Author: HairWeavings Editorial Team

This blog is the second in a series for travelers 60 and over. When we approach and then reach retirement, travel often tops the list of our priorities for that time in our life. What is it about travel that captures our imagination? Is it simply wanderlust or something more? In this Sixty and Me blog, we’ll probe the question of why we travel.

Relaxation

Who hasn’t stared out the window during a stressful workday, dreaming of escaping the mundane routines of everyday life for a relaxing travel experience? With the fast-paced lives so many of us lead, travel allows us to take a break from our day-to-day responsibilities and recharge our batteries.

Better Weather

As we age, the motivation to escape seasonal weather extremes heightens. Those from colder climates might travel because of health conditions, safety (e.g., avoiding falls on slippery ice) or avoidance of infection-prone indoor spaces. Folks in hot summer climates might head for cooler regions to enjoy more outdoor activities and avoid heat-induced illnesses. It’s a sense of freedom and independence that comes with escaping these extremes.

Touring

Many of us are filled with a sense of adventure, eager to get out and see the world. “World” might mean exotic locations around the globe for some people. To others, it might mean visiting the many corners of their own state or country. An important decision is whether to book with a tour company or go alone.

It might make sense to go with an organized tour group for unfamiliar destinations. This will reduce your stress level and allow you to learn how to navigate in that environment should you decide to visit again on your own.

Learning

It’s said that learning continues throughout our lives. With that in mind, travel can be arranged to add a learning component. Even if relaxation is your primary goal, integrating learning with travel adds a stimulating dimension to an already great experience. Examples are:

• Learning a language from native speakers.
• Exploring local history with resident experts.
• Assisting in an archeological dig with scientists.
• Experiencing the arts, cuisine or other cultural features.
• Wildlife or architectural photography.

Adventure

If traveling to relax all day sounds boring and you’re physically able, an active experience can challenge both your body and mind. Imagine hiking, climbing, biking, sailing or rafting in a new and stimulating environment.

Aside from deciding the type of activity, you’ll need to decide the difficulty level. Most adventure-oriented travel organizations list the level of physical stress associated with each type of trip. Don’t overestimate your degree of fitness. Signing up for an overly challenging adventure could turn a dream trip into a disaster.

Service

What better way to support a cause you believe in than by traveling to give service? At one end of the spectrum are programs like Doctors Without Borders, where medical professionals volunteer for months at a time. On the other end, there are average people who travel to help others in various ways, like building homes or volunteering at orphanages.

One way to find such service opportunities is to ask organizations you already support about volunteer roles available for travelers. Alternatively, online clearinghouses like goabroad.com or Kaya.com can help connect volunteers with worthy causes. In either case, carefully research the program to ensure it truly delivers value to the cause you care about.

Wellness

Wellness travel has become a popular trend, but its roots lie in the past when wealthy people traveled to mineral springs and other locations for health benefits. Today, wellness travel still includes many of these locations, but numerous other options have emerged, ranging from weeks-long experiences to devoting a day of the itinerary to a spa treatment.

Wellness travel also includes “medical tourism.” Usually, this means patients from countries with less sophisticated healthcare options travel to medical centers of excellence in other countries. The reverse can be true, too, where patients from wealthy countries get less expensive care outside their borders.

Relationships

Some of us travel to support relationships. This can take a couple of forms. First, traveling with others can build deeper emotional bonds from shared experiences. On the other hand, traveling together can also lead to conflicts. To avoid the latter pitfall, take time before the trip to mutually express expectations about such things as budget, lodging, transportation and planned activities. Allow each other space to do some things solo in an effort to balance togetherness and alone time.

Another aspect of traveling to support relationships is visiting friends and family to reinforce existing connections with faraway loved ones. As a part of planning, however, discuss expectations with your hosts. A common understanding of such basics as sleeping arrangements and planned activities will help make for a more rewarding visit. Remember, your stay disrupts your host’s regular routine, so even if they welcome the visit, it pays to be sensitive to their needs.

Each person’s reasons for traveling are unique. However, understanding your underlying motivations for travel will provide insight into planning satisfying travel experiences.

Let’s Have a Conversation:

Why do you travel? Is it for leisure or something else? What does travel give you? Where did you travel most recently? What did you learn from the experience? Did you go with a group or did you plan your own itinerary?

At 71, I am very healthy and happy – and almost grateful for being diagnosed with systemic lupus just as I was retiring as a nursing professor at McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario. I was ready to enjoy retirement and had all sorts of plans, but this diagnosis threw a grenade into them!

My Green Space Story

At the time of my diagnosis, I had so many fears that I could not articulate them. I was terrified. I knew the limited world of medical care and I knew the disease. As a nurse, researcher, and administrator, I knew that systemic lupus could take down every organ in my body. I cared for people as they died of lupus. There was little we could do.

At that moment, it was not only what lupus was doing to my body but to my looks. Bald patches appeared on the top of my head and a red rash covered my face, ears and neck. When my physician specialist advised me to avoid the sun, I thought, “Ok, I am ready to hide from the world anyway.”

For a year, I stayed mostly inside, telling myself I was being a good “compliant patient” – following doctor’s orders. But what changed, and I believe saved my life after a year of feeling like a prisoner in a cell, was when a member of my online lupus support group said that she “went outside all the time – at any time.” She just wore sunscreen and a hat.

That day I headed outside and immediately I felt better. I felt like myself and strong… and that made me curious. So, I started to use my research skills to delve into the world of greenspace research.

I Found Hope

What I found was solid peer reviewed green space research conducted at the best universities in the world that showed your time in green space improves your short- and long-term memory, increases your ability to concentrate, and helps you to problem-solve.

Your time in green space also lifts your mood, boosts your energy level, and gives you self-confidence. These are studies done on thousands of people over decades.

I was shocked that I’d not seen any of this research make it into the curriculum for health care practitioners… and indeed, into the hands of everyday people. I made it my mission to share the results that helped me so much. At first, I wrote my book, Take Back Your Outside Mindset, to help me. I needed it to get better.

Green Space Makes Meditation Easier and Perhaps More Powerful

Much like the benefits of green space, mindfulness is something you can believe in, learn about, and practice. I started with simply noticing what was going on in my mind. The art of noticing is Harvard Professor Ellen Langer’s definition of mindfulness. Noticing is what we do outside. By noticing we become excited, our neurons fire. Noticing gives us energy. Here is a noticing tip from Langer:

“Pretend you are traveling, and notice something new in things you think you already know. Simply noticing the new in the old accelerates the inner work of freeing your mind from negative emotions.”

And it turns out green space is the perfect place to notice and to meditate. A large study of many studies (called a systematic review) done by a team of Danish researchers showed “green space made meditation easier and perhaps more powerful…. And that mindfulness and connectedness to nature may have a reciprocal relationship.” I talk a lot about this in my book, Optimize Your Heart Rate Balance.

Through practicing the art of noticing when I am outside, I began to trust my body and I practiced dropping unhealthy thoughts about myself and my world around me. Langer sums it up as “what our mind believes, our body delivers.”

Now, 10 years after my lupus diagnosis, although my marker for lupus ANA (anti-nuclear antibodies) is still on the high side of the lupus scale, my white blood count is normal for the first time, and I have no protein in my urine (signalling kidney damage) anymore. It seems on every level I am getting better – healthier and happier – and I attribute all of this to mindfulness in green space.

Here’s a little taste of how I incorporate meditation into my life.

Start Your Morning Remembering That Everything Is OK And Take One Phrase with You Outside

A few years ago, my niece told me she uses the 10% Happier meditation app (no affiliation here) so I tried it. I now start every single morning with the 10% Happier app meditations… and so do my grown-up kids because I gave them the app too.

I have trouble sitting still so I often listen to the meditation while I am preparing my coffee, taking my heart rate variability measurement outside, doing my hula hoop on the outdoor patio, doing my mobility stretches inside in the early morning, or even when I am tidying up the kitchen. The main thing is that I start my day with an expert meditation teacher saying to me in a calm voice, for 10 minutes, that everything is ok.

From my morning meditation, I write down one phrase to take with me outside into green space, such as “be simple and easy” (Joseph Goldstein) or “follow your out-breath right to the end” (Sebene Selassie).

Let’s Keep the Conversation Going:

I don’t know if you have a meditation practice, but would you consider starting one to combine with your time spent in green space? What phrases do you or would you like to say to yourself when you are outside in green space? What do you think about combining the two practices: meditation/mindfulness and spending time in nature?

Browsing a bookshop not long ago, a bookseller raved about a newly released novel. She could not say enough good things about the book. So, I bought it. Well, despite her high praise and the hundreds of stellar reviews online, it was not the book for me. I gave up on it… My philosophy? Life is too short to lumber through a book I don’t enjoy.

But here are some books I have loved this summer.

Anna Bright Is Hiding Something by Susie Orman Schnall

For readers fascinated by entrepreneur Elizabeth Holmes and the Theranos fraud saga, this novel is the perfect book to tuck into your beach tote this summer!

I raced through Schnall’s latest and loved everything about it – the style, the voice, the pacing, and the backdrop of Silicon Valley and the venture capital world.

Anna Bright, the founder of BrightLife, is about to take her company public. She and her team created BrightSpot, an implantable lens that will change how people live. However, there are problems with the lens and subdermal microchip. And Anna knows this… Dead set on leading her company through an IPO, she ignores the issues and misleads the public.

Nothing will stop her from succeeding.

Especially not Jamie Roman, a young BusinessBerry journalist specializing in startup culture and female founders.

I found the subject matter fascinating – strong women and what they face in the workforce, an excellent introduction to startup stages and mentality. And I enjoy a good how-in-the-world-could-she story. But I also realize an invention similar to BrightSpot is coming in our not-too-distant future.

Summer Romance by Annabel Monaghan

“You can’t just keep doing what you’re doing and wait for it to turn into something happy. You kind of have to look for the happy things along the way.”

To jumpstart the summer in a delightful way, Annabel Monaghan is back! Since I devoured Nora Goes Off Script back in 2022, this author’s books are automatic reads for me.

I want to be friends with Monaghan and her novels’ characters. As always, in her latest book, the author writes in a conversational tone, with characters who are relatable, fun, and unsure of themselves. And they have lots and lots of flaws.

Ali and her three kids live in Beechwood, NY, a small coastal town wedged between Manhattan and Connecticut. They celebrate the last day of the school year with a tradition her late mom began – one I might incorporate! – “toasting” to a champagne summer.

As Ali, a professional organizer, winds her way through the summer – and divorce proceedings – she tries to figure out what’s next in her life. She takes some chances, steps out of her comfort zone, and meets dreamy Ethan.

And she feels lighter, happier, and terrified. Two thumbs up for this novel!

Welcome to the Neighborhood by Lisa Roe

Cheers to the characters in this novel – except for Rand – and the 60-something author who published her first novel two years ago!

I plowed through this quick-moving, feel-good novel with its cast of characters I adored. Ginny is a single mom, working hard to raise her quirky 11-year-old daughter, Harri, in Queens, NY. After Ginny marries kind and thoughtful Jeff, she and Harri move into his luxurious home – filled with his exes’s stuff – in a fancy New Jersey suburb.

Ginny and Harri struggle to settle into their new roles and schools. And attempt to forge friendships with the picture-perfect neighbors and their entitled kids.

Readers will discover lots to love about this book – including a dog named Penny. Besides the mother/daughter relationship, Roe showcases fresh starts and the importance of remaining true to oneself. I stayed up waaaaay past my bedtime flipping the pages!

The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon

In this beautifully crafted novel, Ms. Lawhon writes of the real midwife and healer, Martha Ballard. Although not historically accurate, the story is inspired by true events, crimes, and history.

In the late 1700s, a body is pulled from the frozen river that slices through Hallowell, Maine. The dead man is Joshua Burgess, and none of the townsfolk mourn his passing.

Although not an uplifting tale, the story will grab readers as it unfolds. Martha is witness to the details of her neighbors’ private lives through her profession, and their secrets remain safe with her.

I found the historical details – candle making, no clocks, mostly illiterate women – interesting. I did wonder why the author bothered to include the silver fox, but the author’s note – don’t read the note until you’ve read the book! – explained that detail.

The Heiress by Rachel Hawkins

Because of all the buzz surrounding this bestseller, I couldn’t wait to dig into it. Confession – the style took a minute to get used to, perhaps because I read on a Kindle. But, once I settled into the format, I was off.

Kidnapped when she was a toddler, Ruby was reunited with her parents several months later. She grew up in a privileged environment and went on to marry four times. Each of her husbands died of various causes. Coincidence or not?

One of North Carolina’s wealthiest women, Ruby presided over Tavistock from her family’s Blue Ridge Mountain estate. After her death, her adopted son finally returned to Ashbury House to sort through Ruby’s directives and deal with the dysfunctional family who resents him.

This novel proves that family ties do last forever, and rich people oftenbehave badly!

Happy Reading! Click here for some other great books.

Let’s Talk Books:

Do you feel compelled to finish a book? How long do you read a book before you bail? (Me – about 50 pages.) Is there a book you gave up on, returned to at a later date, and ended up enjoying?

Originally posted at: Jennifer Pedranti’s Pink Confessional Dress

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Originally posted at: Katie Ginella’s Black Embellished Cutout Confessional