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A Travel Guide for Your Not So Well-traveled Parents

retirement travel bookIf you know someone about to hit retirement age, like your parents maybe, here’s a good travel book for them that has a chapter from yours truly.

65 Things to Do When You Retire – Travel is a collection of essays on various aspects of travel for the older set. Yes, there are 65 essays in here and the list price is 20 bucks, so a great deal. (It’s only $11 at Amazon as I write this.) All the profits go to cancer research charities too. (We submitted our work pro bono.)

It’s broken up into sections on prepping, deciding where to go, ways to travel, voluntourism options, and much more. It’s a primer on the possibilities and how to get the most from travel in the golden years.

My essay will not be a surprise to readers of this blog or my books. It’s called “Pick the right place and traveling is not expensive.” Hopefully I’ll convince a few seniors to go beyond Western Europe, RV travel, or a Caribbean cruise.

I was happy to appear alongside some other writers I know of and respect. Ed Perkins actually has a guest section in one of my books. Here he does an overview of senior travel deals.

Janice Waugh heads up the Solo Traveler blog and does an essay on traveling alone.

Rick Ingersoll writes the Frugal Travel Guy blog, one of my favorites for finding points/miles opportunities and he shares some advice on leveraging good credit for lots of frequent flier miles and free hotel stays.

I was on a trade show panel once that TV host and author Richard Bangs was moderating  and here he talks about the bucket list topper Machu Picchu in Peru.

Donna Hull of the boomer travel site My Itchy Travel Feet contributes a piece on being so taken by Montana when visiting that she moved there.

Barbara Weibel of Hole in the Doughnut talks about making local connections when traveling.

I met Judith Fein at an adventure travel conference and now she writes for me sometimes, including this Azores public art story recently in Perceptive Travel. Her story is on finding a spiritual connection in Israel.

As you can tell just from these examples, it’s a delightfully mixed bag, without repetition. Editor Mark Evan Chimsky did a nice job of picking people with something interesting to say and then keeping them from ranbling on for more than six or seven pages. Get 65 Things to Do When You Retire – Travel for the friend or relative who can use it. This is a thoughtful gift that won’t set you back much and it’s helping a good cause.

Get it at Amazon U.S., UK, or Canada. Oddly, there’s no Kindle version so far.

Want a copy for free? Sign up for the new RSS feed or e-mail version top right of this page—rss icon or e-mail box—then leave a comment below on why you would want the book. (I’ve switched from Google Feedburner to Feedblitz, so you can delete your old feed and keep the new if you end up with both.) Deadline April 15.

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Kevin

Saturday 6th of April 2013

Thank you! My parents aren't quite into the web so this was the perfect option for them. I sent it to them with a gift for their 50th anniversary along with tickets and reservations at a super romantic Seattle hotel. The book is the only thing that has even come close to making them consider branching out on travel options (beyond their own town) and I am very thankful for it! I think a 50th anniversary deserves to be celebrated with style and flash!

Mario

Wednesday 3rd of April 2013

I subscribed to the RSS feed, which after you're note I see I need to read somewhere besides Google Reader. What a pain to start over.

I would give this to my parents. The need to go to more interesting places.

Thomas Dembie

Sunday 31st of March 2013

Great idea for a book! Too many people retire and go stir crazy because they don't have any plans. This sounds like something worth reading.

Anne

Thursday 28th of March 2013

I subscribed to the email version above. But I want the 65 things to do when you retire for ME!

~s

Wednesday 27th of March 2013

I’ve subscribed to the new RSS feed. Although I'm not retired or anywhere near that age, it would be helpful for us as we are considering rving fulltime.