At first, it seemed unlikely that a St. Louis housewife, a Toronto veterinarian, a New Orleans heart surgeon and a retired research chemist from rural Massachusetts would have much in common on a bird-watching trip to Chile.
Yet they and a wealthy matron from Gainesville, Fla., a retired FBI agent and his wife from Tampa and a half-dozen others with similarly diverse backgrounds found plenty to talk about from the moment they met at the Miami airport for their flight to Santiago.
Talk about birds led to non-birding stories and the discovery of other mutual interests. They built a rapport faster than travelers do on traditional sightseeing tours. Almost half the group’s members–most older than 50–were traveling solo, and any fears they had about feeling left out or lonely were quickly laid to rest.
Most travelers couldn’t imagine spending an entire vacation searching for birds. On the other hand, I’d be bored stiff on a tour devoted to baseball games, which would be a trip to heaven for my husband, Jack.
No matter what avocation or hobby you may have, you’re likely to find a tour or cruise that caters to it. Many senior travelers have already discovered that indulging in their special interest on vacation increases the likelihood they will come home feeling their time and money were well spent.
That’s because on a themed tour, you’re not just visiting standard sightseeing attractions through the bus window. Instead, your trip has a point of view.
Baseball addicts such as my husband have many choices. Some baseball tours take you to regular-season or spring-training games, but others let you play ball yourself at fantasy camps staffed by retired major-league players.
You’ll find cruises featuring basketball stars and golf pros. Walking tours range from rigorous treks to easygoing saunters. Some people vacation at golf schools and tennis camps. You can even combine bicycling and beer on a pub-to-pub bike tour. You’ll find scuba diving, snowmobiling, dog sledding, canoeing, river rafting and yoga as senior-vacation focuses.
Theater buffs can go to London on packages led by a theater critic or professor. Art lovers visit museums and private collections. Other tours focus on everything from behind-the-scenes visits to formal gardens in England to stamp-collecting exhibitions in India, wild mushroom hunting in Michigan, wood carving in Switzerland, and gem collecting, genealogy, gastronomy and volcanoes.
Special-interest groups abound on cruises too. You may find square dancers, mah-jongg players, university alumni and wine tasters boarding luxury liners together to participate in special events, tournaments and lectures.
Nature lovers can choose from a host of programs offered by traditional tour operators. I indulged my interest in field studies of wildlife behavior during two vacations. One year, I spent two weeks on an Earthwatch expedition assisting a zoologist in observing black-tailed prairie dogs in South Dakota. Another year, I plunged into the balmy Caribbean waters off the Bahamas to swim with wild spotted dolphins to study their communication systems and habitat requirements. That project, headed by a marine mammals expert, was organized by Oceanic Society Expeditions.
In both cases, my fellow volunteers had very different backgrounds from mine. On the dolphin project, they included an athletic Air Force Academy cadet and a NASA engineer. Our mutual interest in wildlife turned us into compatible fellow travelers, and my dolphin observations were just as useful as those of the younger participants who could dive deeper and swim faster.
Traveling alone, as I was, you may find vacationing with strangers is easier when you know you share a special interest. In addition to traveling with like-minded people, a themed vacation can be a more stimulating experience than a traditional tour or cruise because of what you see and learn. Often, a tour or a cruise with a particular focus includes leadership or lectures by experts, meetings with local people and other highlights geared to your interest.
Some tour operators and cruise lines well-known to travel agents and tourists offer occasional themed trips, but you may want to look elsewhere to find them. Nonprofit organizations such as museums, zoos, clubs and churches offer special-interest travel programs.
Elderhostel links seniors to a grand buffet of low-cost educational courses and volunteer programs.
You do need to ask questions about the tour or cruise itinerary, and about the expertise of the company and of the trip’s leaders, though. A horticulture magazine once offered a garden tour to Britain that was nothing more than a standard tour that happened to visit two public gardens.
When you do match your vacation to your avocation, chances are you’ll make lasting friendships with like-minded people as you expand your horizons.
DETAILS ON GROUP TRAVEL
Organizations to which you belong may sponsor travel programs. A travel agent also can help find a special-interest tour or cruise.
– Earthwatch, P.O. Box 403, Watertown, Mass. 02172; 800-776-0188; www.
earthwatch.org.
– Elderhostel, 75 Federal St., 3rd Floor, Boston, Mass. 02110; 617-426-7788.
– Oceanic Society Expeditions, Building E, 2nd Floor, Ft. Mason Center, San Francisco, Calif. 94123; 800-326-7491.
– Smithsonian Associates, 1100 Jefferson Dr., S.W., Room 3077, Washington, D.C. 20560; 202-357-4700; www.si.edu/tsa.
– Victor Emanuel Nature Tours, P.O. Box 33008, Austin, Texas 78764; 800-328-8368.
