We travel and since we have retired we have travelled to a lot of places. Antarctica has never been particularly appealing and so we've left it off our bucket list, but with other spots on the globe we have been there, done stuff and gone back to. You can have a look at some of those places by going to the "Free Stuff" section of this web site and clicking on any of the travelogues. I've just finished uploading the one on Egypt that took us the first part of September 2024. Of course to get maximum benefit, you have to travel yourself.

I came across this HuffPost article that gives an analysis of those benefits at https://apple.news/AbaU5kDSGRDWb9PquPZvHcw

but even before reading the piece, I had my own list of what's so great about being on the move. Of course just that - being on the move - is number one in any benefits list. I do want to say that moving while reading the Rick Steves guidebook has the added value of developing your multi-tasking faculty, especially in traffic or steep places, but some of you have been watching young people with a cell phone bionically welded to their hand and you already know that.

HuffPost says that travel slows the aging process because it encourages or involves:

• walking or hiking different terrain, thereby boosting metabolism

• stress reduction because someone else does the planning & worrying

• social health when you meet, even rely on, other people 

• maintains your sense of community which is a proven age extender

• requires thinking and practice in other languages, even accents (think Newfoundland).

But before I even read the article, I had made my own list based on our Rick Steves trips and trips with only a Rick Steves guidebook. After consultation with my travelling companion and warmer of cold feet, I say this:

• Getting there and going places demands planning. You may be joining a tour group where someone will be standing with a sign as you disembark from plane or boat or train, but you're not only doing one trip are you? If you just put out a few thousand dollars to get to Rome, you might as well plan for a few side trips before or after the one you registered for. Rail travel through Europe is easy and you can design your own trip. We've bought Eurorail passes and taken our time moseying across France or Italy. Staying in one spot for a few days or even a week lets you get to know the locals.

• Try new foods and customs, but know your digestive system's limits. The big advantage to eating out is the absence of meal preparation and clean up (talk to Beverly about this one). You'll find many places that give you enough plain grub in the morning that you'll only want one other meal that day. We all probably eat way more than we need to anyway.

• Using your feet is still sound advice even in those cute little aphorisms posted in gyms, such as, "Motion is lotion" or "Use it or lose it". Just keep walking. It doesn't have to be a jog tempo; a few hours of strolling will be just fine.

• Get up earlier. You're going to have a longer life, so start enjoying more of it. Besides, the B at the B&B will still have lots of the kind of yoghurt you like. And a spot to sit and enjoy it.

• Meet newbies and do talk to strangers. Even try a new language. Most places on the planet have an English speaker in the neighbourhood, but you don't need one. If you learned those phrases your mother taught you to say like "Hello, Please, Thank you" and have them translated, you'll do just fine. After spending a week in the Montmarte District of Paris and stopping every night at a corner store to buy our breakfast staples, the owner took us for coffee on the night before our departure. Our conversation was limited but not the mutual appreciation.

• Beverly speaks fluent charades and has always made friends, shopped, eaten and found toilets across the globe. And speaking of B's communicative foibles (which I love to do), we once found ourselves in a general store somewhere in Newfoundland. The proprietor was busy making toast to have with our tea and had brought out some bakeapple jam which we "just had to try" and B was listening in to a conversation going on close by between some working lads, judging by their clothes. After a bit she looked at me and, shaking her head, muttered, "I know they're speaking English but I can't understand a bloody word they're saying". The jam was nice.

• Which brings us to education, and that's why you went in the first place. Learn some stuff to tell the folks back home, especially the grandchildren because it's their inheiritance you spent getting there. BUT, spend some time every evening or at least on the return flight, reducing the volume of photographs on your phone-camera. Thirty shots will hold attention; 200 will destroy it. At least check the photos and delete the ones that are fuzzy, duplicates or the inside of your pocket.

• About that education. It's mostly your own, and so unless you're in the business of giving travel talks or boring your kinfolk silly, you're the only one who needs a lot of information about the photo subject. A guide suggested that we take a shot of our entrance ticket at every site so that we would know that all subsequent pictures would be from that place. If you really are going to give a travel talk, and lots of seniors centres would welcome you and even pay you to do so, then keep a small notebook to make comments. I tried to do that at the end of each day while the old brain was still functioning.

• Get rid of clothes (and perhaps gain some). We all have promised ourselves to reduce our clothing inventory; this is how you can do it. Pack the clothes that are still quite serviceable but reaching the limit of their wearable or stylish lives. Along the way, say to the folks at the B&B or hotstel or wherever that you want to donate some clothing and could they help you. They will. I maintain that such lightening of the backpack should remain just that. Other voices in my entourage plead for compensatory shopping.

• Don't drink a lot. I know I'm being a spoilsport and I don't always foillow my own advice in this respect, but I know I never get a good night's sleep if I imbibe too much. On the eight-hour plane ride home, so what? At the introductory dinner the night before the trek up to the ruins of Delphi, not a good idea. You know your own metabolism best, but science says take it easy.

So, where are you heading? We're off to Mexico in February. I'm practising my Spanish.

Dos cervezas por favor

Margarita? Ciertamente!