How Age Changes your Travel Choices

Most people like to travel. Not all, mind you – there are those incurable couch potatoes that you can’t get out of the house, not even to mow the lawn or pick up some groceries. But most of them are always in search for new experiences and adventures, new places to see and new cultures to discover. But age changes us all – it changes the way we see the world, and the choices we make each day. Even when it comes to deciding what to visit on our next trip abroad.

As children we are always looking for fun. Our preferred destinations are theme parks offering us amazing visuals and quick, easy thrills, along with balloons, souvenirs and unhealthy, but delicious junk food. Let me ask you – how many of you have dreamed of visiting Disneyland as a child? Almost all, right?

As we grow, we acquire the taste for a different kind of bustle. Still active and fun-seeking, people in their teens are looking for other kinds of thrills, that preferably involve music, dancing and meeting other youngsters – often in the biblical sense, if you know what I mean. As a teenager I couldn’t imagine a better destination than Amsterdam on King’s Day, when the capital of the Netherlands turns into a huge party celebrating the local crowned heads.

Now I am close to my forties, and I already sense how the years I’ve lived have affected my choice for vacation destinations. In the last decades I developed a profound love for mountains and woods, and I prefer to spend my time there in silence. Of course, I don’t refuse a trip to the beach, but I spend most of my time laying in the sand, exploring my favorite Canadian casino online on my phone. The turmoil of Amsterdam’s colorful nightlife is not for me any more. I find spending time in a silent, relaxed and comfortable environment much more attractive today.

Perhaps when I age more, I will re-discover my adventurous side, as have some of my friends. Well into their sixties, the couple has retired after a life of working hard, and they have decided that it was time for them to explore the world around them. They now have the time, and some cash set aside during their work years. I remember them telling me about their plan to buy a motor home when they retire and stars traveling all around in it. They turned their dream into reality – and now they keep sending me post cards (I wonder who still makes them) from various parts of Europe. They have visited enough famous places to last for a lifetime already – and their trip is far from being over yet.