Active Adult Communities offer all kinds of travel opportunities for their residents and the Day Trip is one of the most popular activities.

One of the 80 clubs we have at our Active Adult Community is the Day Trippers Club, which has 701 members. The club description reads

“Day Trippers take a different trip each month. We are limited to excursions that can be completed within one day. We go to places within a 150 mile radius from the Village”.

The club dues are only $5 per year but there is a fee for each day trip you sign up for. They usually charter a nice tour bus that seats like 50 people and two experienced club volunteers escorting the group and the professional driver on the trip.

I took the top photo of the inside of the bus when I was recently taking the day trip to Cherokee Casino in NC. The fee was $30 and I was traveler number 50 on a full bus. We boarded the bus in our parking lot at 8:30AM and headed out for our day trip to Cherokee NC which is about 122 miles North of our community. We passed through scenic North Georgia taking a restroom and coffee stop about half way to stretch our legs. I sat with a gentleman whose wife didn’t want to come on this trip either and we had the best time talking with each other. We ended up spending the day with each other, gaming together and having lunch. We left Cherokee about 3pm and stopped at Jaemor Farms on the way back. At Jaemor I bought a fresh peach tart and bags of tomatoes and peaches. We were back in our parking lot before 6:30pm. It was an enjoyable day.

Days trips I have taken here and other places are to the Tellus Science Museum, Atlanta City and History tour, visit to historic Oakland Cemetary, North Georgia winery tour. Others tours include the popular tour coming up in December to hear the Atlanta Sympothy at the Fox Thretre and lunch at a nice restaurant. Mary Ann is going with a friend to see Cirque Du Soleil Lizia at Atlantic Station. All days trips I have been on have an opportunity for a nice lunch, which you will pay for yourself.

5 Reasons To Take A Day Trip

Exciting thing to do for the day.
Meet new people you travel with.
Relatively inexpensive.
Short, not too tiring.
Get to come home to sleep in your own bed

Days trips are another reason to consider living in an 55+ Active Adult Community.

Travel in Retirement

Travel is probably the one activity most associated with retirement. We dream all our working lives that one day we will have the time to travel.

For one group, the travel dream is being lived out and that group is active adults.

Active Adults Like to Travel.

It makes sense, since being active means to move and if you move enough, you are traveling. Ha.

In our Active Adult Community, we have a monthly newsletter, The Deaton Creek Villager, that has a section called “Traveling Villager” that displays photographs of residents on their travels. I love this section which gives you a good idea of where Active Adults travel to.

This month the Traveling Villager has photographs of our residents in these locations: Mt. Masada Israel, Arches National Park in Utah, Grand Teton National Park WY, Bacelona Spain, Dunrobin Castle Highlands Scotland, Murphy’s Bar Lillarney Ireland, Rose distillery Dillard GA, Eiffel Tower in Paris, cruising Glacier Bay Alaska, on a camel in Judean Desert West Bank, Lambeau Field Green Bay, Erice Sicily. Wow, how’s that for a bucket list, and that’s only one month.

Active Adult Communities Make Traveling Easier

There are a couple of ways living in an 55+ Active Adult Retirement Community makes travel easier.

You feel safer leaving your home. It is a gated community with neighbors that know each other.
Travel Opportunities

There are Many Types of Travel Opportunities

Some examples of travel opportunities in Active Adult Communities are:

Day Trippers Group – Day Trippers take a different trip each month. We are limited to excursions that can be completed within one day. We go to places within a 150 mile radius from the Village. With 700 members, trips fill up fast. Some trips coming up this year are:

8/7/ Harrah’s Cherokee Casino

9/17/ Cirque du Soleil Luzia

10/12/ College Football Hall of Fame, Carlos museum

11/17/ Gwinnett Gladiators Ice hockey

12/16/ Symphony
Independent Travel Group – People who want to plot their own itinerary when planning vacations. Purpose: Meet to share experiences on how to plan your own travel, save money, basic photography, use the Internet to find information, learn country customs, book hotels, get a more in-depth cultural experience, etc. Many times neighbor friends in Active Adult Communities do a trip together.
Travel Group – Do you like to travel ? Do you want to travel ? Well then this is the group for you! UPCOMING TRIPS: Many great trips planned for the coming months including, Ireland, Tulip River Cruise, London/Paris, British Isles cruise, Australia/New Zeland and New York City Holiday.

These travel groups are a tremendous resource for your retirement travel in so many ways, giving travel ideas, making travel easier and even letting you travel with friends while not having to worry about the logistics of travel.

Outside travel companies cater to our Active Adult Community and make presentations in our clubhouse. Organized trips will pick us up and return to our parking lot. How convenient is that!

Mary Ann and I will be on the Daniel Discovery Tours ten day trip in October for the New England Fall Foliage. Escorted motor coach tours these days provide high-quality, comfortable trips to destinations throughout the United States and Canada.

Road Scholar learning adventures are designed to enrich, thrill, and challenge you. Road Scholar has been recommended to me by several friends. Not cheap, but reportedly worth it.

Collette Tours is probably the top senior travel company offering guided tours worldwide. They will have tours leaving from your Active Adult Community.

Cruises. One of my favorite posts to research and write was Cruise Travel Tips and gives a good overview of why people love to take a cruise.

Associations– This week one of our community friends (Mary Lou) is in New Orleans and posted a pic of her group cruising the Mississippi River. She is there attending a retired teacher association meeting. Another neighbor Ron is retired military and told me he went to a retired military group meeting in Saint Louis and another I think in Portland Oregon later this Summber where he is spend some vacation time. With my track club association I have traveled to MN, NC, NM, and AL attending the USATF and National Senior Games. You may have some outside associations too that offer travel opportunities.

AARP Travel is a good source of travel ideas and travel discounts.

4. Travel With Teens – Many of our friends like to travel with their families once a year. My pickleball buddy just went on a cruise with this family, then he and his wife did a back to back cruise by themselves. Other popular family travel is to rent a big house at the beach or in the mountains.

Living in an Active Adult Community definitely helps one enjoy their dream of retirement travel. This is a intangible benefit that you may not be made aware of when considering an active adult community lifestyle.

Robert Fowler

Travel while you can.
My friend Larry