Traveling Solo at 80 Years of Age and TSA Surprises

Welcome back to Walks with Mom, where two generations come together to have the tough, honest, and sometimes hilarious conversations about aging.

In this episode, Kim and her mom Karen dive into a very real and relatable topic:  traveling while aging, and what happens when independence meets concern.

What started as a simple trip to visit a lifelong friend turned into a deeper conversation about safety, confidence, and letting go. When Karen decided she wanted to travel alone to Colorado, Kim had her reservations, especially with winter weather, airport navigation, and the unknowns that come with aging.

But Karen went anyway.

From unexpected snow to TSA surprises (including a full body search and an apple butter incident you won’t forget), this episode is filled with humor, honesty, and valuable insight for anyone navigating aging parents or aging themselves.

They talk through the real concerns:
hearing challenges in busy airports, navigating gate changes, handling luggage, and the emotional balance between independence and safety.

Karen also shares practical advice from her own experience and her peers, including why you might want to consider TSA PreCheck, when to request wheelchair assistance, and why nonstop flights can make all the difference.

More than anything, this episode is about perspective learning how to support aging loved ones without taking away their independence, and recognizing that the desire to live fully doesn’t go away with age.

In this episode, you will learn:

Why planning ahead matters when aging parents travel
Common fears (and realities) of traveling solo later in life
Practical airport and flight tips for older travelers
How to balance independence with safety and support
Why “travel while you can” is more than just a saying

This conversation will make you laugh, think, and maybe even rethink how you approach independence for yourself or someone you love.

So grab your coffee (or a glass of wine), and join us for another walk.

Because aging isn’t for the faint of heart but it can still be full of adventure.

See you on the next walk.

Come with us as we explore what it means to navigate these years with our aging loved ones.

So grab a cup of coffee—or maybe a glass of wine—subscribe, invite your friends or family, and join us for Walks with Mom.

Special thanks to our Sponsor Amada Senior Care Mesa serving families and seniors in Phoenix, Scottsdale, Chandler, Mesa, and the surrounding East Valley area. Accredited VA Provider (NPI # 1558048199) and Trusted resource for Long-Term Care Insurance Claims

Compassionate, personalized in-home senior care starts here – contact Amada Senior Care Phoenix today by phone at (480) 418-5422 or visit us online to get started and give your loved one the support, dignity, and independence they deserve.
www.amadaseniorcare.com/mesa-senior-care

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Aging is not for the faint of heart. I'm Kim, a proud generation Xer, and I'm here with my baby boomer mom Karen. Together, we'll tackle the tough but necessary conversations, share the hilarious and sometimes embarrassing moments, and open up about the stories that truly touch the heart. Come with us as we explore what it means to navigate these years with our aging loved ones. So grab a cup of coffee or maybe a glass of wine, invite your friends and family, and join us for Walks with Mom. Well, welcome back, welcome back to Walks with Mom, our podcast where two generations come together and tackle the tough but necessary conversations. And so we just want to welcome our listeners. And I am your host, I'm one of your co-hosts, Kim, and I'm a Generation Xer. And this is my mom.

SPEAKER_02 0:59

And I am Karen, and I am a baby boomer. And we're talking about some of the roads we have to walk. Yes. As I age.

SPEAKER_00 1:11

Well, we're both aging, aren't we? Well, I'm aging more.

SPEAKER_01 1:17

How does that happen? You're aging more than I am.

SPEAKER_02 1:21

I'm just at that age where I age faster.

SPEAKER_01 1:24

How's that? I don't know. You still don't got me.

SPEAKER_00 1:29

I don't think we I don't think we age faster as we age. We're just aging. Okay. We're just aging. Okay, so um, before we do today's topic, which is um taking a trip without the falls. Got it. Got it. Um, let's just do something fun. So if you were to um bring back any style, fashion style from the past, what would it be? Bring it back. Yeah. Oh, I'd rather get rid of it. Okay, so what is a fashion that you didn't like at all? Nylons. Nylons pantyhose.

SPEAKER_02 2:09

No, even before the pantyhose, I'm from the generation that we had to wear girdles or garter belts to hold our hose up. That was awful, especially the girdle girdles. And then trying to get the line up the back of your hose straight and then the runs. Do not ever bring back hose. Patty hose or any hose.

SPEAKER_00 2:38

None of that.

SPEAKER_02 2:39

None. None of that. Absolutely. You didn't like that at all. No.

SPEAKER_00 2:42

No.

SPEAKER_02 2:43

As far as what I really kind of like now is the casual dress now.

SPEAKER_00 2:49

You mean just casual dressing or casual dresses? No, I don't like dresses really. Just casual dressing. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 2:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:00

Yeah. Um, that's interesting with the pantyhose. Like, uh, but it's so nice that we live in Arizona too, that we like, I don't think we need them not only for style, but just for warmth, right? Right. You know, if you were now we have leggings and other things. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 3:18

And they don't run. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, nylon's running.

SPEAKER_01 3:26

You don't need to know. You don't need to know. You haven't lived. You're not aging quickly like we are to know that.

SPEAKER_00 3:34

Right. Okay, so we're we're actually going to talk about trips. I know the pantyhose had nothing to do with trips, but or or hoes. Nope. So we're talking about taking the trips without the falls. And so let me give you some background information. Uh, a couple of months ago, mom has a friend that you guys have known each other since you were well, she's two years older. So I've known her since I was born, basically. Since you were one. So you her parents and your parents knew each other. And so you've known her for 80 all of your life. All of my life. Right. And so she was recently sick, and you felt like, okay, I need to go see her. Right. I need to go see her. And so mom and I had this, we there was some tension because you wanted to see her in the middle of summer. She she lives the middle of winter. I mean, in the middle of winter, and she lives in a a place, she lives in Colorado. And so I'm like, no, mom, we're not going in the middle of winter, 30 degrees below. I know it's not 30 degrees below, but and ice and all that. I'm like, no, we're not going. And I couldn't take you. And you were like, well, I'll just go by myself. I'm fully capable of still traveling by myself. Okay, so tell me, I mean, that was tension with us, wasn't it? A little bit. So talk about it from your perspective.

SPEAKER_02 5:06

Well, I did appreciate the the thing about the snow and and all of that, you know, because I don't want to put myself in the idea of falling on my trip. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 5:20

Um because there's ice or something like that.

SPEAKER_02 5:23

So I agreed to put it off till April. So last weekend I went to Colorado Springs. Yes. All by yourself. All by myself on the plane. But you know what happened when I was there? What? First day? It snowed. It snowed. I had the prettiest viewpoint of snow coming down and it was accumulating on the ground.

SPEAKER_00 5:51

It was fun. Well, I'm gl I'm glad. And and it turned out better than I thought. But I mean, what were some of the reasons that I was a little bit nervous that you were going by yourself?

SPEAKER_02 6:03

Well, just navigating the airport, probably. I was a little nervous too about that. But, you know, here again, um, I wasn't going to let it stop me. And I I flew to Albuquerque in in December, so it wasn't much different. Um Why do you think you get nervous? Well, because I have a real severe hearing problem, I was really worried that I wouldn't hear if the gate changed for the flight, or if it got delayed, or at the very worst, canceled. So I was concerned about hearing all of that. Yeah. Um, so I always push position myself where I can kind of see what's going on. And you know what? The airports now are really getting updated, and um many messages are printed out. So if you're at a place where you can watch some kind of monitor, it's printed out.

SPEAKER_00 7:00

Yeah, and I remember a couple of months ago, or no, uh before you went on your trip, you you expressed some of those fears. And I was about to tell you that there is the airline app, and we can get you on the airline app. And I bit my tongue. I don't know if you know that, but I bit my tongue because the app will send you notifications and messages that your gate has changed. Okay, don't tell her I do have the Southwest app. Well, then why are you not using it? Why do you? I was like, I bit my tongue because I was like, no, I'm not gonna approach something new with her, you know, so close. And we haven't The thing is I haven't figured out my login, but it sends me the information anyway.

SPEAKER_02 7:46

But you don't have the app, Mom. No, but it sent me the flight information anyway.

SPEAKER_00 7:52

That it was delayed. Oh, but it did so you did get a notification on your app, on your phone. On my phone.

SPEAKER_02 8:00

It didn't have the gate change, but it had the it my flight got ch changed of gate because it was delayed. Okay. But I kind of heard something about my flight number, so I just went and asked. Okay. It worked out fine. Uh I'll learn copy skills.

SPEAKER_00 8:18

Yeah, I was a little because I think it's when things change, and I I think it's true of people that age, you know, sometimes when things change, it's hard to adjust. It doesn't mean that you have some cognitive issues. It's just, you know, we're it's different than it used to be, so to speak. Right.

SPEAKER_02 8:38

So one of the things uh that um I kind of asked my friends before I went on this trip, you know, what kind of advice or what would they be concerned about when traveling? Well, you have to realize I asked my friends that are all over 80. And what'd they say? Schedule a wheelchair. They said schedule a wheelchair. You don't need a wheelchair right now. I don't need a wheelchair, but I'm just telling you, they have difficulty walking as far as you have to walk, at least in the Phoenix Airport.

SPEAKER_00 9:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:15

And as fast as you might have to walk if your gate changes. Okay. And because when my gate changed, it was a good two blocks plus because it was just, I don't know what they call those. It's not the con yeah, the concourse. It was a completely different concourse. Okay. So even though I was in the same terminal, I had to walk a long ways to to my new gate. Well, you got your steps in that day. I did, I got my steps in. Uh, I I do watch my steps on my phone. So for them, though, this was an issue. So maybe some of our listeners need to think about this issue. The airports are glad to provide wheelchairs, but it's really important that when you make your reservation, you reserve that wheelchair at that time. Because what I've noticed, there's a lot of people in wheelchairs anymore. I mean, at one time I was at a gate, the f the plane was delayed, and a lady in a wheelchair sat there, nobody was with her, she was by herself, and I thought, oh, I wonder if she needs to go to the restroom. Well, can she go by herself? Does she need wheel? You know, so you know, you have to kind of think ahead there. And all of my friends said schedule a wheelchair. So schedule a wheelchair. That was their advice. That was their advice.

SPEAKER_00 10:39

I personally enjoyed the fact that I had to walk. Well, and thankfully that you can walk. I can walk. Um, and so what was there another piece of advice some of your friends gave besides scheduling a wheelchair? No. I asked them, and that was all. That was the main thing. Schedule a wheelchair.

SPEAKER_02 10:58

But I I I think most of them do schedule do fly with someone else with them.

SPEAKER_00 11:04

Yeah. So the times that we've flown, it's we've flown together, or you've flown with other people from the church when you're flying. That's a long flight.

SPEAKER_02 11:14

These the two flights I've taken lately by myself were, you know, airport to airport, non-stop, and fairly short flights. So I I did find there was one problem I didn't tell you about. You're just gonna tell me now on the podcast what was the problem. I think it's kind of important to know. Okay. First of all, I'm a little nervous. I think it's important for everybody to have a TSA clearance.

unknown 11:43

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 11:44

Pre-check. Because generally, notice generally, you can go through that pre-check very quickly.

SPEAKER_00 11:55

Um, they kind of assist you going through um you don't have to do a lot of, you know, taking off shoes and things like that. And I do think that they have in the non-TSA check, like if you're 80 is for certain, but you don't have to take off your shoes.

SPEAKER_02 12:11

But and that's really important because my shoes all have metal in them. Okay. But um, you know, there there's just uh a speed that you can go through. The line is usually shorter, usually shorter. Um and I just would recommend people do that because it's really it costs a little money, but it really makes flying much easier. Yeah, what's the incident? I'm like, where's the hook here? Well, when I came back from Colorado, I was uh randomly selected. Wait, are you TSA check? Yes. Okay. But I'm randomly selected to do the full body scan.

SPEAKER_00 12:58

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 12:59

That you normally do, okay? Well, no problem. I get in there and I spread my legs and you know, hold my hands up and have this full body scan. And then I walk out and I think that's gonna be it. No, there were five places on there that they needed to check personally. And I have never had that to happen to me before.

SPEAKER_00 13:25

Okay. What what what did they have to check? What what were you what was going off? Well, I don't know, but there were five. She showed me you have nothing in your body. You don't you don't have a pacemaker or anything? I don't have anything like that.

SPEAKER_02 13:40

Inside my body. Okay. And but she showed me on this, you know, screen the five places that there was a little X. And so she says, I have to pat down search. Do you want to go to a private room or is this okay? Well, I'm thinking, oh, it's got to be minor, right? So I say, right here. Oh, it was not minor. Let me tell you. She, very nice lady. She told me exactly where she was going to check, but it was everywhere. So you've you so you felt a little violated. Is that what I'm hearing? I could have. I certainly could have. First of all, of course, my watch. I still had my watch on. I'd taken my bracelet off. Okay. But I still had my watch on. And that was one place. But she said there was a place in my groin area.

SPEAKER_01 14:31

I'm sorry. I'm probably there. Our editors are gonna have to edit this out because I I think that was a nice way to say it. So she did check completely, thoroughly. In your groin area. Well, that's that's a lot of action. You've had moms in that area for a while. Thanks. Now that should be edited.

SPEAKER_02 14:54

But you know what? My advice is they're gonna say they're gonna do a full body check. Get a private, get a private get a room. Get a private place to do it.

SPEAKER_00 15:04

Um you know, when you also told me that you weren't going to check your luggage, I was a little nervous. I was too. Okay, because I you're trying to handle your luggage, balance, you're putting it up there. And I my backpack too. And your backpack. And I'm like, that's just she's gonna fall. And I remember you going, Well, I just hope there's gonna be somebody nice that helps me with that. But sometimes you don't want to offend people because I've seen some aging people and and you're wanting to help them, but you're not wanting to, again, it's it's kind of always a struggle. Like, should I help somebody or should I am I saying that they'll do it?

SPEAKER_02 15:48

Though there's generally a lot of men, and even the younger women are willing to help an older person do that. But I was able to get my luggage up there by myself. You're so proud of yourself.

SPEAKER_00 16:00

You're so proud of yourself. Yes. Okay. I did have a little problem with my luggage though. What was the problem? I I'm hearing all these things for the first time now. Yeah. Well, you got accosted, and then now you have what? Something, another problem? I had to have my luggage searched, opened and searched. What are you carrying?

SPEAKER_02 16:20

Well, I have to tell you, my dear friend in Colorado Springs gave me a little tiny jar of apple butter with the metal ring on the top. And of course, I had stuck it in my shoe and it was all padded. It was traveling fine, but it kind of set off the alarm.

SPEAKER_01 16:42

The apple butter. The apple butter. You're the apple butter terrorist. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 16:50

You know, he was very nice. And I said, uh-oh, I never thought of that. That my friend made apple butter and it looked like apple butter.

SPEAKER_01 16:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:57

And so he was fine with it. You know, the guy that inspected my, but this is all in Colorado Springs.

SPEAKER_00 17:04

I don't know if I'll fly there ever again. No, I don't think it's Colorado Springs. I think it was the airport doing their job. It was. And they were all very nice.

SPEAKER_02 17:13

I have to say, they were very nice, and and you know, it wasn't really a problem. Okay. It's just, I didn't expect any of that.

SPEAKER_00 17:23

Well, I know that I was nervous for you traveling by yourself. Yeah. And especially when you had first started, you wanted to go in the middle of winter.

unknown 17:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:32

I was like, that's not the that's not the time to go.

SPEAKER_02 17:36

Well, what are you gonna say if I decide I want to drive to Albuquerque to see your sister?

SPEAKER_00 17:40

By yourself? Yeah. No, absolutely not. You are not going to drive by yourself. I'll put you on a plane and make sure my sister is on the other side to pick you up. But you are not driving them. I knew that would be the I could take two days. No. Like I used to do with with Kim. No, with your with our dad, no. Um so as people are traveling alone and they're aging, you've suggested TSA. Definitely. Um, if needed, get a wheelchair. Um, and there was another thing that you came back and you your suitcase is two wheels. Two wheels. And so you said my small suitcase that I can take on the plane. And you said, huh, I need to get four wheels. I need a four-wheel suitcase that'll stand up by itself. And that'll be easier to navigate as you are traveling. Um and we have a larger carrot four-wheel.

SPEAKER_02 18:42

So, but that one has to be checked. Right. And I I did kind of like traveling and not checking, but uh, you know, it depends how long you're gonna be gone someplace. Good. Yeah. There was one other thing I would say fly nonstop if at all possible. Because not by myself but with other people. I have traveled to airports where you have to even change terminals. And if it's a large airport like Dallas, oh my, that's awful. Yeah. The only way I made it through the Dallas airport, I've been there twice recently, I was with a lady that was in a wheelchair that had requested a wheelchair, and so they gave me special service, and you know, I got to be with her. Okay. And and we even had to get in one of the um carts uh to take us because it was a long gate.

SPEAKER_00 19:43

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 19:44

And uh then what the other time when I had to change gates, I uh it was an international flight. And uh you know what? You you take this train and finding where you get on the train and when you get off the train is hard. Yeah. So if you're traveling by yourself, go nonstop.

SPEAKER_00 20:06

If you can, but if you're not, then if you're traveling by yourself, just make sure you're scheduling ahead, you're looking ahead, you're aware of of some of those um obstacles or challenges that are going to happen by you know navigating that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:20

Yeah. So take your grandson or somebody with you.

SPEAKER_00 20:26

I think that's your next thing is if you want to go on a long trip, you're just gonna ask one of your grandkids to go with you and you'll pay for it, right? Well, maybe one of my daughters will go with me. Who knows? Maybe. Who knows? Well, thanks, mom. Um, I know I was a little hesitant, but you know, you've given me a little bit uh to think about of when our aging parents are traveling alone. Right. So help them. Yeah. Help them try to do that as independently as possible and as safe as possible. And oh, my what last piece of advice?

SPEAKER_02 20:59

Travel while you can because I know there will be a time when I won't feel like traveling because uh we like routine, and when you travel, there is no routine there.

SPEAKER_00 21:12

So travel while you can. Travel while you can. I think this is what we're gonna do. Let's travel while we can, mom. Okay, where are we going next? Well, we'll do that and we'll take walks with mom on the road. Um, so if you found that this was helpful, maybe you are nervous. I know I was nervous about mom traveling alone, or it just allows you to have conversations as your parents are traveling or um and they're continue to travel. It's things to just start talking and thinking about. Um we'll talk more about travel insurance. Like I've I've had you um, I'm I'm at a loss for words. I don't know how to say this eloquently. One of our episodes, we're gonna talk about how I made you get insurance that if she passes away. On a vacation, how that happens. So we're going to do that and why that is important. So we're going to talk about that on a next episode or on another episode. But until then, we'll see you on the next walk.

SPEAKER_02 22:13

This is Karen, and I just wanted to say thank you for spending some time with us today. Please come back for more laughs, more connections, and more real life moments between these two generations. See you on the next walk.