Young travelers vs. old–Part 1

TOWANDA!

I vividly recall a scene from Fried Green Tomatoes in which the (older) Kathy Bates character waits patiently in her big Lincoln to pull into a parking space in a crowded mall. At the critical moment a VW bug zips in around her, and two lithe beauties emerge.

With a flip of golden tresses, they dismiss their rudeness—and her– “because we’re young and better looking.”

Normally longsuffering and mature, the Bates character snaps. She flattens the zippy yellow bug to a pancake with a few swipes of her behemoth.

“I’m older and have better insurance,” she says.

This is NOT meant to paint an adversarial relationship between the generations. Most young people are utterly delightful. They give me their seats on the subway. They hold doors for me. They’re fresh and fun, quick, smart, and polite.

But it does capture some crucial differences between young travelers and older ones.

In the almost two years that I’ve been on the road, I’ve lurked around on travel blogs and websites, and I’ve shared campgrounds and trailer parks with travelers young and old.

The differences, as I see it, fall into three categories: financial security, physical ability, and “other.”

First, a definition. By “older,” I mean above 50. By “younger,” I mean less than 40. Now I know you young folks get all verklempt and whine about being over the hill when you hit 30. But you are being silly. You have a full decade of youth left ahead of you. I just said so.

And I also realize that this definition gives middle age short shrift—one decade. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t see many “middle-aged” folks on the road full-time, anyway. Even Rolf Potts (Are you 40 yet, Rolf?) moved into some kind of home base a few years ago. Even Pico Iyer seems more silent.

Do you hit some kind of existential wall at 40? Do you suddenly wake up and think, Egad, what am I doing with my life? Or: Is this all there is? Have you seen it all? Emptied the bucket? Has traveling lost its allure? Do you become jaded? Enlighten me. What makes people stop traveling in their 40s?

Which brings me to us elders. Lots of older people travel. We go on cruises and tours. We drive motorhomes that are sometimes the size of small buildings and that connect to gas pumps with fire hoses. That is one kind of travel.

But when it comes to hard-core, full-time travel on the cheap, the ranks of elders thin. Something about fear and loss of motivation and a desire for comfort? So far, I’ve only found two? maybe three? full-time older travelers on the blogosphere. (You know who you are, but in case you don’t, Barbara Weibel is a heroic and hard-working traveler at Hole in the Donut, and the Hulls are equally mobile and ubiqitous at My Itchy Travel Feet. Who am I missing?)

So back to the categories: First, money.

It takes money to travel. Not a lot, as many of you travelers point out. But when you travel, however frugally, you are spending money and you aren’t making it. Many bloggers are trying to be digital nomads, which means they are starting a small business without the home base. Starting a small business requires a lot of dedication and a fair amount of risk.

I’ve found that “digital” and “nomad” are somewhat mutually exclusive because finding a dependable Internet connection on the road is completely unpredictable. You can be connected or you can be nomadic, but it’s an exhausting juggling act to do both.

Even the older nomads (like me) who need to travel frugally and maybe even score a few bucks on the road, are starting from a different gate. We’ve had a career, whatever it was. Our prime earning years are past. We don’t have time to reinvent ourselves from scratch.

Plus, to be honest, we may not have the fire-in-the-belly we once had. When I decided many years ago to be a freelance writer, it was as though the finger of God pointed the way. I heard the angel choirs. I had found my purpose in life. (Besides being a mom. You know that, right, kids?). Success (while I secretly yearned for it) didn’t matter. I was content to wash the feet of those seated at the literary table.

So I typed (yes, with a typewriter) carbon copies in triplicate. I never turned down work or balked at inhuman deadlines. I bribed my kids with chocolate chips to keep them quiet during interviews. I could paper a room with rejection slips. But by God, I became a freelance writer. What price glory? I never asked. What glory, for that matter?

I have neither the desire nor the emotional energy to do anything like that again. You can have it all, young people.

So, we older travelers probably start with greater financial security. Even those of us who washed literary feet for a living have had more time to save. Plus, we are closer to collecting on retirement plans and Social Security.

I see younger nomads working hard to puzzle out this part—how to stay on the road indefinitely and pay for it. Teaching English. Couchsurfing. Volunteering. Housesitting. Living cheap. Digital nomading. This approach may cover the day-to-day travel, but building for the future is harder. That’s an entirely different conundrum.

Is that why the 40-year-olds stop traveling? Have they scented mortality and decided to secure their future while they still can?

Next…Part 2: the other stuff.