BootsnAll Travel Community

This seems a little used branch. Where are all the old buggers? Do you no longer travel or have you all drifted over to the Frommer site?

Well, at the moment, this old bugger is staying at a hostel dorm in Bogota.

Frommer site? Wash out your mouth with soap.
We may be old, but we are not simple-minded.

At the moment this old bugger is 16 months into a multi year, open ended trip around the world...enjoying the sun in southern Spain.

( I must admit though, I spend most of my time in the family section here)...that is a slow area too.

I'm not sure what the cutoff age is for "old bugger", but I probably qualify. I'll be 45 in a very short amount of time.

This old bugger went to Easter Island and French Polynesia a few months ago, to Lisbon and Madeira the year before, to Ecuador and Peru two years before that.

This old bugger would also like to do another very long trip (longest trip to date, year-long RTW). Still dreaming of China to Mongolia, Siberian Express to Moscow, Georgia, Armenia, Ukraine, maybe a Stan, Turkey, Libya...then I still haven't explored southern Africa...oh why is the world so damn big and beautiful and interesting? And why won't someone just pay me to ramble around it for as long as I like.

The problem with old buggeriness, at least for this old bugger (I really enjoy typing "this old bugger"!), is that I hesitate now before jaunting off for many months, and I didn't when I was in my 20's and 30's. I hesitate only because that dreaded spectre of "lost job security" is now visible to me when it wasn't before. I know I'll never reach a job level that entitles me to sabbaticals (where the employer will hold my spot open until I come back). So, if I want to go off for a year, it will mean quitting my job and starting over when I get back. I wish that *didn't* make me hesitate to plan a long trip, and maybe it shouldn't, but it does.

Good to see that there are still a few of us around. I spent the day in drenching rain burning off dead and culled trees, garden refuse and a three month accumulation of palm fronds. The amount of fuel I burned today I could have sold for a fortune in Varanassi. I live in an area much sought after by tourists but I lead a life of rural drudgery, and the memsahib has recently suggested that perhaps a new kitchen and bathroom would be a better investment than a couple more overseas trips.

I haven't the heart to tell her about the new outboard motor I've just bought.

Where is her sense of balance? Eheu!

I guess we first need a definition of "old buggers" as to a 18 year old I would be one...anybody double their age.

We are here...still alive and kicking. Plotting the next move.

Yes, I remember once an 18 year old girl telling me that she did not frequent a certain nightspot because of the "dirty old men aged around 21" who hung about there.

Well by anyone's definition being 70 Im sn old old bugger. And I really started to travel in my 60's. Not just because of retirement because Im still workiing. Been to Morocco, Russia, Peru, Northwestern USA, Costa Rica, Alaska etc. This year going to the Southwest USa, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and the Canadian Rockies. Just have a little more money and the kids are grown. Also have developed a deep interest in photography. Photogjackie

this old bugger works for a school system and is thinking on next summer's travel adventures, possibly an encore of living in Buenos Aires (last summer), as well as a spring break trip of some kind (to somewhere NOT where everyone else is going for spring break )

"Old bugger"? How about "Experienced traveler"? I guess I count at age 48.

I'm planning my trip to Israel for my son's bar mitzvah this summer. Last year, I went to Germany for a week and to Japan for two weeks including the World Science Fiction convention.

I'm thinking about a big trip next year to commemorate my 50th birthday. Maybe a mini 'round the world? Or a regional trip like circle Pacific? I don't know. I'm waiting for inspiration to hit.

I agree though that people don't really put much on this thread. I think there are two reasons: 1) travelers have many of the same concerns so I'm always over on the regional boards and 2) nobody likes to think of themselves as old...plus what kind of question is an "old" question?

This particular old bugger -- fifty next birthday -- is still on the move. My first long-haul trip was a hitch-hiking trip from Glasgow Scotland to Athens, Greece in 1979, through a creaking Yugoslavia still held almost together by the ageing Tito. Since then, I have spent twenty of the last nearly thirty years abroad, living and working in countries around Europe, Australia and New Zealand, and flitting all over Asia as a writer and photographer. During that time, from a Hongkong base, I visited mainland China on assignment nearly fifty times, and North Korea five times.

During a long spell back in Scotland (family duties called!), I concentrated on exploring my homeland -- and what a joy that was; Scotland's attractions are near-endless in my view.

Now I'm back in the Far East, living in Bangkok, and intending to explore parts of Asia, some of them already well-known to me, but others totally new.

ron mcmillan

I'm 61 and stuck at home awaiting the birth of a grandchild. Travel is still important even though we slow down.

I'm not sure I qualify as an old bugger yet, but I think it's looming on the horizon. I'll turn 48 shortly after we take off for a 2 1/2 year trip on bicycles from Alaska to Argentina - with our 10-year-old twin boys!! (But right now I'm serving my time in my classroom dealing with unruly teenagers for a couple more months before I can escape!)

We are three Old Buggers I'm 63yrs old my husband and friend are 61 yrs old and we are on a RTW trip nearing the end. Started In June 2007 and we have been to Canada, USA, Fiji, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, India, Nepal, Cambodia/ We are in Vietnam now for three weeks next China then Hong Kong and flying home on the 4th June 2008. We are having a great trip, seen some wonderful places, cities, villages, towns, forts, palaces,temples,historical sites, museums, mountains, canyons,glaciers,lakes,rivers,beaches, Great Barrier Reef, Fjords,many natural and man made wonders etc. Met so many interesting people from all walks of life and religions. We've travelled on trains, planes, boats,cars,tuk tuk, autocycles, minibuses, lived in motels, tents, log cabins, caravans, yurt, hostels, floating guest house, campervans, hotels not forgetting the sleeper trains in India. It's been one very full year of all the things we have never done or seen before in our lives. We are planning our next trip the year after next to cooler climates (need a break to catch our breath). To all you people who think you are old at 40 we think you're the young ones. If we can do a 12 month trip most people can. Best of Luck to all you travellers,enjoy yourselves and keep safe.
Jean

quote:

Frommer site? Wash out your mouth with soap.
We may be old, but we are not simple-minded.

Hi. I'm new to these travel boards and have never heard of the Frommer site but maybe you can spare me the investigative time and tell me what's wrong with the Frommer site. I'd appreciate it.
Thanks.

Actually, I don't think there is anything wrong with the Frommers site. Today there was an entry about avoiding planes and taking the train instead. He also encouraged his readers to vote for representatives who favor funding public transport like Amtrak. Pretty cool!

Yeah, I like Frommer's too. It's a different crowd, for the most part, in terms of the questions asked. Tends to be less backpacker, hostelish. More middle-class travel independent travelers, but folks who like to get value for their dollar (or whatever unit of currency).

It tends to have lots of good questions and advice about destinations. I got a lot of great tips there before my last Japan trip on how to save money.

You can find me there sometimes, as kathrynD, or even on TripAdvisor as kathrynD. Hey, what can I say, I like to travel and it's my favorite discussion topic. Though I find myself strangely drawn more and more to BnA. We tend to get a very serious traveler crowd here.

Yeah, where are they? I just stuck my neck out yesterday and joined this boot thing because I liked the informal, cheeky atmosphere. I am also old, (I must be as I can get in the movies cheaper now) and wanna gather pearls of wisdom dropping from the lips of from those who have gone before me. My knees still bend and I can weave a basket out of anything. To catch those pearls in, of course.

I was hoping to start hangin' out with other silver-tressed travelers instead of running into my kids or their friends all the time.

Not sure if I qualify as an "old bugger" but most likely
at 48 I do! Just returned from San Francisco and had a
great time. Still waiting for all of my kids to move so
I can finally embark on my RTW trip. I hope I make it...

Hey Bigmaude! Howareya? Sent you some PM's reckon you didn't get them. Last time I saw you on the boards, you were moving house. Where have you been? Haven't seen you in Chit-Chat.
Gotta go, work calls.