Where do I actually want to travel in retirement?

[Onda]

I am starting to think that my ideal retirement travel is not really about checking off famous destinations or doing difficult “bucket list” trips.
Maybe what I really want is much simpler:
Comfortable walking weather, ideally around 60–70°F.
Safe places where I do not feel stressed.
Beautiful historic cities.
Good local food.
Enough time to walk slowly, sit in cafés, and not rush.
By that standard, Europe looks very attractive.
For example:
Seville in January sounds quite nice to me. Mild weather, history, tapas, plazas, and long walks without summer heat.
Madeira in May also sounds very appealing. Ocean, flowers, levada walks, good seafood, and comfortable temperatures.
Norway in July might be a good way to escape summer heat while enjoying scenery, safety, fjords, and long daylight.
And maybe sometimes I just want to walk to the Mezquita in Córdoba in March, enjoy the city, have lunch, and not feel like I need to “maximize” the trip.
I am realizing that retirement travel may be less about adventure and more about matching the season, climate, safety, food, and pace to what I actually enjoy.
For those of you already retired or planning retirement travel:
did your travel preferences change?
Do you still want big trips, or do you find yourself preferring slower, safer, more comfortable places with good walking weather?

 

[COcheesehead]

Bolzano Italy in Summer. We’re walkers. To avoid crowds in big cities, (Paris) we walk the alleys. Best way to discover.

 

[Fermion]

Honestly I could spend most days walking on the beach in Texas waiting for Starship launches.

 

[Souschef]

In our retirement. we traveled extensively. We did both ocean and river cruises, group trips, and individual trips.
We enjoyed all our travels, especially since I got to share it with my new wife (married in Santorini in 2007).
My profile has the link to our trip stories, so you may get some ideas or inspiration.

 

[susswein]

Bangkok

 

[MC Rider]

There's a few national parks and other interesting places less than a days drive from me.
I want to do more of that. I have a lifetime senior pass. No airplanes needed.

 

[marko]

You mentioned Seville. It was 55 years ago but I spent a summer alone (sort of) in Triana. Nice area, great weather, easy people, not touristy. I'd like to think its still the same.

Spent the following four summers in a small, off-the-map seaside town in Italy. The place had it all.

Costa Rica is nice but it can be on the warm side. Cotswolds are great but maybe a little too quiet. Croatia?

Lived in Norway for six summer months.....meh.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

I remember in the old days we had several people who were perpetual travelers always moving from one place to another they tended to prefer South American countries and some East Asian countries where their money would go a lot further some of the stuff sounded a little sketchy like living in Argentina when their economy was really going down the drain it was like 10 cents on the dollar for everything you bought and everything you paid for. I have to admit there was some appeal to having everything you want in a couple of suitcases. I've lived in the same house for 20 years now and I just had a company come by to take almost everything out so I can never replace my flooring and paint the house and then buy some new stuff I think that cost me more than it cost me to buy all the stuff in the first place. But I had eight dogs and four cats and I don't know how many children running through this house for the first 10 of that 20 years my kid had all of the video game consoles and computers and stuff and we had Nerf guns and super soakers and all that stuff I kind of miss all the noise. I haven't been on a plane since the year 2000 commercially I never saw the TSA just private plans that my former employer except me around on until I retired in 2001. I don't think the TSA and I would have gotten along very well the worst thing I had to do the last time I flew commercially was take my laptop computer out and turned it on they weren't fond of me telling him you know I could make a perfectly functional laptop it still had a bomb and it don't you? And you could yell at the ticketing agents if they were jerking you around. Good times good times

 

[audreyh1]

We generally travel to locations when the weather is good for lots of outdoors activity. Long days too.

 

[audreyh1]

I remember in the old days we had several people who were perpetual travelers always moving from one place to another they tended to prefer South American countries and some East Asian countries where their money would go a lot further some of the stuff sounded a little sketchy like living in Argentina when their economy was really going down the drain it was like 10 cents on the dollar for everything you bought and everything you paid for. I have to admit there was some appeal to having everything you want in a couple of suitcases. I've lived in the same house for 20 years now and I just had a company come by to take almost everything out so I can never replace my flooring and paint the house and then buy some new stuff I think that cost me more than it cost me to buy all the stuff in the first place. But I had eight dogs and four cats and I don't know how many children running through this house for the first 10 of that 20 years my kid had all of the video game consoles and computers and stuff and we had Nerf guns and super soakers and all that stuff I kind of miss all the noise. I haven't been on a plane since the year 2000 commercially I never saw the TSA just private plans that my former employer except me around on until I retired in 2001. I don't think the TSA and I would have gotten along very well the worst thing I had to do the last time I flew commercially was take my laptop computer out and turned it on they weren't fond of me telling him you know I could make a perfectly functional laptop it still had a bomb and it don't you? And you could yell at the ticketing agents if they were jerking you around. Good times good times

Cute Fuzzy Bunny, is that really you!?! Very long time no see!

 

[RetiredHappy]

We travel ALOT before and after we retired. For summer/winter, we have our summer and snow bird places in the US that we spend one to two months every year. We have done a ton of cruises in Europe and Asia, land trips in Europe and Asia. The more "boring" places that we go to ad-hoc are in the US like Hawaii, Hilton Head etc.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Cute Fuzzy Bunny, is that really you!?! Very long time no see!

It sure is what's left of me anyway now that I'm actually retirement age I'm kind of glad to be at the point where people aren't asking me why I'm retired and the good old what do you do all day?

 

[audreyh1]

It sure is what's left of me anyway now that I'm actually retirement age I'm kind of glad to be at the point where people aren't asking me why I'm retired and the good old what do you do all day?

Yeah, I turned 65 last year two years ago.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Yeah, I turned 65 last year.

My vote is getting old sucks. I sure like my thirties and forties. I was in great shape back then when I was doing most of my posting here. I remember putting a strap around a refrigerator and leaning forward and carrying it up the stairs in my front yard into the kitchen. I can barely move the sucker now. But I can afford to hire big burly guys in their twenties and thirties and forties to do all that stuff now. I actually tried assisted living in a fancy place the cooks really good food we have an apartment. Nope not ready for that yet I do kind of miss it though on occasion having somebody come by four times a day and giving you your medicine taking you down to the buffet of Hawaiian BBQ that was the specialty of the day. That it's ups and downs but I'm not ready for it yet I'm enjoying sitting in my backyard drinking a beer right now. Okay all right it's my second beer don't kill me

 

[audreyh1]

We’re still hanging in there, still traveling, had a new house built this year. Hope to keep up the pace and activities for a while longer yet.

 

[Drake3287]

We've been to most of the "regular" European country's but still go back to Switzerland often. It's sort of the Disneyland of European countries. Clean, safe and beautiful not to meation most people speak English.

 

[SnowballCamper]

My recently adopted method to pick a travel location is by air quality index. Yes, lower is better, and zero is great. There are usually very few people near the zero locations, and they are very peaceful.

 

[FD1000]

We started traveling right after we got married. Our first major trip was two weeks at a ski school in southern Germany.

A year later, we spent two months traveling through the U.S., Canada, and Hawaii.

Two years after that, we spent two months exploring the Far East.

Then we immigrated to the United States. During the next 16 years, we took annual family vacations of three weeks or more with our kids, traveling extensively across the country. We've visited 49 states so far. Alaska is still on the list for the future.

In the last few years before the kids left home, we tried several Caribbean cruises, both with and without them. We mostly disliked the experience. For us, cruises were too focused on food and too light on meaningful experiences.

Once the kids went to college, our travel shifted almost entirely overseas. For nearly 20 years, we've focused on international travel, and Europe has become our favorite destination by far.

We like to take our time. In smaller countries, we typically spend about two weeks driving and exploring. In larger countries, we spend three weeks or more. One of our favorite activities is joining free walking tours, where you can truly experience the sights, sounds, smells, and character of a city. We also enjoy short hikes of 4-5 miles while traveling between major attractions.

You'll never find us on a cruise unless it's the only way or we get old. We prefer immersing ourselves in local culture, trying regional foods, walking the streets, meeting local people, and staying in unique accommodations. We usually walk more than 10 miles a day in cities. We stay in highly rated local B&Bs, typically with Booking.com ratings of at least 8.5, rather than paying two or three times more for large chain hotels.

I do all the driving and enjoy every minute of it. Having a car gives us the freedom to stop whenever something interesting catches our attention and explore opportunities we never planned for.

During the last three years, we decided to focus on countries where people drive on the left side of the road. We started with more than three weeks in the UK, followed by two weeks in Ireland, three weeks in New Zealand, and three and a half weeks in Australia.

We generally avoid countries that we consider less safe, which unfortunately eliminates much of South America and Africa from our travel plans.

What's left on our list?

In Europe, we still have several countries to visit and more regions to explore in countries we've already seen, especially Italy.

In Asia, we're considering India, Cambodia, Vietnam, Singapore, and South Korea. China also looks fascinating, although we haven't researched it enough yet to make a decision.

Back in 1985, we visited Thailand, Burma, the Philippines, Japan, and Hong Kong. Thailand was our favorite by far, and we'd gladly return. Japan was the least interesting destination for us personally, and we have little interest in revisiting the others.

 

[Midpack]

I lived in Germany for four years and traveled to most Western European cities/countries. Loved most of them so I doubt you could go wrong there.

We lived on Okinawa for three years and visited several countries near there as well. Also very interesting.

So ‘been there done that’ for international travel. I was curious about China and New Zealand, but not enough to make the trips now.

Now our travel is mostly New England and the east coast. We’ve lived in eight different US cities/states, been many places across the US in our lifetimes and many east coast cities/states over the past seven years. Our favorites are Nantucket in September, Hilton Head October/November or Newport RI in Fall. Charleston SC and Annapolis MD are also worth the trip at least once IME.

 

[mystang52]

Before ER, I only wanted warm weather, "beach type," vacations. After ER, DW was still w*rking so that trend continued. But now we're doing more sightseeing trips. We've been to Europe 3 times so far, and in 10 days headed for a Baltic cruise. But opposite of OP, we do enjoy the bucket list type of sites. For me, this included Normandy, Stonehenge, Pisa (well, pretty much all of the Italy we saw). For numerous reasons, we prefer the hit-and-run sightseeing we do, vs stay in one city or area for several days.

 

[DrRoy]

Bolzano Italy in Summer. We’re walkers. To avoid crowds in big cities, (Paris) we walk the alleys. Best way to discover.

We were in Bolzano in 2010, primarily to visit the South Tyrol Archaeology Museum, and see Otzi the Iceman.

 

[DrRoy]

We are 67/66, RE for 9 years, and still doing some fairly big trips every year. We are working on the National Parks as a bucket list. Been to 57 of the 63 so far. The trips are evolving, though. We certainly do not do the pace that we did 10 or more years ago. I do still like to get to scenic locations for landscape photography. A half day of hiking or serious activity is plenty most of the time now, then chill for the rest of the day. We have been going out west for a month each spring since 2018, where we will VRBO in one place for 4-10 days at a time. We then can do the area in depth, but no longer feel like there has to be a big location hit every day. We had a different sort of trip this year, more like you have described. We went to Key West for 5 days. The driving force was to visit Dry Tortugas NP, but the rest of the time was just slowly taking in the town, walk around to see the sights, and sample key lime pie in several places.

 

[old medic]

We started traveling right after we got married.

We had our 1st camping trip together in spring of 1985... weekend in a Pup tent beside the creek where I grew up. By fall we bought a Pop-up camper and its been a blast ever since. Funny thing was we never paid to camp or stayed in a campground until around 2010. The past 10 years or so we have camped 40-60 nights a year traveling a few thousand miles with 2-3 week trips. Mostly east coast, been from the Maine Canadian border to the gulf shores. 2024 we spend 26 days and 2800 miles with 9 different spots. Current set up is our toy hauler and will bring the Harley when we head out west sometime in the next year. Future plans include bumming around the US and Canada with hopes of hitting Alaska for a couple weeks. Hating that we have done minimal camping so far this year, Our regular NY reunion trip is cut to 8 days, but have a 3 week at least 5 spots trip planed end of Oct.
DW isn't a big water person but has some interest in trying a cruise.

 

[tulak]

I’m in Europe now and flying home Monday. I could easily stay another month (or two).

Only downside is that there’s a heatwave going on, but luckily we have minisplits in the Airbnb.

 

[Trailwalker]

We follow the good weather during travel. Camped outside of Des Moines, Iowa where the high temperature will be in the upper 70's and sunny. Home in Tucson is 100 degrees today.