310. How Can You Travel the World in Retirement?

In this episode of A Wiser Retirement® Podcast, Casey Smith and Travel Advisor Amy Rambo with Blue Pineapple Travel cover how to build a travel line item into your retirement plan, stretch your budget with timing and seat strategies, stay protected with insurance, and tailor trips to your pace and mobility.

Related Podcast Episodes: 

• Ep 294: How Smart Financial Planning Led to Living on a Catamaran Full Time
• Ep 203: How to Create a Realistic Travel Budget with Amy Rambo
• 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

Related Financial Education Videos:

• What is Financial Planning? 

Other Links:

• Blue Pineapple Travel

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Transcript

SPEAKER_07 0:00

How do we get it? How do we get the how do we get on this private airport?

SPEAKER_04 0:06

Maybe they are. Maybe they're not. You'll never know from Instagram. Never know from Instagram. You'll never know.

SPEAKER_07 0:17

Welcome to a Wise Retirement Podcast. Are you curious about how to travel the world in retirement? I'm Casey Smith. Today I'm joined with Amy Rainbow, travel advisor with Blue Pineapple Travel. Each week we bring you practical advice on retirement, investing, and planning for your financial future. Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast wherever you're listening. Let's get started. Hey, Amy.

SPEAKER_03 0:36

Hey Casey. How's it going?

SPEAKER_07 0:38

Welcome back.

SPEAKER_03 0:38

Thank you. Thank you for having me back. It's good to be here.

SPEAKER_07 0:41

So Amy is our uh, I guess, unofficial wiser travel guru. Put together a few trips for me and I think a couple of clients, maybe.

SPEAKER_03 0:50

Yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_04 0:51

But yeah, we've had some good, good travels.

SPEAKER_07 0:53

Everybody seems pretty happy. Oh, yeah. I do like telling the story though about um take my family going to the Caribbean this summer. And I told you, just butt me a place in Caribbean, tell me where I'm going. And you said Dominican Republic, and like three weeks later, I was thinking about oh, get this trip coming up. And I Google map to where is Dominican Republic? And you I realized it was in Haiti.

SPEAKER_04 1:13

Well, they're separate countries.

SPEAKER_07 1:16

I don't know. They don't get it. I don't know. The cabbie at the golf course kept telling me, yeah, these people from Haiti just come right on over. And I said, Well, what do you do? And he's like, Well, the governor is trying to is trying to send them all back. And I was like, Oh, well, it sounds like all the countries are doing that these days.

SPEAKER_03 1:30

Always an experience traveling internationally. Right. But you made it. You survived.

SPEAKER_07 1:36

It was it was a good trip. It was it was a good trip. Um, but yeah, thanks for doing that.

SPEAKER_04 1:41

Yeah, no problem.

SPEAKER_07 1:42

And yeah, um, it was it was a very nice, you just had to stay, you have to stay inside your your space. They give you space.

SPEAKER_04 1:48

They make some pretty nice spaces for you to stay in.

SPEAKER_07 1:51

So it was like you went through security and then you went through another security, they went to another security, and and they never they never stopped us. Yeah, but they I noticed them stop others, so they're definitely profiling.

SPEAKER_03 2:04

Well, maybe.

SPEAKER_07 2:07

But I mean, I don't live there, not my country, so I was just a guest.

SPEAKER_04 2:11

You're just a guest for a little while. You just get to go and be in a nice, lovely resort area, relax a little bit, and then leave. And then you don't have to worry about what their problems are. Exactly. Exactly.

Travel Benefits in Retirement

SPEAKER_07 2:25

Yeah, that bother me. All right. Um, so you know, retirement is a is a great time to travel. Uh, I think it's a little cliche, although I don't I haven't had too many families say we didn't want to travel. Uh, our airline pilots are a little different. Uh, a lot of them just want to stay home. They've already traveled, but the wives want to go somewhere. So that's you know, that's always a little different. But um, you know, it it's a great time to travel automatically just because there's there should have been a shift in your in your time, right?

SPEAKER_04 3:00

Yeah, I would think that's the biggest um benefit of traveling in retirement is the time aspect that you have the time to give to longer trips, maybe more complicated trips, um, going and staying in a place for a lot longer than you could when you have a job that's needing your attention. And maybe some um if you're not your own boss, then you know you have a boss telling you how many work, you know, travel days you can have, how many, how much time off you can have. Right. Um so yeah, it's the biggest late Como.

SPEAKER_07 3:30

She went to Lake Como. I think I think it was for I think it was for maybe three months, maybe. I have to go back and look at that. But um or ask her next time I see her. But but yeah, she just rented Airbnb and she just immersed herself as a local town near Lake Como for and you can't do that if you've got no definitely not.

SPEAKER_04 3:50

No, when you're kind of in that in the trenches of it raising the kids, you know, they there's very few families that are gonna take their kids and travel the world or could do that. And some of them do, but very few, very few people are gonna do that.

SPEAKER_07 4:04

I mean, if you're if you're looking to have an excuse to travel, uh we've found a study that shows that new environments stimulate the brain. Uh, they help with cognitive well-being. So maybe uh if you want to fight off dementia, this is uh start going to some places new and using your brain. Absolutely. I think it's like the Seduco puzzle thing, right? It's because you know, my brain, my brain works hard here. It wants to be lazy other places. So I I have a hard time going to new places because I don't know where my favorite restaurant is.

SPEAKER_03 4:32

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_07 4:32

I have to go find my favorite restaurant and that requires thinking and I think and discussion and arguments with spouses.

SPEAKER_04 4:36

Right. And that can be an intimidating piece to the travel part, especially as as you get older, you kind of get less excited about having to face those uncomfortable situations that you find yourself in.

SPEAKER_07 4:48

Or or um, you know, what bus route to take.

SPEAKER_04 4:51

Exactly.

SPEAKER_07 4:52

But it's um but according to the study, it's good for you.

SPEAKER_04 4:54

It's actually good for you. It is, it's a good way to stay nimble and flexible and keep that brain, you know, brain health, that emotional health to kind of and rather than retiring and getting stuck in your ways, that adding some travel to the retirement plan can can keep you.

SPEAKER_07 5:11

And you should be, and you should be in the majority. I mean, uh 37% of all travelers were seniors, age 60 plus. That's not quite a majority, but it's a good chunk of people.

SPEAKER_03 5:21

Yeah, it's 37%.

SPEAKER_07 5:22

So this 37% should be should be your age if you're waiting to to travel. Um, 70% of US adults, 50 uh plus are planning trips. 59% of retirees or soon to be retired. You see, travel is the activity they most want to pursue in retirement. Uh, those are all things that I would say that our planners here would would say. You know, we see the uh advertisements of plan for your retirement, and they have some guy playing golf with his buddies, and they have somebody sailing, holding hands.

SPEAKER_04 5:54

And it's one of those stereotypical theories. I know.

SPEAKER_07 5:59

We don't see that. I I don't have I out of 420 clients right now, I don't think we have anybody's at the golf course every single day. Um, I don't think I we do have, well, you know, we have Caribbean Kate, our marketing director who lives in her boat in the Caribbean. Nice, yeah. So she's semi, well, was semi-retired. Uh we just brought her on full time now. So she doesn't count anymore. Kate just works remote on a boat.

SPEAKER_06 6:26

That's really anymore.

SPEAKER_07 6:30

Uh that's my fault, probably. But um, but yeah, so so the you know, uh most people though, they all say they want to travel. And we typically have travel budgets. And you know, we'll get into this here in in a minute, but um, what we do in our in our planning session is we can actually have a separate line item for travel because you're probably gonna travel a lot between in your 60s and maybe through mid to early late uh 70s. In your 80s, I don't have too many people.

SPEAKER_04 7:00

Not too many. I would say amongst our clientele, if we're looking at retirees, it's usually people in their uh early retirement, like 60s, 70s. Or I think our oldest client is 81. Um, and he does a lot of traveling. So go for you're not it's absolutely if you don't use it, you lose it.

SPEAKER_07 7:19

So absolutely, you know, as long as he keeps his legs moving, exactly. But but I Is he traveling with somebody, surely?

SPEAKER_04 7:24

Um his wife, some, but then some of it, she's like, I'm ready to go home. So she'll take the flight home and he'll get on a cruise and and take the transatlantic cruise back home.

SPEAKER_06 7:33

So yeah, they're funny.

SPEAKER_04 7:36

I can talk about more about them later. But um, yeah, I would say, and especially for some of the trips that people are saving for their retirement, it is something you'd probably want to budget in at the early years because some of them do require more mobility. You want and you want to be able to enjoy it more. So you want to enjoy it when you have a lot more of your health, um, your stamina, your excitement about being retired and and kind of get like it said with the brain function and things like that to be able to really enjoy it, you want to have a lot of energy for it.

SPEAKER_07 8:10

So I think that's uh uh if I could sum up our Monday planning meetings, that's it's not our planning, but we're we're looking at all the plans we're building for the week. And our advisors will tell me, like, well, this family has got to get their act together, they gotta start saving more, blah, blah, blah. So it's either that kind of conversation, they don't say get their act together. No one, no one talks like that. But but the but the other side is is um, you know, they have more than what they need, but they're not doing anything. Uh and so I find myself a lot of times going to meetings saying, You guys need to get out and do something. And we we had a family recently that said we're doing it, we're move, we're going places. Well, a couple years they weren't going places.

Travel Statistics and Budgeting

SPEAKER_04 8:48

Yeah, I could see it being hard to kind of go from that you're saving, saving, saving to now we're gonna never spend, spin, spend.

SPEAKER_07 8:55

Yeah. But you only spin, spin, spin for maybe 10, 15 years, and then it slows back down.

SPEAKER_04 9:00

So then you pull back a little bit.

SPEAKER_07 9:02

Yeah. Yeah. I just don't want anybody getting to age 80 and looking back, going, I wish I had done. Exactly.

SPEAKER_04 9:07

It's got to be a balance between you're using that that money. And I would say for traveling early, um, you probably have at that point your stage, your kids have kids that then you could bring along with you. So you can do a lot more multi-generation because those kids haven't quite left the nest yet. Like the grandkids are still at a good age. Maybe they're teenagers, maybe they're right out of college in college. Um, they can travel with you and and they're not yet starting their families. And so you haven't quite hit them at the baby stage. It's sort of like you can catch your family at a good time.

SPEAKER_07 9:40

Right.

SPEAKER_04 9:40

Where your kids might have a little bit of flexibility in travel, and they've got older kids that you can take along with you. So we see a lot of retirees traveling either just with their spouses or with a sibling or friend groups. Um, but then also there's a lot of multi-generational travel. And a lot of the retirees are the ones spearheading that. They're like, here's where we're gonna take the family this year, and they're budgeting that and as part of their travels, where is the whole family gonna go?

SPEAKER_07 10:08

Right. I I see that with people who um who don't travel like maybe internationally a whole lot, they don't desire to, uh, but they'll take two weeks out of a year and they bring all 20 family members. It's expensive. Uh that's building legacy. So they're going to um their favorite beach destination or mountain destination and just gonna camp out for for two weeks and just build memory. So so that's another way to do it as well. Um, obviously, I mean there's there's uh obviously some uh key challenges and obstacles when it comes to to uh travel. You get you you have you can have financial constraints, obviously. Travel's expensive. Um, we were just talking before we started this podcast. You know, I know families that go to the Caribbean three or four times a year. I know what I make.

SPEAKER_06 10:55

Right.

SPEAKER_07 10:56

I'm like, I don't understand how people do this three or four times a year. Now I have an entourage, so that's part of the problem. I gotta drop my entourage a little bit, maybe.

SPEAKER_04 11:05

And it can be in the type, you know, that maybe they're prioritizing different things within the travel. So there's, you know, there's a a wide range of different types of trips that you can do, and some can be very, very budget friendly where you're maximizing all the points and the things and and um doing it.

SPEAKER_07 11:22

I don't think there's anything budget friendly in the Caribbean. But it is but you know if it's cheap in the Caribbean when you show up, they're gonna suck it out of you in tips. That's what I learned.

SPEAKER_04 11:32

Or$20 at a time. Your your overall experience is gonna be a little bit different.

SPEAKER_07 11:38

Right.

SPEAKER_04 11:39

It's gonna be a slightly different area with maybe the food quality is not quite as good or something. But all that to say, there's a wide range of different um ways that you can travel. Um, and so budgeting is a big part of it. And I I think a lot of people um might place different priorities on the type of travel. So I know some um clients who want to do a lot of trips within a year, kind of like your friends going to the Caribbean. Um, so they might not do maybe as long of a trip, or the resort might be more of like a three-star or four-star versus the one trip that has the five star, but they ain't go like four or five times throughout the year.

SPEAKER_07 12:18

No, they do five times first class the entire time. I I I think they're doing very well then. I I think I think sometimes people just don't save anything, they just think the paychecks don't keep coming. So that I'm in a position where where for me, you know, I have my own family, but then I I I'm responsible for beating everybody who works in this office, right?

SPEAKER_04 12:39

So I just think differently about and that should be something about when you look on Instagram and you see people doing things you never quite know the background of financial health.

SPEAKER_07 12:50

How do we get how do we get to how do we get on this private airplane?

SPEAKER_04 12:53

Are we making good financial choices? Maybe they are, maybe they are, maybe they're not. You'll never know from Instagram. You never know from Instagram, you'll never know if they are not saving enough for retirement. Um, but yeah, I would say definitely some um practical concerns.

SPEAKER_07 13:10

I I will say I I've never used a travel agent until I started using you. So we would just kind of pick a place and we just kind of go. And the cost, you know, you you kind of know what the airfare is, you kind of know what the hotel is, food's food, right? Not always. Uh and and so you come home and you're saying, oh my gosh, we spent so much. Where at least with you, you tell me this is what everything's gonna cost. If it's all inclusive, then obviously that that's part of that. So that helps. I mean, we're planning a trip now um for our family for Christmas, and I have an idea of what that outlay is gonna be. Uh meals aren't included included. Right. So I have to gotta eat that. Um it's um it helps with it helps understanding what your ballpark costs are gonna be when you have an a travel agent who can build all that out for you. I think probably the favorite, my favorite part is probably the transfers. Because you know, in the past we just walk down outside the hotel and go, I think it's this way. Right. And now you have people meet you and drive you to wherever you gotta go, which is probably safer um in this environment. Uh, and it probably saves a few spousal arguments about which direction we should be going in. Absolutely. You know, I would say marriage saving and uh it's it's time saving for sure, and it's safer, I guess. Um I would say too um what what's confusing to me sometimes is like the exchange because some of these places will take dollars and some people just want local currency.

SPEAKER_04 14:40

Right, right. I would say definitely Mexico, the cur the Caribbean, especially destinations where um their currency maybe not it's maybe not as strong. There's usually more flexibility on whether or not they're gonna take the US dollar. Um, if the dollar is a lot stronger against their currency. Um so and then exchange rates fluctuate all the time. So we definitely have had that.

SPEAKER_07 15:04

Um and it's how how do you recommend getting local currency? I at the airport I noticed there was like a 20%.

SPEAKER_04 15:11

So we recommend in most destinations, so definitely Europe, like you're in Australia, the UK, or something like that. Um even places like a Costa Rica or something, um, we would recommend using the ATM once you arrive. Oh so that's cheaper to use ATM. It is usually get a slightly better exchange rate. And if it's a good and a safe place to do it, even not even in the airport when you arrive, but even in the city center. Um, that's usually when you're gonna get the best exchange rate. So not using the bigger bigger, so not even like your local bank before you leave. Um, not even sometimes that. Uh and then the convenience factor. So if you just don't have time to go to your local bank to then, and then depending on the currency, they may or may not be able to give it to you right away. So they might say, well, here's you know, come back and we'll give you XYZ.

SPEAKER_06 16:02

Right.

SPEAKER_04 16:03

Um, so if you don't really have time for that, um, it's usually if you need just a little bit to maybe tip a driver, yeah, use the uh exchange at the hot at the airport or an ATM at the airport and pull the local currency. Um but if you can, and it's a good area to do it in, go to a city center and a bank that's in the country and pull.

SPEAKER_06 16:27

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 16:27

Um and then uh if you're there and you get the option to pay for something in local currency or USD, this happens a lot in Europe. Um you'll pay in US dollar. You want to pay in local currency.

SPEAKER_07 16:40

Oh, why?

SPEAKER_04 16:41

Um, because then your bank is sort of the one setting the price. And usually it's a little bit better. I mean, of course, maybe not always, um, but usually it's a little bit better to let your bank or your credit card company make that exchange rate versus what was happening in the moment. Yeah. Um on their end. So and again, that's um, you know, the the the range of cost difference in that's not gonna be massive. Um if if you were to have the exchange happen right in the moment or when it like hits your bank or something, it's not gonna be massive, but it could be a little bit of a way to make it um come out a little bit better on your on your side because the exchange rates are it is difficult.

SPEAKER_07 17:24

I know the credit in my credit union, they they charge a fee every time you buy something foreign, it's a foreign exchange fee, every transaction. So probably using like an American Express card, I'm guessing much better than I absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 17:35

So I know people can be mixed on like credit cards and things like that. But I would say in travel, if you're if you have all you have is like a debit card or something, it's gonna charge you um international fees every single time you use it, either go to your bank or credit union and say, what version of your card can I get that's not gonna have those? Right, or just pull out one time, open up a card that's not gonna have those. There are lots of them on the market that aren't gonna have those international transaction fees. And if you're gonna go on an international trip where you're paying for food, you're getting a cup of coffee, and most countries these days um are still using a lot are using a lot of cards now. Um especially post-COVID. There's still some that are very cash-based. But again, this is a uh destination-specific um conversation. But I would say if you're going to a destination that is become very card heavy, such as a European country or the UK, um, you're gonna definitely want one that doesn't have those transaction fees.

SPEAKER_06 18:38

That makes sense.

SPEAKER_04 18:39

And then, you know, getting in touch with your bank about pulling from an ATM. Do you have a certain uh like daily withdrawal limit? Um, are you gonna what is gonna be the fee on that? Are there certain um banks that they partner with internationally that wouldn't charge you as much of a fee? Um, those kinds of things are good to look into before you go.

SPEAKER_07 18:58

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 19:03

Before we jump back into the episode, do you know if you are ready to take off and launch into retirement? Get your pre-retirement checklist, a free guide from Wiser Wealth Management, from cash flow to social security. We've got your account down covered. Go to wiserinvestor.comslash guides to download your free guide today. Now let's get back to the episode.

SPEAKER_07 19:30

Uh let's talk about health concerns for a minute. So, you know, what if you what if you got sick overseas? Are there plans or how does this work?

SPEAKER_04 19:42

100% your best friend is help is travel insurance. Um, because even if you have great insurance um here, uh it can help cover things that maybe your insurance company, you know, skeezes out on because that's because it's over. That's what they love to do. Right. That's just what they love to do anyway. Um, but I would say travel insurance is your best friend for any sort of health delay, anything like that. Um, it's just gonna give you that extra level of coverage.

SPEAKER_07 20:09

Do people ever do the like the medvac plans?

SPEAKER_04 20:11

I think it's$300 or something like that. They'll come get you out of anywhere and yeah, that's what a lot of the travel insurance plans have. They have um uh up to a certain amount of money for international um yeah, Medivac, I guess. So you'd say like getting you transporting you to a from a place um that maybe doesn't have the best hospital to a place that would. Um so absolutely, if you're going on a safari, most safari companies actually require you to have travel insurance um for that specific reason. If if something happened to you in the bush, they you would have the funds to be able to get reimbursed to beat a raging lion or something. Get yourself it's get yourself back out. But I mean, we had um, it wasn't my personal client, but on our team, um they just started their trip to Italy last week and the wife broke her foot on their very first day.

SPEAKER_06 21:01

Oh no.

SPEAKER_04 21:01

I don't know the exact circumstances where she was walking, what happened, but kicking her husband. She broke her husband exactly. But her foot broke and that they she had to hole up in the um hotel a little bit. They did not have travel insurance, and so she got hit with a 500 euro bill for a doctor to come to the hotel to visit her. Luckily, it was a hotel that did great. They'd never felt like they didn't have good care. Yeah. But they're gonna have to pick up the tab on that. So most places you're gonna be able to have people who are gonna help you get you to con get you to good care. There are very few places in the world I would say you would need to be nervous about health if you're going and just know that like you're you know you're going to those places. Like you know, you know, you know you're going to a remote place if you're going on a safari and it's gonna be a two-day drive or a helicopter ride or something to get you to a city center.

SPEAKER_07 21:57

Um, but you know, if you're don't I think the scary part is just not uh speaking the language and having the language barrier, but obviously there's technology in our phones now that certainly helps with that.

SPEAKER_02 22:07

Oh my goodness, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 22:08

Yeah, I I think what I saw was um that they would just they would just uh jet you out and bring you back to the states. I think that's part of a ND VIP plan, something like that, is add-on to that service.

SPEAKER_04 22:20

Definitely. And if you have something like a condition or um we had a client um who was in Scotland and had forgotten some of his medication, but they were able to get a prescription. I mean, it was a it was a headache and you know, took a good part of their day and trying to communicate of like which pharmacy do we go to to pick this up? But but but they got it. Yeah. He was able to get it and continue on the trip and things. Um so I would say, you know, there are it's there are all kinds of things that can happen um while you travel and your health is definitely part of that. But there are some good things that you can put under GERD your your experience to kind of help you along the way.

SPEAKER_07 23:02

Uh let's talk about logistics and practical concerns. So things like um senior-friendly transportation, you know, because you're talking with someone who I remember um I took my parent or my grandparents to Paris. Um my grandmother was alive. She's always wanted to always wanted to go. I was speaking at a conference in uh nearby country and decided, okay, we'll all fly then from Atlanta to there and we'll meet up with them. And it was a nice, it was a nice trip. Uh, but she was she was probably in her uh late 70s at that point, and she was walking her neighborhood to get ready to go to Paris.

SPEAKER_04 23:37

Um I love that.

SPEAKER_07 23:38

But the steps were the steps, there are steps everywhere, I felt like so it was slow going, but it was it was good memories. Um, how do you plan for that as a travel agent helping someone?

SPEAKER_04 23:51

Yeah, I mean, I I think your grandmother did probably about all that she could do was just to walk and prep herself to to do it. Um, but I would say um connecting you with partners and maybe it's a tour group. So maybe you want to go with a guided group that where you're going to have um a tour director and porters who are gonna be along with you, so you're not carrying your bags around from destination to destination. Maybe they're picking it out up off the bus and taking it to your hotel room, those kinds of things.

SPEAKER_07 24:20

Um, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 24:22

Yeah. So definitely being able to look and research different types of trips that might offer more what we call like white glove service, where it's you're doing less of the heavy lifting um and even can considering your destination of um yeah, I mean, if you want to see Paris, you want to see Paris and that's just gonna be steps and cobblestone street.

SPEAKER_06 24:43

Right, right.

SPEAKER_04 24:43

Yeah, because it's it's an old city. Um, but if you um like we had a a couple clients who are planning their trip to Africa and they really want to do a safari and the dad's a little bit older. So he um has requested a bit more mobile safari camps. So safari camps where maybe the the walk from the main dining area to the tent is not gonna be quite as long, maybe not uphill. Yeah. And um obviously using us, we could get in contact with all of our partners in Tanzania and say, okay, which of these camps have the best mobility options? And so they're there on the ground. They know this camp is the one that has the 50,000 steps to go up to the top of the rock where you're gonna have a beautiful view, but it's not be quite as mobile, you know. So um, so they can connect us with the the trips that the destinations they're gonna be better suited for that. Um, so I would say that's part of the planning process is sort of um communicating what the mobility um challenge might be, if it's significant, if it's just more of a, you know, I just get tired, I don't want to do an eight-hour tour each day. The max could be four because the stamina is just not there, um, that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_07 26:01

What do what do people often ask you when planning big trips?

SPEAKER_04 26:05

I would say uh we're often asking more questions of them um when we're at the start of a trip. So definitely some of the concerns are where where like where should we go if we want to go and do um a certain type of trip? What would be the best kind of destination if we want to go um and experience a cruise in the Mediterranean? Like what would be a good fit for for what we want to do? And that's when we sort of turn things around and say, well, what you know, what kind of travel do you like to do? Do you want to have a um experience where you're making lots of different stops, or do you want more days on the boat? You know, are you wanting to relax more? Are you wanting to maximize as much as you can to see as many places as you can? So I would say more often we're the ones asking a lot of the questions. Um, trying to understand travel style.

SPEAKER_07 26:56

I just realized how difficult I am. Because I want because I want to relax and and my wife wants to travel and see things.

SPEAKER_02 27:04

Okay. So that's a like pacing is a big is a big issue.

SPEAKER_07 27:10

I run 100 miles an hour here. I don't want to go 100 miles an hour somewhere else.

SPEAKER_04 27:13

And so that's part of the I would say if you especially if we're talking and focusing mostly on retirement travel, that could be a conversation to have if your main travel companion is going to be.

SPEAKER_07 27:23

Maybe, maybe in if I ever retire, I probably won't. But if I ever retire, if you ever did, then if I ever were to do that, then then perhaps uh I would still want to be at a good pace in that sense.

SPEAKER_04 27:33

Yeah, sure. Well then, or you might have a conversation with you and Angela, and they're like, all right, so this year, what where do we want to go? So we had a um a couple um who live in California who um retired and they said, you know what, we will we have the X amount of money each year. We've talked to our financial advisor. This is how much money we want to spend each year for the next five years. Well, where what should here's some of the things we want to do? Um, and so they've decided on two trips a year. And so they've been to Mexico and they're about to go to Japan on what tomorrow, actually. Um, and so I would say for them, I don't know exactly the conversation they had between the two of them before they called us. But if I could go back and advise them, I would say, as you were sitting down, looking at those five years, looking each year, which two are we gonna do each year? Maybe sit down and have the conversation about what our have we noticed over our long marriage, our travel styles, which one of us likes to go, go, go, which one of us wants to relax? So maybe we're planning one trip a year that's more of a relax, go get on the river cruise where we're not having to pack up five times over the next two weeks, and we can just sort of relax more, but still see some stuff. Or do we want to go and do that beautiful trip to um Japan where we're gonna go see?

SPEAKER_07 28:53

I think you should start a whole new I think you should start a whole new business and you should uh have travel companions. So if she wants to go places, I could say she wants to go here. Let's find the right companion for her with the right personality, and and off they go and they can come back and send pictures.

Transportation and Mobility Considerations

SPEAKER_04 29:08

I mean, we have we have a group of women who love to travel together. I don't know the full story of why the husbands never seem to be Oh, I don't know why I see that all the time.

SPEAKER_07 29:20

I see that all the time. Husbands stay home, but for sure.

SPEAKER_04 29:23

And well, and for um, you know, say you get to retirement and you didn't want to be single, but you are maybe with divorce, or maybe you're widowed, and um, you know, you thought you were gonna be traveling with this companion that you had, and it turns out you didn't. Um, I would say there are there are some great tour groups that really specialize in that.

SPEAKER_07 29:42

Yeah, you just sign up as an individual and not drawing people who are like minded together.

SPEAKER_04 29:47

I would say my grandfather did that. Really? Um, she did, and she did a few tours and she ended up making friends with a lady who lived.

SPEAKER_07 29:54

It's like the first day of school, probably a little bit anxiety.

SPEAKER_04 29:57

Exactly. You're like a little bit nervous, but then you're like, oh.

SPEAKER_07 30:00

Oh wait, these people are fine.

SPEAKER_04 30:01

These people are fun. Like obviously, we enjoy some of the same stuff because we both signed up for this tour. So there's something there that's aligned. Right. Yeah. And she ended up having a really fun travel friend who they did a couple more tours after that together. And um, I think it gave her a lot of confidence to go to the places that she really wanted to go to, knowing that on that same tour in that same group was going to be somebody familiar. That's cool.

SPEAKER_07 30:26

Um what what destinations are most uh popular right now? Or over the last year?

SPEAKER_04 30:34

Over the last year. Italy is very popular.

SPEAKER_07 30:37

Everybody I know is Italy.

SPEAKER_04 30:38

It well, I would say it's beautiful. There's a lot that's um a lot of variety of things that you can do, and then of course the historic, and then the food, the food's amazing. Um spaghetti, but but not Casey. I know. I'm the worst traveler. Spaghetti, like you've never had spaghetti. It's just you know it's you say so. So Italy's a big one. Um, I would say Hawaii's always very popular. Oh, yeah, I can see that. Japan. We actually had quite a number of um trips to Japan.

SPEAKER_07 31:12

Um come. What's the draw in Japan?

SPEAKER_04 31:14

Um, I well into Tokyo? Tokyo, Kyoto, um, even oh the bullet train. Bullet trains. Um that'd be cool. I just think the uniqueness and I don't the quirkiness of the culture of there's just some with the anime and the anime, really, just interesting. Like I don't know if it's just part of the.

SPEAKER_07 31:36

I've been to Tokyo, um, and I'll say that uh the bullet train is pretty cool. I did, I did do that. Um and then of course some of the things. I didn't appreciate the food. I was hunting down Pizza Huts and Okay.

SPEAKER_04 31:49

Well, some people love the want to go for the like especially the very interesting sushi and yeah, I'm not a very adventurous eater. Okay.

SPEAKER_07 31:58

Does you see why she doesn't want to travel with me now?

SPEAKER_04 32:00

Yeah. I'm picking up on this now.

SPEAKER_07 32:03

Yes, I know, right?

SPEAKER_04 32:04

Um, but yeah, Japan's been very popular. Uh all I mean, the Caribbean's always popular. We've had quite a number of people doing um, like you, your friend who lives on the catamaran. Well, we've had lots, several friend groups um get together, a couple friends who want to go and do a catamaran ride around like the BBI, the British Virgin Islands. Um, so getting a group of friends together and having like a week where you have your pirate pirate week, the the captain, exactly, and you just sort of sail around. Um, that's been pretty popular. Um Maine um is actually quite popular. Everybody should be.

SPEAKER_07 32:40

Yeah, I worked there for a while. Everybody should go to Acadian National Park, beautiful place.

SPEAKER_04 32:44

Beautiful. Um, out west, Jackson Hole, um Yellowstone is very popular. That's really pretty out there. So ski trips are very popular. Japan has great skiing, so that's also a drill. Um toys.

SPEAKER_07 32:57

I've been reading that it's cheaper to go to Europe to ski than it is in the like park city and it can be failed.

SPEAKER_04 33:02

Yeah, it can be. Just with the lift ticket prices and um accommodations and things, it can be cheaper.

SPEAKER_07 33:10

Yeah. Um, so I guess uh give me some tips on maximizing comfort.

SPEAKER_04 33:17

So you sort of alluded to this earlier with the transfer, so the driver meets you at the airport. I would say anything you can do that is uh makes the connective tissue parts easier. So you arrive at the airport. We um can even arrange like VIP greet services where somebody meets you at the gate and they escort you through customs. Um, so depending on the destination, that might be really helpful if you're not having to kind of they may take you to a lounge and somebody else grabs your passport and goes and makes sure it's the officials stamp it off and things like that. And so you're not really having to be bothered waiting in the line.

SPEAKER_07 33:54

Interesting.

SPEAKER_04 33:54

Um, very nice services. Charles de Gaulle, uh, Air France actually is a very nice service because Charles de Gaulle is a terrible airport.

SPEAKER_07 34:02

It is, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 34:04

Yeah, there's a service where they can meet you at a gate and you get escorted to your next gate and whatever labyrinth Charles de Gaulle sends you through to get there. Yeah. Um, you don't have to worry about that. Okay. So I was and all of this comes at a price. Sure. Right. So but usually in retirement, that's when you sort of have more budget to give to these things. So maybe you're not taking as many trips, maybe you're not taking as long of trips or as complicated, but you're wanting to build into them those touch points that just make it a little bit more relaxing of experience. So um having a driver meet you, um, having a meet and greet at the airport, getting taken to your um hotel. So instead of staying maybe at an Airbnb where you have to then figure out where the lockbox code is thing, like you just show up and you're you're greeted with your welcome drink, and they somebody else takes your bag to their room and you walk in and there's your bag already up there. And you didn't have to schlep it up there.

SPEAKER_07 35:06

I mean, we live in Atlanta, so uh obviously international travel is gonna be on Delta, most likely. Um you can bargain shop and you can probably find, you know, American or I don't see much deals at United, but American will have deals because you have to go through Miami or uh through New York. Uh but I tell our clients all the time, you've got to spend the premium on the bigger seat.

SPEAKER_04 35:29

And that's another one. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 35:31

You don't need to be sitting in the back of economy for 12 hours. Like this isn't.

SPEAKER_04 35:37

And we like to tell people to um mix and match their uh seats. So if you're gonna have an overnight, that's when you want to have the liflat. So whatever it's gonna cost to get that lie flat seat for the overnight journey. And then when you're coming back, so it again, this is not as important. This is a very Europe-centric. So you're going over and it's overnight, and you want to be able to arrive somewhat refreshed. So get pay the money and get the live flat. But then coming back, you want to stay awake. Actually, you want to follow the sun over. So then maybe you only have premium select or something like that.

SPEAKER_07 36:10

But the um, but the these tickets for these lay flat seats are are like fifteen thousand dollars right now, which is crazy.

SPEAKER_04 36:16

Which they can be crazy. So then if you offset it, coming back with like a comfort plus or premium select, maybe you're not you're not.

SPEAKER_07 36:22

Well, the premium select is a domestic first class seat with a footrest.

SPEAKER_04 36:26

It's very nice seat.

SPEAKER_07 36:27

And during COVID, I rode I rode it out to out west, and um I think just as a trial run, um, I picked that plane specifically and I was like, okay, all right, this would be great going to Europe. I would I don't need a laid-flat seat. I don't sleep on planes, never have. Um, so I I think that that's it's a good value uh and it's five thousand dollars instead of fifteen thousand dollars.

SPEAKER_04 36:48

Sure.

SPEAKER_07 36:49

Uh at least right now. Yeah, we do we we're doing a trip over Christmas and I actually found yeah, found it to be a lot cheaper.

SPEAKER_04 36:55

It was like five grand for two as opposed to and going over um the flights are slightly, they're usually about an hour shorter than coming back. Um so that's a thing. I would say if you're doing anything over seven or eight, um, so if you are flying to Asia, if you're flying to Africa, um, if you can, you probably want that live flat just because as you start to get into the eight, nine, ten, twelve thirteen hours, you you want to have to. You don't know who your neighbors are back there.

SPEAKER_07 37:25

That gives me anxiety.

SPEAKER_04 37:27

Yeah. Exactly.

SPEAKER_07 37:28

I'm sure they're all very nice people, but but um, yeah, I've I've I've actually sat in the back uh many times when when I was in when I was an airline pilot, obviously. And those are the seats that were standby CCs.

SPEAKER_04 37:42

And that's something too with retirement travel where you have a lot more flexibility. Maybe you plan out the beginning of the year or looking ahead if it we're in late 25. Maybe you're looking out to late 26, early 27. So then you're you can start putting trackers and find out, okay, when is Delta going to do some sort of price drop on a certain leg of first. Or certain days.

SPEAKER_07 38:05

If you can be flexible with your days, that$15,000 lay flat seat could easily fall all the way down to five, right? Or maybe probably not three anymore, but in the five range.

SPEAKER_04 38:14

And if you want to kind of build your trip based on that, then you can, especially in retirement, you have that flexibility of time to say, I'm not locked into this certain time period. Um, you know, unless a grandkid's getting married or something. Like, you know, sort of like here's my year-long calendar. Let me wait until that price drops because I know I want that life flat. Um the only exception to that would be if you're wanting something like an African safari that does need to be booked out like a year in advance.

SPEAKER_07 38:46

Right.

SPEAKER_04 38:46

You know, depending on the destination. But if you just want to go to like Paris and and London or something, look for deals. Look for deals. Yeah. Especially in retirement, you have the time flexibility to do that.

Maximizing Comfort While Traveling

SPEAKER_07 38:57

Absolutely. Um I'll touch on this as we as we wrap up. Um when it comes to planning for travel, what we do typically is we our planners are gonna take uh what your travel budget is, we're gonna add that to um our wants. And let's say it's uh$20,000 a year. You can actually in planning, you can actually add that$20,000 a year for like a 10-year spurt or 15-year spurt. It doesn't really change your overall retirement income too much. Uh it'll drop just a little bit because you have to accommodate that$20,000. But it's much different than saying this is a max you can live on until age 95, and here you are at 60 trying to plan this out. Uh, and so that that's how we work travel into uh into people's budgets. Uh, we've done some plans recently, had$50,000 a year for 10 years. Uh so it just it just depends on obviously your overall financial situation, but this is why you want to try to be debt-free by the time you retire. This is why you want your house paid off. This is why you don't have car notes, you don't have any of this stuff. So when you get there, you have opportunities to do things like this, and you you can do it with great flexibility with your time, but you also have the resources to be able to pull it off for the first time in your life. You'll have the time and the money.

SPEAKER_03 40:08

Exactly.

SPEAKER_07 40:09

Right?

SPEAKER_03 40:10

Exactly.

SPEAKER_07 40:11

So so how that um uh has typically trains. Oh, and we inflate the travel by two and a half percent per year. Nice. Uh that's kind of the standard inflation. A travel um actually, I was uh we did a podcast recently on inflation. Uh, I think travel goes up, or at least airfare has gone up by 1.8% per year for 20 years. So it's actually below the uh the trend line. Nice. Uh now, if you go when everybody else is going.

SPEAKER_04 40:36

Well, that's another thing. I was about to say another plus of retirement is that you can lean into what we call shoulder season, which is so the most expensive times to go. I'm sorry, Casey, are Christmas. I know. That's the only time everyone has off. The holidays because that's when everybody has off. And and the destinations know that the tourism industry is not, is, is definitely knows that. And so if you're looking to go to like the Caribbean, um, for example, not quite as much in Europe. It doesn't, they don't, I feel like it's price gouging. There are some resorts, no, not in Europe. Europe is Europe, it will go up some, but it's not quite as massive. But there have been some years looking at like Caribbean resorts where it's just if you went the second week of December versus the last week in December, it's just three or four, five times as much. And right.

SPEAKER_07 41:25

I've never been on a cruise, but when I think about a cruise, I think about it over Christmas break. And I bought in and they show you all the departure dates and they show you the price, and it's the same ship. I'm like, oh my gosh, this one here is fifteen hundred dollars per person starting in February, right? But or January one or whatever, and then the one prior is like five times that it's the same service. I don't think you're getting anything extra.

SPEAKER_04 41:50

No, no, just supply-demand for supply and demand, yeah, absolutely. So, and then summer travel. So anytime kids, uh, the majority of kids in the United States are off, correct? Then the prices are gonna go up. Yeah, because they know that's still hot in August.

SPEAKER_07 42:07

So you can still have a summer trip in August.

SPEAKER_04 42:09

Absolutely. So yeah, if once kids September, a lot of places, I mean, it's 90 degrees today. I mean, there are a lot of places still warm in September.

SPEAKER_05 42:18

True.

SPEAKER_04 42:19

Um, and a lot of destinations that used to sort of end their seasons are extending them. So Greece, for example, the Greek islands used to really kind of late September, they really sort of shut down and it was sort of like if you wanted to go after that, there's really not a point because the locals have left, they've gone back to the mainland. But now it's extending into like November. There are some um areas of it where you can still have a great um trip through October. So if you have again retirement, you have that flexibility, you can lean into those um off peak seasons of travel um for some of the destinations that you really want to go to.

SPEAKER_07 42:58

So let's wrap up with uh some tips. What are your what was some of your top tips for well?

SPEAKER_04 43:04

One of them is sort of mentioned um putting a flight skyscanner, tracker, Google flight alert, something, especially if you have a certain destination in mind, but you have maybe some flexibility um and it's not a big trip that has to be decided before airfares released. Um, and especially since that can be such a big ticket part of the trip um for a lot of people, um especially and if you're wanting a higher um cabin class or something, having that. I would say planning early, um planning and sitting down, communicating with um who you want to be traveling with. So what trips are you looking ahead to do? What is I know the bucket list is cliched, but what is on the list? Where do you want to go?

SPEAKER_06 43:47

Right.

SPEAKER_04 43:48

Um, and then talking to somebody early. So if an African safari is on your list, like when really should you be talking to somebody? Probably a year and a half out from when you'd like to go. If Antarctica's on your list and you really want to go and do that, um, knowing which uh cruise company, which version of that trip is gonna be a good fit for you, you're gonna want to try and get out there early um and looking at it. So um I would say, especially for retirees looking ahead, being able to communicate um early what your trips are, what are the places that you've wanted to go. Um and then I would say think about um being generous with your travel. Um, where what are trips that you can invite your kids, your grandkids, friends? Yeah, leaving a legacy, not I think there can be a legacy of them seeing you travel. I know that was the case for me with my grandparents. Um I was in school and so they didn't take me and trips. They didn't like I didn't get to go on the two-week trip.

SPEAKER_06 44:50

Right.

SPEAKER_04 44:51

Um, but seeing them do that and then come back and talk about it really opened my eyes. Oh, yeah, you can, you can get out there, you can go travel, you can um experience the world. And the world's not a scary place to go visit. I think that communicates a lot to the next generation of like no matter um, you know, within reason. But there are very few places in the world that like you can't go visit. Yeah. Um, and so getting out there showing them that can be a real good legacy to leave your family. So those would be some of my best tips.

SPEAKER_07 45:23

Helps them see the world bigger than yeah, absolutely. For sure. Well, thanks for listening today's episode. Interested in learning more about wiser wealth management. I want to schedule a consultation meet with one of our fiduciary financial advisors. You can do so by going to wiserinvestor.com or clicking in the episode notes. You can also uh get in touch with Amy. We have her link uh to Blue Pineapple Travel in here as well. Uh Amy, what's your best email?

SPEAKER_04 45:46

Amy R at Blue Pineapple Travel.com.

SPEAKER_07 45:49

There you go have it, folks. Go book your trip now.

SPEAKER_04 45:52

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_07 45:52

Go spend that travel budget money we set in there for you.

SPEAKER_00 45:55

There's a lot of good parts of the world waiting for you.

Financial Planning for Travel

SPEAKER_07 45:58

Thanks for listening. We'll see you guys next time.

SPEAKER_00 46:00

Thanks for listening to a Wiser Retirement Podcast. We hope you enjoyed today's episode. Make sure to subscribe wherever you're listening. That way you don't miss any new episodes. We'd also appreciate if you could leave a rating and review. If you have any questions about anything that was discussed today, head to wiserinvestor.com and reach out. This podcast is strictly for informational purposes only and is not to be considered as investment advice or solicitation to buy or sell any financial products, securities, digital assets, or any other investment vehicles or a basis to make any financial decisions. Wiser Wealth Management Incorporated is a registered investor advisor with the SEC. The host and or guest may personally own securities, digital assets, or other investment vehicles mentioned on this podcast. Neither the host nor guest of the show are compensated for their participation, and no referral fees are paid to or received by any host or guest for clients, listeners, or similar interests. Investments involve risk, and unless otherwise stated are not guaranteed, feature to first consult with a qualified financial advisor, tax professional, insurance professional, andor legal professional before implementing any strategy discussed herein. Past performance is not indicative of future performance.