On this episode of A Wiser Retirement Podcast™, Casey Smith is joined by Amy Rambo, Travel Advisor with Blue Pineapple Travel. Discover how to create unforgettable family memories without breaking the bank, as they talk about budgeting for travel and the advantages of working with a travel advisor. They also discuss the best seasons for travel, aligning trips with family events, and the benefits of traveling during less crowded shoulder seasons.
Podcast Episodes Referenced:
- Ep 192: Estate Planning for Those that Travel Frequently or Live in Multiple States
- Ep 184: What It’s Like Traveling Full-Time in Retirement with the Retirement Travelers
Other Links:
- Follow Amy Rambo on Instagram
- Email Amy Rambo
- Blue Pineapple Travel
Learn More about Wiser Wealth Management:
- Our website
- Schedule a complimentary consultation (learn more about our services)
- Click here to download one of our free guides that covers financial planning topics like retirement, investing, taxes, divorce, and more!
Connect With Wiser Wealth Management:
- YouTube Channel
- Facebook
- LinkedIn
- Instagram
- Twitter
- Casey Smith's Twitter
- Podcast
- Blog
This podcast was produced by Wiser Wealth Management. Thanks for listening!
On this episode of A Wiser Retirement Podcast™, Casey Smith is joined by Amy Rambo, Travel Advisor with Blue Pineapple Travel. Discover how to create unforgettable family memories without breaking the bank, as they talk about budgeting for travel and the advantages of working with a travel advisor. They also discuss the best seasons for travel, aligning trips with family events, and the benefits of traveling during less crowded shoulder seasons.
Podcast Episodes Referenced:
- Ep 192: Estate Planning for Those that Travel Frequently or Live in Multiple States
- Ep 184: What It’s Like Traveling Full-Time in Retirement with the Retirement Travelers
Other Links:
- Follow Amy Rambo on Instagram
- Email Amy Rambo
- Blue Pineapple Travel
Learn More about Wiser Wealth Management:
- Our website
- Schedule a complimentary consultation (learn more about our services)
- Click here to download one of our free guides that covers financial planning topics like retirement, investing, taxes, divorce, and more!
Connect With Wiser Wealth Management:
- YouTube Channel
- Facebook
- LinkedIn
- Instagram
- Twitter
- Casey Smith's Twitter
- Podcast
- Blog
This podcast was produced by Wiser Wealth Management. Thanks for listening!
Welcome to the Wiser Retirement Podcast. We believe the best financial advice should always be conflict free. I'm your host, casey Smith. Today, I'm joined with Amy Rambo, a travel agent with the Blue Pineapple Travel Group.
Speaker 2:Hi Casey, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:Thanks for being here, amy. We've done a couple of segments about travel with you here in the past. I thought it'd be great to bring you back on as people start looking into 2024 and where they want to go. More importantly, I was actually talking with Missy a couple of weeks ago. She's asking me well, when I work with people, what kind of travel, how do I set a travel budget? I was like well, usually I just listen to what they want to do and they tell me the number. But what we're realizing is not everybody really knows how to set that number, because they aren't necessarily actively traveling right now.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, we find that too, especially when people contact us. That is one of the questions we do try to ask, not really to lock people into a number just to give us an idea, because travel budgets can vary widely even within a destination. So you want to go to Costa Rica, you could spend $3,000, $5,000, or you could spend $25,000. It just depends on where you want to stay, what you want to do, how long you want to be there.
Speaker 3:What your activities are Exactly. All your activities.
Speaker 2:For the most part, it does help if people have an idea A either from their own disposable income, because travel is a luxury, it's not a necessity. So of course I'm sure, coming from your side of things, you're trying to help people plan out their best budget overall for their expenses. Travel does fall into that. It's not a bill I have to pay. It's something extra that I get to do. However, it is a overall large benefit in life. There's great family bonding that you can do on a trip. There's a lot of cultural engagement. There's a lot of growth personally that you can do as you travel. So while it's not like a bill or a necessity in your life, it is a high value item that should be and can be added into an overall budget. So I think one side of it can be from your financial overall picture like successful plan how much of a percentage of somebody's income should they give over to travel? I think it should definitely be a category for sure.
Speaker 2:I'm glad that you're encouraging people. I think it's a worthwhile category.
Speaker 1:Some people it's a category, some people not as much. They work it into their overall budget. It also depends on the situation. We have a lot of clients who their income need and what they are, their maximum spending ability and what they want to do is a very wide gap. So they're going to continue to build wealth for the rest of their life. And then you have some people that want to travel but we're like huh, how are we going to make this work?
Speaker 1:One technique that we've found is you've probably heard that you have in retirement you have the go-go years, the slow go years and the no-go years. So while a lot of times if somebody's retiring at 65, we could work in a travel budget for say, 20, 30, 40, 50,000 a year, but then we cut it off by the time they're like 75. Because typically you're slowing down by that point. Certainly by the time they're 80 for sure, right, and then they don't carry that expense anymore going forward. So it allows more money to be spent sooner and then you can kind of step ladder it down over time. But one of the things that I was thinking about before we came on was how much does travel cost? I just came back from a trip from Telluride, first time I've ever been there. I always see these beautiful pictures and it was I kept taking pictures when I was there of the mountain in the city and I was like this doesn't look anything like what I'm looking at right now.
Speaker 2:You can't capture Like nine times out of 10, it's so hard to capture.
Speaker 1:Every morning I'd walk to this ski slope with the kids, and the light on the mountain would be different every single time. It's like. This is so pretty. It was an expensive trip. Montras is where you fly into and then you drive an hour and a half, I guess, south down to Telluride, and I will say that the Delta has a flight nonstop once a day and it took 550,000 skylimals to move five people and we sat, I think, the second row, second to last row, in the airplane. I have ambitions to be in the second row, not the second to last row.
Speaker 2:Depending on when you book, that also has a lot of times.
Speaker 1:I am the second row, but it's one or two of us, not five of us. So yeah, but it was to me it was worth it and it just kind of fit what we were trying to accomplish. And we rented a place on the Airbnb, but it was.
Speaker 2:But even with that, because I'm sure you're probably thinking well, I mean it's domestic, it's within the United States. Surely you know we will have been saving. It's not like we're jetting off to the Alps or something.
Speaker 1:I think the Alps have been cheaper they might have actually except for maybe, maybe the plane ticket?
Speaker 3:I don't know.
Speaker 2:But, and I think that's, you know, kind of going back to what we were talking about planning, you know there are, there are some things that kind of aren't what they always seem. You know, it would seem like in our minds going to the Alps or something would be like way more expensive than the Rockies, but there are certain destinations, places within those regions, that it actually is the reverse.
Speaker 1:Well, it also depends on how many people are traveling. It's just you and your spouse, or you're doing your own thing, but going with friends and they're doing their own thing. It's so much logistically easier. In Europe especially, it's not built this way. And the US, I question it.
Speaker 2:But for a family of five, or even a family of four, To try and stay all in one place, you know, in a hotel room, right? Not a hotel room.
Speaker 1:So we haven't stayed in hotel rooms in family in years Now, maybe occasionally in a small town. Then you just book like three rooms but they're, like you know, 80 bucks a piece. It's a big deal, right, but but in a city like Tereyde that would be very cost prohibitive, I think. I don't think there's a hotel room there that was less than 1400 a night, especially butted up against next to the gondola.
Speaker 2:Right for sure, and it's already a small time of year, you know. Obviously it's the season. They know that's their time Right. They got to make.
Speaker 1:They got to make their money and when I was there, I was just shocked how much we were spending in food. Just, you know, I just started booking restaurants. I at the point in my life where I don't pay a whole lot of attention to the costs. I just know that the my household requirement is we have good food, right, and so you just start going through open table and gathering the reservations that you can find, and when we got there I was, I was rather shocked at the how expensive it was. So it got me thinking, yes, inflation, just travel inflation. So looking back at what it cost me to go last week and then thinking, well, what would that have cost in like 2019? So there's actually a US travel association that has a travel price index and, thanks to Google, I was able to find their index without having to pay the $1,000 a year association fee.
Speaker 1:That's amazing Someone had reposted it. So I think back to 2019, there was a period in 2020, covid didn't really scare me that much. We weren't in a demographic that was really being hurt. So we just kept moving around. We went to Park City for the first time. I think I paid. I put the whole family in first class. Actually, I think it was like $380, $420 a person.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there were some weird. Yeah, there were a couple of weird. It was a huge airplane.
Speaker 1:It was like the airplane was not supposed to be going to Salt Lake City.
Speaker 2:And you know you could get like an entire road to yourself. People, for the most part, had stopped traveling and the airlines and destinations to take years off like that were just devastating. So they wanted people to come, so things were still happening. But I think it did kind of give this false impression of what to expect in cost.
Speaker 1:So you compare that to where things are now. And it feels astronomical, it feels astronomical, but actually since 2019, average airfare has actually dropped 5.3%.
Speaker 2:Which is amazing, because it doesn't feel like that.
Speaker 1:No, it doesn't feel like it, but in 2019, if you remember, airline stocks were near all-time highs. I mean, everything was going crazy. As far as travel, everybody was going everywhere. And then it just came to a screeching halt.
Speaker 2:Right. And then I think there was that you know the revenge travel. Don't let it keep you down. I've finally broken out, let me go.
Speaker 1:That was, yeah, year and a half ago, so 2021, 22, even into 23,.
Speaker 2:There was such a surge in travel that I think that also helped raise the cost and then, as it says here, fuel for the airplane for all inflation, all of that's kind of gone into it.
Speaker 2:It is nice to hear that the prices for 2024 are projected to seem slightly lower than that, although I would say probably depending on destination time of year you're traveling summer, during the holidays, those are times when you're probably not going to find the greatest deals on airfare, kind of no matter what year it is and what's happening in inflation, just because those are top peak travel times. And you know, like we've said, airlines know that and they want to be able to make their money.
Speaker 1:The overall cost of travel, though, has gone up 19.6 percent since 2019. But a lot of that comes from gas, so it's up 36 percent since 2019. Not that inner city or public transportation would be most of our listeners' mode of transportation, but that is a six and four respectively.
Speaker 2:Depending, you know, if you're in a European city or something you're going to be taking the subway or trains.
Speaker 1:Travelling by right now Perfect timing. I've definitely seen this. Lodging is up 13 percent. And then the big one was food and beverage. What it's costing you to eat on the road is now up 25 percent compared to 2019.
Speaker 2:I mean, that's inflation right there. And I think that when you're looking at a travel budget, I think people's minds obviously go to the flight, the hotel, the activities, and then you're kind of like, and then we'll like pay for the food.
Speaker 1:That's your recreation. Up 13 percent.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's part of the thing you might pre book some tours or activities and think, well, we want to go to this museum and we want to do this cooking class, and so you're going to build that in, but really food and beverage can be the thing that then, when you walk away from the trip, you're kind of going wait, I didn't.
Speaker 4:I had planned.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I spent B, you know, and you're kind of thinking what was like barely being able for to get into Disney, and then you get there and you realize the hamburger is $25.
Speaker 2:And there's like all kinds of lists on the best things you can't miss. So you got to stand in that line and get that ice cream thing. But yeah, so it's planning out what you should expect to pay in a destination. Like I said, can vary widely, but it is good to go ahead and have kind of that.
Speaker 2:What's the ouch number that I have in mind if I'm going to come to a trip and I'm going to come to either my travel agent or my website or my family. We're going to sit down and talk about it. I'm having kind of that what's the ideal number overall, and then what's my?
Speaker 1:So is that where you start? Is that where you start with a? You start with a number this is how much I want to spend on the trip, or is it more of? You start with what you want to do on the trip and then you come into a number and you go yes or no. Which way do you build it?
Speaker 2:I mean, I think you could go either way. I think it helps sometimes, especially if you're walking into a travel advisor, to have kind of that. It doesn't have to be super specific. Like I said, you might have like just that out. We hit ouch at 25,000. You know, we're you know, and so ideally we'd want to actually spend closer to like 15 or 18,000.
Speaker 2:That does help because I think there is such a wide range of options within a lot of these categories, so you, depending on how much you want to spend there's we could percentage out, all right, well, how much of that should go to the hotel?
Speaker 2:So, and then even within that, so maybe you want to go to Italy, so you're going to take your family to Italy and you're wanting to do Rome, florence, rome, and them off the coast, and everybody's like pretty sure that they want to be out and about in Rome. Nobody wants to be sitting in a hotel, so you're going to maybe budget scale back in that hotel. But then you really want, though, the view outside the Malfi Coast. You want to be able to look out on that blue water. You want to be able to relax a little bit, maybe not go quite so fast, so maybe you spend more on your hotel there. So I think going into it with that kind of overall number can be really beneficial, because then you can piece together the components to kind of fit that, versus thinking what will it cost?
Speaker 2:Because, like I said, you go to the internet, you go to a travel agent and I'll say I mean you could spend $50 a night on a back corner hostel somewhere, or you can spend $5,000 a night because I can't because, it can be, you're something in the middle. Yeah, exactly Because it can be so wide and varied. It does help to walk into it.
Speaker 1:I mean having a travel advisor definitely helps. I mean our trip to Telluride. I determined after I had already rented the car and I was in town, that I didn't need a car, Like I should have just paid for a private car pickup to Karius from the airport down into town. It's an hour and a half drive, so it's something you'd want to coordinate.
Speaker 2:Right, so you do need the transportation.
Speaker 1:You do and there's probably a shuttle. But my wife gets severe emotional sickness and if I pay for a private car I can be like hey dude yeah she's sitting up front and she doesn't throw up all over you if you don't drive right, and I say it just like that. And so far they've been careful drivers when you put it that way. But the point is, is that could have saved $1,000 in car rental? Sure.
Speaker 2:I could have said like if you want to do 500 for that private transfer, it'd been worth it $500, then you know you're not spending that.
Speaker 1:Exactly yeah, because once I got there, it's like this is a really tiny town and cars just stayed parked Like I don't think they moved the entire time I was there.
Speaker 2:Because you don't know what you don't know, and not that every like a travel advisor will know every single thing about every single destination in the world. Because the world's huge. But first and foremost, it's our job, so it's our time. We have the time to go and investigate what's the best way to do, tell your ride what's, and so, whereas maybe you have a few moments at the end of the day, kind of putting it together for everybody, that's our full time job.
Speaker 1:So I feel like that. You think a travel agent, you think, ok, they're going to book the airfare, they're going to book the hotel, they're going to book the activities for me, and they'll all be kind of stuck and ready to go. But do you guys like find Airbnb's for people? How does that work when you have a large group once a house?
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Because they don't. They don't pay travel fees to anybody, or VRBA, right? Nope, thanks guys. So how does that work?
Speaker 2:So there are some more travel agent friendly villa options. So there are some websites that we can use, but for the most part, if you did come to a travel agent and you were wanting to do more of an Airbnb, where we quite honestly get cut out of the deal, right. It would be, maybe a fee that we would just a flat fee, yeah, a flat fee that maybe we would.
Speaker 2:We definitely charge flat fees. We might up that fee slightly, but probably nothing crazy, because, honestly, while that is a component, you know, we're about building relationships with people. We're about giving elevated travel experiences, helping you get the best return on your investment. And if your best trip might include part of an Airbnb situation, you know we're not going to bust at you, we're not going to be upset. You know we might, though, look at a situation and think all right, that is the best situation for your family Because of the number of people, the way you want to interact with each other when you're on the trip. There might be some destinations where, while it's cost effective, it's really going to impede how you're interacting with each other. Or you're thinking, well, we'll have this Airbnb and you're like well, but in that destination, you know, there's not a whole lot of options should the Airbnb not work out.
Speaker 4:And.
Speaker 2:Airbnb's can sometimes not work out and then you're kind of stuck and then if you're in a situation where there's not a whole lot of plan B options, that can be a little, a little nerve wracking for some people. You know, so we might know too. While it's cost effective, it may not be the best option in a certain destination.
Speaker 1:I mean, it gets. It gets tough when you're in my situation. You got, you got son with in your care, carrying the girlfriend, and then you got to look at these. You got to look at these, I know right. And you got to look at the, the, the layouts of the of the room. You're like, okay, we can put her here. And then there's like a brother in this room here. No way he can sneak.
Speaker 2:You know there are lots of connecting hotel rooms. We're then adored. We don't want connecting and you can make sure that's one hotel rooms in between the two hotel rooms Exactly. There might be a situation.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:The Airbnb house options not really ideal for what you're wanting.
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Speaker 1:So let's let's kind of get to go back to the planning. So you know you're retiring in 10 years. You want to set a planning budget. How would you advise someone to build realistic planning budgets based on, let's say, they know what they want to do?
Speaker 2:Okay, Well, I mean, that would be my first thought.
Speaker 2:So, again, if we're looking at not necessarily all right, we've got spring break, we've got $10,000. What do we want to do? If you're looking at long term travel planning, which is looking at your next five to seven years, which is something that can be really beneficial for a couple of categories of people? The first would be retirees. So, kind of sitting down maybe they've already sat down with you and they've decided here's how much of our monthly budget we can devote to travel they could come to somebody like me and say, all right, we have in mind that over the next five years we want to take a family, multi-generational trip. We want to bring the kids, the grandkids, and we want to take them to Ireland. We have family heritage we want to share in Ireland and we also then want to do a river cruise as a couple and we want to go and experience a Alaskan cruise with the great, fantastic Alaskan train that they have there. So you're like, okay, let's look at how, the best way to fit all of those within the next five years and the benefit of that is not just the financial component but it's also the scheduling component. So they, if you have grandkids who are graduating high school or maybe they have some sort of active sports situation where you know there are certain times of the year where you can't they can't get away, we can look at the long-term picture of that to think all right, if you want to go to Ireland and the best time to go for everybody is July or August, when it can get pretty crowded in Europe and in the UK and Ireland and those destinations we can talk about how you probably should plan well in advance for that. And then you can think through all right, do we want to stay in this small town versus this small town and because one might be a little bit more crowded, and are we going to run a car and all all those things? It just helps give you a lot more freedom to make it the best trip possible, because that way you can say all right, well, if we need to give it at least a year out, we can do that.
Speaker 2:Well, if we need to give it at least a year out to really plan it, well, then you could say, all right, well, let's put that into year three. And since we know that one's going to be pretty pricey because we're going to be taking everybody along with us. So you know we're going to only ask a portion of it to be also paid by the kids. But this is mostly our treat. Let's put that into year three and we're going to build towards that one too and know that that might be our biggest ticket. And so we're going to do in year one and two, maybe year one's the year to take the river cruise and be looking out for some maybe last minute fares on a river cruise or deals or something that they might be putting out more last minute. But the benefit of the long-term planning really is finding that balance, striking that note of what is best, when and what order to mostly to maximize and it might not always be to save a ton of money, but it's the best way to maximize what you're going to have and to make the best return on investment. And this goes to for maybe not just retirees I was even thinking about other demographics that would really benefit from this long-term planning and honestly it's a lot of that like middle-age family groups.
Speaker 2:So if you're, say, you're 48 walking into 2024 and you've got the next five years, you're looking at some milestone birthdays, possibly some milestone anniversaries, some graduations from your kids. So, whereas maybe you spent most of your kids growing up years doing summer vacations, 30a or st simons or kiyowa, you're looking, though you only have a few more years before they graduate, because once they graduate high school, then you're no longer on spring break schedules together. Like they're going on that, like you're going to be entering some pretty crazy years. So it's a great time for people who are in this demographic, who are looking ahead, to go. All right, we always said we wanted to go to Paris as a couple. Well, the 25th wedding anniversary is coming up in the next five years. How would that fit alongside our son as graduating from high school? We're going to start paying college again.
Speaker 2:So and I think that's where it helps to, especially in that demographic sit down with a travel advisor and a financial advisor to kind of say, all right, if there are these things we always dreamed about doing with our kids and we feel like we do have the finances to do it, but it is going to start running up against things like college car payments, that kind of thing, how best can we maximize what we can give? What can we give in the next five years? When should we scale back that year, go back to the same condo at the beach that we have been? But what's the best year that then we could like, really go for it as a family, do that family trip we've always wanted and really make it the best that we can. Because while there is this idea of the last minute deal I'm not saying there's not, especially with hotels it's possible that maybe isn't the way you want to go. If you're approaching like a milestone 50th birthday trip or that like this is our before a kid graduates, high school family this is our time to go and do something unique and special and bond as a family before things radically change. It's probably not the time you want to approach it as like, let's get that last minute deal. You want to be able to elevate and maximize the most bang for your buck in that moment and really make something memorable.
Speaker 1:For retirees. It's just not traveling during the peak time.
Speaker 2:And that's a huge benefit.
Speaker 1:September is probably a great month to travel, september is still warm Shoulder seasons for a lot of destinations.
Speaker 2:Actually, september, october is a great time to travel. The peak of summers gone. Temperatures, especially in some of the European destinations, have, I've gone down quite a bit. I'm gonna get pretty hot and crowded Crowds are gone. So for retirees, a lot of it is the flexibility in their schedule.
Speaker 1:How often are you seeing retirees travel that call you? If you're using a travel agent, you're probably pretty active, I would think, not just like a one-time thing.
Speaker 2:Actually quite a bit. I mean, I know we all kind of have our people that seem to come to us. I actually have quite a bit of clients who are like 55 plus, 65 plus. So that actually has been quite a number of my clientele and I do see them traveling in those shoulder seasons March, october, september.
Speaker 1:Are they going somewhere like every other month, once a quarter, once a year? How often do you think they're?
Speaker 2:I think they're traveling at least once a year.
Speaker 1:Okay, so it's pretty normal just to go one trip a year.
Speaker 2:And I would say, especially when now that's probably the one they're calling me about.
Speaker 1:You know, I don't know if there's another.
Speaker 2:We went to the beach with the kids or something. But the one they're calling me about, the one where they're wanting to go up to Sweden or they're wanting to go down to Costa Rica, or they're wanting to go to Chile, or something that the one that they're gonna call me for what's the most common destination. Europe, europe really is.
Speaker 1:I feel, like everybody's going to Europe with me lately. Have you been to Europe in the last year? I have, yeah, of course you have no.
Speaker 2:I am.
Speaker 1:I am a travel agent. That's true. I do travel, that's true, and I was like, oh yeah, we just got back from somewhere in Europe.
Speaker 2:Honestly, I was in Amsterdam in October last year and it was wonderful. I know Amsterdam has quite the reputation for some wild towns and pictures.
Speaker 1:but you and your sister went to the Queen's celebration. Was that a year ago?
Speaker 2:That was at two summers ago.
Speaker 1:Oh, it was two summers ago, now Okay. I remember that England Right before she passed away.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was amazing, that was wonderful. Love the Queen. But yes, so the shoulder season is a great time, especially for retirees, and we do see them traveling a good bit and taking advantage of that.
Speaker 1:What about cruises? I keep hearing people looking at me like I'm never going to cruise right now because of all the diseases and everything else. Have you seen people just hop.
Speaker 2:Oh my goodness, yes, every time I would think that's like really, oh yeah, even like the big huge cruises.
Speaker 1:I'm at some other river cruises. Like I would do a cruise if there's like 50 people. Right but not like 3,000 people.
Speaker 2:The big ones, so the people who are really going on those big, big boats. And there's one with Royal Caribbean. I think that's setting sail, I think it's like the biggest one.
Speaker 1:Icon of the seas.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's like a water park on top of it, or something.
Speaker 1:That's crazy.
Speaker 2:But there's a water park on top of it and if you've got kids who are super active.
Speaker 1:They just send you to the water park.
Speaker 2:Yep and then, but you get to go to several different places. You can visit multiple countries, beaches, maybe have a little excursion into a market, come back, but for the most part, your activities, your food, your time they're not packing and unpacking.
Speaker 1:They have, like internet, where I can still work from a cruise. Is that a thing?
Speaker 2:Most of them, it really is I just need two days off.
Speaker 1:After that I get antsy and I get the shakes. So I'm like I've got to log into my email. I've got to see what everybody's doing at the office.
Speaker 2:So sometimes we talk about trips for the kids and trips with the kids.
Speaker 4:So a trip for the kids might be Disney cruise.
Speaker 3:Yeah, where it's like they are there, that's.
Speaker 2:that's the gold standard because of what they offer for kids. It's very engaging great food, great activities, great destinations, good cruise time length. They have a number of four and five night crews, which some of the other ones are most the minimum. They might have a six or seven.
Speaker 1:Oh OK. So if you're wanting a slightly shorter, what's the key to getting a reasonable fare for that?
Speaker 2:Um timing.
Speaker 1:So is it? You're looking like two years out.
Speaker 2:Some of them Mostly a year.
Speaker 1:A year to a year and a half is really when they We've been invited in a few of those cruises and it's always like get a book by tomorrow and I'm like I'm not making that decision. And there was one that everyone at the kids school is going to like Alaska. But I priced it all. I was like it's $25,000. But it's a lot there. Yeah, sounds cold Beautiful.
Speaker 2:You were just in telluride I know it costs me $25,000.
Speaker 1:It is Well that didn't have to get on a boat.
Speaker 2:That's the thing of the. Does the destination require it? Alaska kind of it's. The best way you're going to Alaska is on the cruise. Yeah, and so kind of like. All right, if there's ever time I'm going to go get on that boat, it's.
Speaker 1:it would be for Alaska, However, there are a train or something Could you do?
Speaker 2:a train you can get off the boat and get on a train, but then the best way to get back is on the boat. Just because you can, you're out there and you see the, the cliffs and the glaciers and yeah, I don't know, I'm just, I'm just a weird traveler, I guess. No, I don't think you're alone in that. I think there are quite a number of people who probably wouldn't necessarily have seen themselves on a cruise. But, like I said, especially for the benefits of you, go, you unpack, one time You're there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you have to travel to multiple destinations For the most part, although sometimes when you see an initial fee, that's mostly just for the cabin. It depends on the cruise line, but for many of them where you're like, wow, that seems like such a great deal, it's probably just for the cabin.
Speaker 1:You're probably going to be paying extra for food for better and better levels of food.
Speaker 2:Oh, there's different tiers. There are different tiers on most of them. Again, that's not across the board. There are some cruise lines that are starting to incorporate the better food packages into the fares themselves, and then there are there's a wide range. So there are the very massive, massive ships and then there are some that are a good bit smaller. For multi-generational families, river cruising actually is a really becoming a really popular option. There are several cruise lines.
Speaker 1:Like the Viking cruises, like the Viking cruises.
Speaker 2:There are a couple other lines, such as one called Amal Waterways. They're a European based cruise line and they're doing a really good job of offering top tier food, and that's it's included in their fares. River cruises are a little bit more all inclusive from the get go, but great excursion packages. They've got a new ship with a pickleball court on it, so we are getting active.
Speaker 1:And hopefully a more, the PA surgeon, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Some great health care down the Danube, for sure. But, yeah, some great options. If you're, if you are retirees and you are wanting to travel with the grandkids and you're wanting to bring them along with you, you know and you want to show them Europe, that you're a little afraid of your own stamina and pace A river cruise is a really great option because there's a way that you can all kind of go out during the day and then come back and there's a beautiful, beautiful, peaceful, floating Hotel basically guiding you along the beautiful rivers of Europe. Or there's a great Alma actually just opened up a line in Columbia, so they have a cruise going in Columbia.
Speaker 2:There's also obviously Egypt and the Nile and some of those bigger, more, more, I guess, adventurous destinations. If you wanted to incorporate that, africa safaris, there's some really great, actually, river Cruises in Africa, so you do like a cruise safari. So, again, if you're somebody who wants to go and go to some of these Wonderful, beautiful destinations but you're maybe a little bit nervous about the pace and you want to go see multiple places, but the idea of like what about packing?
Speaker 1:about just safety cruises, have you? I mean, have you had anybody? I know our clients, I not all of them, I've had a few this and we love to travel For over, you know, overseas. But we're just worried about safety of Americans traveling overseas but at the same time, destination dependent person doing a church tour to Israel right now, but we have had.
Speaker 2:You know, when that all started there were a number of phone calls of people concerned and our Obviously we would never push somebody to do something they're not comfortable with. But for the most part, you know, there's stuff that can happen down the street here in safe Marietta.
Speaker 2:You know you're not. You think about safety. There's the world in generals not super safe all the time. So Whether or not you're on the Danube or the Chattahoochee, you know there's stuff that can happen, but for the most part we it would be destination specific. I mean, if you're looking at something that would be a little bit riskier, you know there are things that you can do to up your safety as an American. But I'd say my personal travel experiences and what I've heard back from clients who've been Like literally all over the world Costa Rica, portugal, Sweden, england, you can contract with services that you need to be extracted out of anywhere.
Speaker 1:You call this number and they don't ask any questions and they coming travel insurance. That's beyond travel insurance.
Speaker 2:I have talked to someone one time. He showed me this card.
Speaker 1:He's like he traveled for him for work and he's like we were given these cards. You call this number and they ping your location and they come and get you. Like no question to ask.
Speaker 2:Hey, if you're, if you're very, very concerned, there are services for you. I would say, for the most part, though, the vast majority of people when you're out there in the world, your people are people, and they're very gracious and welcoming you to their homes and some of the more political, higher level like Tensions and things that you might see or hear about on the news. You really don't, you're not gonna really feel that from the local who's serving.
Speaker 1:No, and what your fear? Cells right. We talk about this all the time and what you see on TV is not reality. It's like I remember during the second Gulf War I'd run in the soldiers at the airport and Say, man, how's the, how is it really over there? And they got it's really safe. No any problems.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Wait, what that's not about the bombings, oh no, that's just one air, a little small area that is targeted. But the rest of you know it's fine.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. And I think again, if, if you're somebody who is a little bit nervous, there are things that you can do, there are places that you can go. I would say, if you're very nervous about walking into a situation where you're not gonna be able to read or Speak to a local, on on it. And in a different language, then you know there are some beautiful destinations for people speaking English. You know I mean, there are things that you can do to start places you can go.
Speaker 1:With no anxiety. Right, or you know you're lowering, lowering anxiety. Yeah, that's true. But again, for the most part travel is.
Speaker 2:It's why it's safe.
Speaker 1:There's many, many, many safe, wonderful destinations where you're gonna be able to the base on the number of people and the inflation that we see in the cost of travel, we'd say that other people feel the exact same way they do and people are still getting out there.
Speaker 2:Again, I would I would say for families. You know, there are lots of wonderful trips and ways that you can Connect as a family, especially if you are in that that phase where you've got kids, like I said, who are coming up to that High school or college graduation phase, and then maybe on the other side you do have parents who are retired but still fairly active. Travels a great way to Bond, to bond yourself as a family and give yourself some, some memories. I have some fantastic memories of my own with my grandmother. She took us out to Carmel, california, one spring break and I went trade that for the world.
Speaker 3:I mean it?
Speaker 2:gave me such a great sense of who she is and or who she was, and have some wonderful memories of that. So that travel you know we talk the prices and the budgets, and you know there are just some things, though that it's when you look back it was, it was worth the money, and travels one of them for sure.
Speaker 1:How do people reach out to you and find you on the web.
Speaker 2:All right, so you can reach out to me Social media Instagram, facebook. Amy are underscore blue pineapple travel and you can find us at blue pineapple travel calm, or you could email me. Amy are at blue pineapple travel calm.
Speaker 1:That's in our share notes as well, if you want to take a look there. Also, we episode 192 in the past estate planning for those that travel frequently or live in multiple states. We did that. I think we did that with Brian, maybe in Brian Smith over at moringham Johnson steel, just talking about we need to do if you're going to be traveling a lot something were to happen, what kind of papers you need to be carrying with you. That was good conversation. Episode 184 this was a fun one what it's like to travel full-time in retirement with the retirement travelers and I'm jealous. In this episode I think I told you about it they were. That's fascinating. I love these people like sold everything down to their bat packs.
Speaker 1:That's amazing, and then they've been to like 176 countries. I asked them their top five Favorite places to travel have been so far and they name places like I've never heard of like yeah, that's normal people really like Paris, like you know, southern California, like, and then they were like just round a lot, five places like I don't know I'm doing where that is, guys, but that's awesome, we'll link to that on our website. Like Sri Lanka, okay, no, it's like specific cities inside Sri Lanka.
Speaker 2:Even cool, but you know she talked about Some places she they like to school Dive and it was, like, I think, one of the top places to scuba dive.
Speaker 1:It showed up on a list, someone's list, but then you can't get to it. These people have the entire lives. You get to. You can take the time exactly. Do that? Five airplane?
Speaker 2:right, that was a fun episode. I think I did. That was the one I did.
Speaker 1:I was actually with my daughter at a horror show in Kentucky and we had to stay in a RV, so I was literally interviewing them from an RV in Kentucky. So it kind of fit. That's amazing, it's fit perfectly. Imagine me in an RV.
Speaker 2:I would.
Speaker 1:I'd love to meet those people. They were. They sound really fun.
Speaker 2:They had their own YouTube channel too. All right guys. Amy, thank you for coming on doing this. Hopefully it's.
Speaker 1:Inspired our listeners to pack up and plan their next trip. Absolutely, I hope so. Get out there. It's 2024, all right, we'll see you next time. Thank you, thank you.
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