Ever notice that travel guides seem to be speaking only to those who are on a “Gap Year” or spreading some wild oats before beginning their career after college? Or, they offer tours and travel hints for seniors, touting air-conditioned buses and wheelchair accessible museums. There is not much out there for middle-aged people who are between all night partying and breakfast buffets.

So, when, at fifty, my husband and I (along with our nineteen-year-old daughter) began to plan for a backpacking trip around the world for a year (which became two), we found out we had to take the guide books for twenty-somethings and tweak them to our own needs. Next week’s guide series is a result of learning the hard way and modifying the suggestions of the mainstream guidebooks. I think that George Bernard Shaw said it best when he stated, “Youth is wasted on the young.”

Choose to experience youth at any age! I don’t necessarily mean become old hippies who never grew up and put beads at the end of gray dreadlocks. Of course, if that is your thing, I’m not judgin’, but I am speaking to the work-a-day folks who worked a nine-to-five while raising children and now it’s time to start crossing items off the bucket list.

There is a glory of traveling light in the afterlife of children and family obligations that cannot be appreciated in the pre-children era of our lives. I hope that this series encourages an alternative travel style to what is normally offered to mid-lifers. There are the downfalls of bad knees and weak bladders but these these pitfalls can be circumvented with the right planning and preparedness.

Get out there, it’s a big beautiful world, and it’s waiting for you,

Andi

P.S. Don’t miss out on The Seven Things Guide Books Don’t Tell You coming next week.