For a few of us, the journey begins as we think about planning a trip. We read travel magazines, Trip Advisor comments, or our local paper’s travel section. We don’t all watch The Travel Channel or subscribe to the New York Times or Forbes, but we are a cross section of baby-boomers and baby-boomers offspring that need very little but want it all – and we’d like it at the lowest possible price.We might be single, married, divorced, parents or childless. We have or have had careers, or are stay-at-home wives, or business travelers whose spouses or partners want a vacation.
I was brought up in the Midwest with a family who for vacations took an annual road trip. We always packed those single serving cereal boxes because we couldn’t afford to eat more than one meal a day in a restaurant. I thought that Holiday Inns were the height of luxury because they had an indoor pool – and most of our nights were spent in roadside motels.
I was 15 the first time I flew. My friend’s mother married well. Her extremely rich new husband invited me, as their guest so he and his new wife didn’t have to be bothered with her daughter. We went on a two-week Christmas trip to Barbados; a country that my family didn’t know existed. If you can believe it, they were so rich they rented the top section of a 747. Was I in for a rude awakening when I returned to my humble lower- middle class existence, although I must admit that I experienced a lifestyle that I wanted.
Cut to my early 20’s, after college when I opened a small medical consulting business where my entrepreneurial spirit was born. My memories of that Barbados trip had set my expectations far beyond my humble beginnings, and I wanted to see the world in style. My small business took me all over my state and to neighboring ones.A lack of concrete financial obligations allowed me to often travel first class and stay in some decent hotels, but my level of discernment had yet to mature. I still stayed at the Holiday Inn because I had no idea that one hotel could be that much different from the next.
By my mid-20’s I realized that my heart was not in health care, and I was looking for a venture in the travel and writing industries. So, I saved enough money and planned a three-month trip to Europe after enlisting a girlfriend as my travel mate.Before we embarked, I spent many days in the library (way before computers) finding the best deals. We each had $1500 in our pockets, as well as first class Eur-rail passes and a round-trip ticket on Iceland Air because they had the best deal at that time. We stopped in Iceland, spent time in England, Luxembourg, Belgium, France, Netherlands, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Sweden, Italy, and Norway. That was my first sample of Europe.
I learned along time ago that that if I wanted to travel first class it would take a lot of finagling to stay within a budget.Almost 30 years after that first trip to Europe, I travel all over the world albeit by convoluted negotiations and arcane planning but I stay at wonderful places and spend much less than most. I’ve planned cooking lessons in Tuscany, a wedding on the beach in Jamaica, a helicopter flight from Nice to Monaco, Mediterranean Cruises, Shopping Sprees in Shanghai, and Tented Camps in Thailand, Japanese Ryokans, and trips to explore college choices for my kids all over the United States.
While I hate to admit it, I was probably one of the first frequent flyers known on many airlines. In those days, I even used to ask my friends to book their airline tickets in my name so I could get their points. Can you imagine today trying to travel with a ticket in someone else’s name? Travel may have changed drastically through the years, but no matter when the travel bug bites, it stays with you!
Labels: baby-boomers, luxury, travel planning, vacation