Is More - Embrace Slow Travel
We are the "Less
is More" type
of traveler, and it is our emphasized style even today.
We don’t have to pack
all the action into one day just so we can say we did it. Instead, we like our
time to be leisurely, not jammed-packed with something new to do every 2 hours
on the clock. Staying longer in one location and allowing more room for an event
on our calendar can provide many rewarding surprises and allow pleasant detours
to occur. In meeting other travelers, many times we learn about places we might want
to go.
Billy and Akaisha in
Brindisi,
Italy
Consciously deciding to make
our travel days shorter when we are on the road has proven to be
rewarding also.
It still takes us close to thirty hours to get to
Asia from our place in
Arizona, but if we are traveling on the
ground, we break up our destinations into manageable segments to
make it possible for us to enjoy the journey itself. It’s not a
race, and we’re not in competition with other travelers. We prefer
this easy going approach.
For instance, while traveling by bus in
Mexico
we'll split up a 13 hour bus ride into a couple of days. This way we are
not worn out for our destination, we don’t arrive late at night with all the
problems that it entails, and we get to
explore stopover towns along the way.
As you may have read before, we
are
Car Free
so we utilize public transport or a ride sharing service wherever we go. Leaving the
driving to others reduces our stress. We don’t have to worry about vehicle
maintenance, where the next filling station is, if there will be a break down,
how to fix our vehicle in a foreign country, or whether we have taken a wrong
turn someplace.
Packing Makes Perfect
As seasoned travelers, we've learned that packing light and strategically is key to comfortable
and efficient adventures.
These days
we find ourselves enjoying day packs and a small rollie.
The daypacks are lighter and easier to schlep around, and the rolling luggage
can go in the overhead bin in planes. They are easily placed in the trunk by the taxi driver, or in
the luggage area of the
Premier Bus Lines we take in Mexico.
For efficiency
and convenience, we place the same items in the same location in our luggage each
time. There is no jumble.
Knowing exactly where
everything is minimizes lost or misplaced items, allowing us to relax and enjoy
our travels.
We are less likely to forget an item or misplace it, because it has its own
spot.
The Adventurer's
Guide to Chapala Living, 3rd Edition
There are
many advantages of having daypacks with us. While on the road, we can can carry anything of
importance close to us at all times. This may be our medicines, our digital equipment, our
maps or travel food.
Daypacks also make going to
the market
a breeze, as we can easily carry our items back to our accommodation.
Travel Tech & Tools:
Staying Connected & Organized
Over the years, we have found
that what we pack has changed also.
We have embraced technology and smart
systems to stay organized and connected on the road. Personal devices ensure
seamless communication and access to information. Vitamins, medications and health aids like a
TENS unit are essential for maintaining well-being while traveling.
We use our online Yahoo! Calendar to mark
important dates like visa renewals
or when to catch that plane. We also send us reminders of automatic payments
taken out of our accounts or when to send physical checks so that we can stay financially current.
We create
our physical checks online through our Fidelity brokerage firm who then mails them out
for us to the recipient we have selected. This same brokerage firm also has
the money-saving service of refunding our ATM fees from each withdrawal, and
that amount
adds up over the year.
We also
have a US-based phone number that we have purchased through Number Barn. With call
forwarding, we can receive a message from anyone who calls us and then we can
return that call the next time we are hooked up to the internet.
These days
we also have an excellent mail service called
Traveling Mailbox, which
lets us know whenever we receive mail at our US located address. They will
scan our mail and we can view it online from anywhere in the world. Or they will
forward a parcel to any address we give them in any country we may be visiting.
They will also deposit any checks that we might receive.
Billy
and Akaisha in Matera,
Italy
Travel Smart, Travel Safe:
Daypack Security Tips
For
safety, we place our valuables in a daypack and wrap them up with a PacSafe.
These PacSafes are rugged, made out of stainless steel cable and we connect the
wrapped daypack to something permanent in our room. This might be some plumbing
pipe, a wall attached TV stand, or an iron bed. While PacSafe helps, no method
is foolproof. Remember to remain vigilant of your gear, money and passport, and
avoid displaying valuables openly. Trust your instincts.
We’ve had
34 fruitful years
of world travel and look forward to many more. Even though we have aged, and
some of our methods and equipment have changed, we’ve adapted so that we can
continue our chosen lifestyle with both pleasure and ease.
Remember, if we can do it, you
can too!
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About the Authors
Billy and Akaisha Kaderli are
recognized retirement experts and internationally published authors on
topics of finance, medical tourism and world travel. With the wealth of
information they share on their award winning website RetireEarlyLifestyle.com,
they have been helping people achieve their own retirement dreams since
1991. They wrote the popular books, The
Adventurer’s Guide to Early Retirement and Your
Retirement Dream IS Possible available on their website
bookstore or
on Amazon.com.
Retire
Early Lifestyle appeals to a different
kind of person – the person who prizes their
independence, values their
time, and who doesn’t want to mindlessly
follow the crowd.
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