<p>That is true. That makes all the difference, as far as where you go and what you do.</p>
<p>But it does seem that there are ways to travel almost anywhere, at discounted prices. As long as you have lots of airmiles. You can do a round the world ticket with Delta airmiles for only 180K miles. Includes six stopovers anywhere in the world, max of three stopovers in any continent. Stay away from eating out, booking tours.</p>
<p>Hiking in Switzerland ā¦ Ah. Best. If you buy bread and cheese at supermarkets for your lunches, you can save money. Restaurant food is expensive there.</p>
<p>@busdriver11 - What website are you looking at for the last minute cruises? cruisesonly?</p>
<p>Another Rick Steveās fan. Weāve done 4 of his trips and look forward to the next one. So many things I want to do. We want to make sure we do things while weāre still physically capable. As they say about the retirement years: Go go, slow go, no go. </p>
<p>"But it does seem that there are ways to travel almost anywhere, at discounted prices. As long as you have lots of airmiles. You can do a round the world ticket with Delta airmiles for only 180K miles. Includes six stopovers anywhere in the world, max of three stopovers in any continent. Stay away from eating out, booking tours. "</p>
<p>There are places where typical airlines like Delta donāt go and you are at the mercy of local airlines. Flying costs in some areas can be at least as expensive as international flights. Of course, there are trips which donāt offer many choices for where you stay or eat. </p>
<p>Besides taking more expensive trips before I retire, I also want to do things that become increasingly difficult as we age. Iāve already had to curtail what I wanted to do on our vacation in July because of age related fitness issues. There are things that you need to do while youāre still young enough to do them. I suspect that my trips and bucket list is probably different than a lot of people posting.</p>
<p>busdriver, thanks for remind me on the around the world trip. That was one of my bucket list. I donāt like flying long distance so I was planning to do frequent stops with max flying time about 5-6 hours. Iām going to see if I can open some credit cards and get the mileages for first class seating somewhere. It will take some time for doing research.</p>
<p>@dadinator, those prices I pulled off of the Dargal website. I also like perx.com. Some of their deals are only open to interline cruisers, though. But I have also found great deals on the Alaska Airlines website, Delta website, and cruisesonly.</p>
<p>Wow, @hayden, four Rick Steves trips. Which ones? There are some with an itinerary that I love, but it is such a social trip, that I donāt know if I can keep up the social energy for much longer than a week. Physical and mental energy, no problem, but I get drained by being with people for long amounts of time, though the type of people who go on these trips are awesome. I really want to go on more.</p>
<p>DrGoogle, we collect massive amounts of miles on American Express cards. We do the drill where you open up a card, get a huge signing bonus for minimum spend, then cancel the card. A year later, repeat. They have a number of different cards you can do that with, for both of us. Itās a hassle keeping up, but we get thousands of dollars in miles, cash or gift cards every year. We have gotten over 3K cash/gift cards already this year. But I think Amex may have changed their policy so you can only get the signing bonus one time. I keep my eye on thepointsguy.com for the best bonuses. Itās a pain, but itās a lot of money, and we never pay for tickets. Iām such a cheapskate.</p>
<p>If you want to do a round the world trip first class on Delta (WELL worth it), itās 260K miles. They let you book on many of their partner airlines too. This is a little known deal, the round the world ticket, but you could book quite an adventure, inexpensively.</p>
<p>Retirement is going to be great!</p>
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<p>XD</p>
<p>The entirety of the Eurozone has economic problems, likely France is going to be most resilient though due to the positive demographics. France can fix itself. The rest of Europe canāt. And France isnāt going to be the next Spain/Italy/Greece/other disaster in the near term either, the economic situation isnāt good there but itās not that bad. France is also just has weaker booms and subtler busts. </p>
<p>@Vladenschlutteā , on the positive side, the French people that I worked with were extremely well educated and some percentage of them were hard and effective workers. In my experience (at a number of international banks), they stood more on formality and bureaucracy than the rest did, which could be very frustrating for an American-style worker. </p>
<p>Busdriver, we tend to take Rick Steveās tours for those places where we canāt handle the language or where they drive on the left side of the road. The tours weāve done are the Prague & Budapest, Sicily, Scotland, and Turkey. All totally wonderful. </p>
<p>We want to do his Russia and Helsinki next. We canāt spend a lot of time traveling right now as my H will continue to work for a while for specific reasons, so unfortunately we canāt spend too much time on the road just yet. <em>chomps at the bit</em></p>
<p>Yes, Hayden, I think if you go to Russia, it would be best to go with a group like Rick Steves, who know what they are doing and will keep you safe! Iād be pretty careful there right now. I have some friends who did the Sicily tour and just loved it. Hopefully soon youāll get the chance to escape!</p>
<p>Umā¦isnāt it hurricane season? I am not sure I would want to go on a cruise in the carribean. Itās probably cheap because no one wants to cruise when the weather is iffy.</p>
<p>Looking at the Rick Steves tours, they look great but a lot of their itinerary lists severe level for walking. DH has pretty bad kneesā¦ Walks OK but goes down stairs backwards. Is it really that tough?</p>
<p>Singersmom, Iām so sorry. That must be tough. </p>
<p>With regard to walking, I think all of Europe can be a challenge for the severely handicapped. The severe level of walking often refers to amount of walking, and the stairs are pretty much what you would expect from old buildings. You might want to avoid Sicily because itās so mountainous. They have heavy duty stairs to travel between levels in a hillside town. But Prague or Venice for instance would be a snap. </p>
<p>You are responsible for your suitcase in the hotel though. My BIL traveled with us, and he walked with a cane for back problems and had had a kidney transplant. He didnāt have problems except that my H and his sister had to help my BIL with his luggage. Not a problem for us as we travel very light. My philosophy is that I need 4 things: passport, credit card, camera and toothbrush. Everything else is discretionary. </p>
<p>At least even if itās hurricane season, if you leave in a week, you have a good idea of the weather forecast. Thatās the positive for these last minute cruises, I guess.</p>
<p>I think with the Rick Steves trip, they try to make sure that everyone is pretty mobile. However, there are serious variations, just like Hayden says. The towns we went to in Italy, there were a ton of stairs. I actually lost weight on this trip, even with so much pizza and wine. Our tour guide walked really fast, and that irritated me because we had some people in their 70ās who were struggling. They both had knee surgery, so it was tough for them. Much easier for younger people in shape, but this was a tougher tour. Nobody is going to carry your luggage for you, up stairs, and across cobblestone streets. You may walk 2-5 miles a day. One lady we had with us was obese, but she was a good sport and giving it her all. She never complained. I think they just donāt want anyone to go who canāt get around or do a lot of walking, but thereās a large variety. No wheelchairs.</p>
<p>Thanks, this is good to know. We are just getting to where we can travel more. I will be winding down my consulting so can afford to be out of touch for a while. Traveling before DH was older was not an option with kids and colleges, but sounds like that tour, at least in Italy, would have required our 10year ago selves. </p>
<p>Busdriver, your description of keeping up with a fast-walking guide brings back memories. We had a guide named Alfio who was around 6ā5". Watching me try to keep up with him was like watching a toy poodle keep up with a Great Dane. </p>
<p>Cruise ships definitely avoid hurricanes. They go other places if they encounter that. </p>
<p>I think the guides should really temper their pace based on the group. We had this guide called Jamie, who was absolutely awesome, the most amazing historian, but he was far too fast for some of the group. We spent much of the tour making sure he wasnāt losing some of the people. I donāt think I would avoid these tours, SIngersmom, just maybe avoid these tours in the places with tons of steps. </p>
<p>To all the experts here, what is more advantageous to put money away for a 25 year old who is in the low paying teaching profession, a Roth IRA or the 403 (b) plan? I had him start a Roth IRA when he was in college, and currently contributes to the max. 403 (b) has the tax advantage and much higher contribution limit. Maybe he should start the 404(b) plan and put the money there instead. What are your thoughts? Thanks.</p>