“Uberboomer.” Kinda hard to write about yourself as an uberboomer so I’ll just tell my story and let readers decide.
In 2006, husband Jacob and I took complete control of our lives and changed everything. We both quit our well-paying corporate jobs at a point when we should have been thinking of building our pensions and planning for our retirements. I was 46 and Jacob was 51.
We sold our beautiful Los Angeles home at what turned out to be the best time possible before the housing market meltdown. We also purged ourselves of everything we had accumulated in 23 years of marriage. We were left with a single file box of photographs and mementos, two backpacks, a healthy bank account, and a plan to travel around the world for two years.
At this point in our story, people always ask us whether we have kids, so I’ll answer your unasked question right away: No, we only had three cats and we found good homes for them.
During our 26-month ‘round the world trip, we traveled to more than forty countries on six continents and met amazing people: local residents, other world travelers and tourists who wished they could do what we were doing. Most boomers we met said they’d have no idea how to research and plan a trip such as ours because there are so few travel resources available to independent boomer travelers.
I couldn’t have agreed more as we struggled with the lack of information during our pre-trip planning and the two-year journey. We were relying on backpacker guide books and what kids in hostels were telling us. We also read traditional travel books aimed at the more mature market hoping to find a balance between the two extremes.
Once in a while we left the planning to someone else and booked some tours and cruises as these are sometimes the best way to see destinations: Antarctica, the Nile, two weeks in China, and overlanding in Africa. But packaged travel is the exception on such a long trip because of cost, you don’t want to be in groups all the time, and they really don’t give you the depth of experience you desire. We were so frustrated by some of the tours we took: These were lessons in everything the travel and tourism industries shouldn’t do to people our age.
What Traveling Boomers Want
The majority of boomers I’ve spoken to say they look for a combination of intellectual and emotional engagement, mild adventure, reasonable physical activity, safety, and basic comfort. Value is also important as everyone’s watching their dollars because of the recession.
The tourism and travel industries, however, seem to think that all we’re interested in are casinos, luxury spas, shopping, tours and cruises. Or, at the opposite end of the spectrum, they offer sedate tours in which all you do is see things (buildings, people, art), are talked at all day, and offer very little that excite the senses.
Jacob and I both loved the tours aimed at younger travelers—which really should be pitched at boomers as well—because they involved us intellectually and emotionally and usually required some physical activity. For example, we visited a school in Botswana and spent time in the playground and classrooms listening to lessons, teaching English songs to the kids, and buying souvenir trinkets the parents had made for extra income. This was through a tour company that provided breakfast to 145 kids every day of the year to ensure they had at least one meal a day.
It was the realization of how disconnected the travel and tourism industries are from the needs of traveling baby boomers that led to my decision to work with both sides of the issue to ensure better products and services in the future.
The first step has been to work with boomers to make sure they know what they want and need from their travels—as many don’t—as well as how to communicate these to the industry. As consumers, they shouldn’t just settled for whatever’s offered if it’s not what they want and so boomers also need to know how to research and create their own alternatives.
I began coaching individuals, created a workbook with introspection exercises (why you travel, what’s holding you back), and a process to make travel planning easier—all things I wished we’d had when we planned our ‘round the world trip.
The next project was a book on what people can expect when they go to foreign countries because often it’s the fear of the unknown that keeps us from traveling. And it’s not even the big things: “What if there’s nothing I can eat? What if no one understands English? What about all those weird toilets?” The Boomers’ Guide to Going Abroad to Travel | Live | Give | Learn
Oh, I didn’t tell you that: After 26 months of travel, we knew we wanted to continue to live abroad so Jacob received training to become a teacher of English as a Foreign Language. We then lived in Mexico, Costa Rica and China where he taught English and I wrote. I also did “research” which, as an expat, meant learning to deal with all of the challenges of living in another country. I saved my sanity by writing about our travels in two blogs (Baby Boomers Traveling) and about our lives as expatriates (This ExPat Life) on my website and considered every adventure and misadventure fodder for the book.
Back to my crusade to help the travel and tourism industries change their services and products to cater to the boomer market. The second step, after gathering information from boomers on their needs, is to get the message to the industries in question. I bring my expertise on world travel and our needs as boomers to corporations, professional groups and non-profit organizations through consulting, speaking engagements, seminars and workshops including conferences and trade shows.
While I don’t take up individual complaints in the way of a consumer advocate, I’d love to hear from boomers who want to tell the travel and tourism industries what they’re looking for, what they are frustrated by, and what changes they want to see in the future. Please contact me at any of the following: www.BabyBoomersTraveling.com – www.facebook.com/dorisgallan – http://twitter.com/#!/boomertraveling.
