Sealord: did your sister travel and see the world like you? I have a brother and sister and all of us are so-o different. I don’t know where my list for travel came from and I’ve enjoyed it all. I was looking at my comment in my middle school yearbook and my commentary was “I want to see the world”. Apparently, I knew something then.
Where is everyone going in 2026. I’m to Yosemite (easy trip), Greenland (another company in (July) and New Zealand (Tauck) later in the year.
OurTravels, those sound like great trips and your middle school yearbook story is wonderful! In the spring, we are going to London and Dublin on our own because we can. 🇬🇧🇮🇪
My love of travel is obviously in my bones. British people have always been eager to explore new lands….even though it often lead to colonialism, war and slavery. For the average person, it’s because being on a small island, you just need to escape and see the wider world.
Back around the sixties is when there was a huge trend for the average person to travel, made easy by very cheap ‘package holidays’ and charter flights. I can remember visiting my aunt and uncle and sitting through their slide show of a town in Spain, I can't spell it so I’ll leave the name out but it looked beautiful and sunny with lots of flowers and sea scapes. I never thought back then that I would be able to leave the shores of England and visit so many far flung places on this diverse planet.
Travel began in earnest after marrying my high school sweetheart who had traveled in Europe with his parents. When we could afford it, we traveled. We camped in France a lot. The US back then was a very cheap place to visit, two dollars to the pound! Everyone seemed to be going to Disney world. We explored other parts of the US too.
On my first visit to Germany, I discovered I was pregnant and spent most of that trip with my head in a bucket.
After finding out it would not be wise to have a third child, I always said travel would take the place of the expense of an extra mouth to feed. As we built up our wealth and then retirement, we have reaped the benefits of our saving and go on adventures whenever we can. We don’t have a bucket list as such because as every year goes by, more destinations open up for places we would never dream of being able to go to. We also enjoy going back to places we have fallen in love with and there is always more to see than you managed the first time. Our upcoming trip to New Zealand is almost all new places than on our first visit there.
It will be very hard to give up travel when that time comes.
This coming year we go to New Zealand, a Danube river cruise, Galapagos with our family. Nepal and the Baltic States. 2027 is already shaping up. Here’s to our continued good health to do all this.
On the tours I have been on, the local guides have a knack for finding alternate routes that avoid stairs as much as possible. When we see someone who appears reluctant or fearful, we offer an arm to help them balance. It really is not difficult to offer a helping hand.
I agree that stairs without handrails can be daunting. It is harder for me to descend them, partly because I have clodhoppers for feet.
Kfnknfzk, that is lovely but no one can expect to be helped on tour. There are too many of us nursing limitations of movement ourselves that maybe are not obvious to others. .
How many people are willing here to potentially go a long way out of their way in the heat to find alternative routes to avoid staircases etc. spending less time at a site they’ve been waiting to see just because a person on the trip can’t manage a staircase. There have been comments here on the forum of that happening on their tours and they were not happy. I certainly crossed one company off my list having someone on a very active tour being in a wheelchair and her so called friend possibly with a mild case of dementia. Anyone can have an accident or fall during a trip and that can’t be helped, we’ve seen it happen quite a few times. But when Tauck specifies that the TD cannot give individual attention to those with limited mobility and that they must have an able bodied person with them. It’s very clear.
British - I agree the tour directors have a duty to ensure a pleasant and rewarding travel experience for all their customers.
I believe we have taken the same amount of Tauck tours, and I have never witnessed an individual who was so infirmed that they required special assistance. Granted, you have taken more “exotic” tours than I have. Perhaps that is what you are referring to.
I am not advocating special treatment for anyone on a tour, but I will vehemently advocate for human kindness.
You have been lucky. Of course it’s human to run up to someone if they have fallen to help etc. which I do automatically without thinking. Gosh, I’ve given CPR to someone in a supermarket once. But a person booking a vacation with the expectation that others will be willing to help you along from the get go, Tauck makes it clear. At my age I’m not up to putting my own body at risk, my days of lifting heavy people in my job, or someone leaning on me in an unexpected heavy way, are long gone, I’m not up to it.
Likewise. No worries, everyone has their own opinion.
We travel with another company that accommodates less mobile people, there are different tour levels when we visit sites for them and no single supplements. It works very well. Tauck does not run it’s tours like that, except a little bit on River cruises I understand. They clearly state the expected mobility and pace of their tours.
Comments
Sealord: did your sister travel and see the world like you? I have a brother and sister and all of us are so-o different. I don’t know where my list for travel came from and I’ve enjoyed it all. I was looking at my comment in my middle school yearbook and my commentary was “I want to see the world”. Apparently, I knew something then.
Where is everyone going in 2026. I’m to Yosemite (easy trip), Greenland (another company in (July) and New Zealand (Tauck) later in the year.
OurTravels, those sound like great trips and your middle school yearbook story is wonderful! In the spring, we are going to London and Dublin on our own because we can. 🇬🇧🇮🇪
My love of travel is obviously in my bones. British people have always been eager to explore new lands….even though it often lead to colonialism, war and slavery. For the average person, it’s because being on a small island, you just need to escape and see the wider world.
Back around the sixties is when there was a huge trend for the average person to travel, made easy by very cheap ‘package holidays’ and charter flights. I can remember visiting my aunt and uncle and sitting through their slide show of a town in Spain, I can't spell it so I’ll leave the name out but it looked beautiful and sunny with lots of flowers and sea scapes. I never thought back then that I would be able to leave the shores of England and visit so many far flung places on this diverse planet.
Travel began in earnest after marrying my high school sweetheart who had traveled in Europe with his parents. When we could afford it, we traveled. We camped in France a lot. The US back then was a very cheap place to visit, two dollars to the pound! Everyone seemed to be going to Disney world. We explored other parts of the US too.
On my first visit to Germany, I discovered I was pregnant and spent most of that trip with my head in a bucket.
After finding out it would not be wise to have a third child, I always said travel would take the place of the expense of an extra mouth to feed. As we built up our wealth and then retirement, we have reaped the benefits of our saving and go on adventures whenever we can. We don’t have a bucket list as such because as every year goes by, more destinations open up for places we would never dream of being able to go to. We also enjoy going back to places we have fallen in love with and there is always more to see than you managed the first time. Our upcoming trip to New Zealand is almost all new places than on our first visit there.
It will be very hard to give up travel when that time comes.
This coming year we go to New Zealand, a Danube river cruise, Galapagos with our family. Nepal and the Baltic States. 2027 is already shaping up. Here’s to our continued good health to do all this.
On the tours I have been on, the local guides have a knack for finding alternate routes that avoid stairs as much as possible. When we see someone who appears reluctant or fearful, we offer an arm to help them balance. It really is not difficult to offer a helping hand.
I agree that stairs without handrails can be daunting. It is harder for me to descend them, partly because I have clodhoppers for feet.
Kfnknfzk, that is lovely but no one can expect to be helped on tour. There are too many of us nursing limitations of movement ourselves that maybe are not obvious to others. .
How many people are willing here to potentially go a long way out of their way in the heat to find alternative routes to avoid staircases etc. spending less time at a site they’ve been waiting to see just because a person on the trip can’t manage a staircase. There have been comments here on the forum of that happening on their tours and they were not happy. I certainly crossed one company off my list having someone on a very active tour being in a wheelchair and her so called friend possibly with a mild case of dementia. Anyone can have an accident or fall during a trip and that can’t be helped, we’ve seen it happen quite a few times. But when Tauck specifies that the TD cannot give individual attention to those with limited mobility and that they must have an able bodied person with them. It’s very clear.
British - I agree the tour directors have a duty to ensure a pleasant and rewarding travel experience for all their customers.
I believe we have taken the same amount of Tauck tours, and I have never witnessed an individual who was so infirmed that they required special assistance. Granted, you have taken more “exotic” tours than I have. Perhaps that is what you are referring to.
I am not advocating special treatment for anyone on a tour, but I will vehemently advocate for human kindness.
You have been lucky. Of course it’s human to run up to someone if they have fallen to help etc. which I do automatically without thinking. Gosh, I’ve given CPR to someone in a supermarket once. But a person booking a vacation with the expectation that others will be willing to help you along from the get go, Tauck makes it clear. At my age I’m not up to putting my own body at risk, my days of lifting heavy people in my job, or someone leaning on me in an unexpected heavy way, are long gone, I’m not up to it.
You are not understanding what I am saying.
Likewise. No worries, everyone has their own opinion.
We travel with another company that accommodates less mobile people, there are different tour levels when we visit sites for them and no single supplements. It works very well. Tauck does not run it’s tours like that, except a little bit on River cruises I understand. They clearly state the expected mobility and pace of their tours.