Secret #36 Make Your Travel Dreams a Reality

retirement-travel

According to a recent survey, knowing how to have a good retirement typically involves figuring out how to travel. Travel is clearly the most popular and desired pursuit for this phase of life. 

From day trips by car to round the world journeys, retirees have wanderlust!

Pam and I try to do one major trip a year and save for it. We have been to Thailand, China, Tasmania, Adelaide, a cruise and this year will be off to Shanghai in China with a planned Ocean Road trip later in the year.

Now we are by no means wealthy and I did not get a huge pay-out when I retired and don’t own our own house. It’s all about setting a goal and then plugging away at it.

Because we are retired we have a commodity that will get us huge discounts and allow us to take up specials. What is this commodity you ask? Time!

You see there are incredible special deals to go on trips, stay in luxury accommodation etc when everyone else is busy.

We got our trip to Shanghai including flights and accommodation plus visas etc. for around $2000 plus some spending money. I saved $50 a week towards it by doing odd jobs etc. This is before releasing the book.

It’s all about planning. Our trip along the ocean road will be about $1000 which is $20 a week. If you get used to planning and don’t have a lot of money then you can still have a good holiday at least once a year.

My friend house sits twice a year and uses that as his holiday. It just costs him the travel plus some food and a couple of excursions while he’s there. It’s still going to cost the same for everything else if he is at home or away.

Obviously if you have savings it is still important to plan. After the bucket list trip many of the other trips can be more frugal so your money lasts. 

Many retirees blow their income within the first five years because there is not a lot of education around retirement. 

You retire and then get access to your super which if your lucky is a sizeable amount which you have never had to deal with before.

Many fall into the trap of travel, extensions or building and forget there is no income. Don’t fall into the trap.

My Experience

Because I have a lot of time I found it easier to find flights, hire cars and accommodation myself. There are lots of companies who will do it for you however I do not have a lot of money so any savings are appreciated. 

My trip to China for the two of us was $2000 for flights, Visas, insurance and accommodation by doing it myself. I did check some agents etc however they were about $1000 more and I could not make use of sites like Airb&b etc.

This is not always the case so do your research.

Alternative Travel

There are many other ways to travel. By joining different organizations like volunteer groups, social groups, church groups etc who quite often will organize sponsored travel for their members.

I volunteer for Red Frogs and do lots of work for them but also get one or two weeks on the Gold Coast each year as we do schoolies and work during afternoon and a bit of the night which allows for beach time and some activities. I have also done this for conferences events around Australia. I guess you would call them working holidays.

Product Creation eBook Quentin Brown

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