Maria was trimming my bangs at Desert Glow Salon last Friday when she asked where Frank and I were going this summer. I said nowhere, probably. She said, "You've been to twenty-three countries and you're staying in Scottsdale in June?" I said, "Maria, it's 115 degrees. Nobody goes anywhere in June. We sit inside and wait for October like civilized people."
She laughed. Then she told me her other client, a woman named Charlene who comes in every other Thursday for a blowout, had just booked a Viking river cruise because she read a list online called "Top 10 Travel Destinations for Seniors" and decided the Danube was calling her name.
The Danube was not calling her name. A marketing department was calling her credit card.
Twenty-three countries. Frank Sinclair, whose idea of a trip review is one word on a yellow legal pad. Ireland: "Wet." Vienna: "Clean." The Caribbean cruise where food poisoning found me in 2013: "Fine." (It was not fine. Haven't touched shrimp since.) Four decades of airports, wrong turns, hotel bathrooms classified as hostile architecture, and one incident involving a rental car and a roundabout in Bruges we've agreed never to discuss.
Most travel destinations for seniors get reviewed by people who've never had a knee problem. Glossy magazines don't mention the bathrooms. Or the hills. Or the part where your left knee files a formal complaint on day three.
Charleston, South Carolina: The Best City in America Nobody's Overselling
March 2023. Carrie had been telling me to go for two years, and Carrie is usually right about food and aesthetics and wrong about my wardrobe, so I weighed the odds and booked three nights on King Street for $189 a night.
Flat. Blessedly, mercifully flat. After Lisbon in 2019 — where the guidebooks call the hills "charming" and my knees called them something unprintable — the flatness of Charleston felt like a personal gift. Walk from the hotel to dinner to the waterfront without climbing a single thing steeper than a curb.
The food is absurd. She-crab soup at Husk, $14. Shrimp and grits at Poogan's Porch, $19 (yes, shrimp — in Charleston they're different, don't argue with me). Biscuits at Callie's Hot Little Biscuit, $3.50 each and worth restructuring your morning around. Frank had three. Told everyone I had one. Had two.
Budget $140 to $200 a day for two, meals and sightseeing included. Go March or October. Skip July and August unless you enjoy breathing underwater!
Vienna, Austria: The City That Treats You Like a Grown-Up
Frank's colleague Glen from the engineering firm went to Vienna in 2015 and came back saying it was "like Prague but better," which offended me because Prague is magnificent. Went in 2018, two days after Tuscany, and will admit only once: Glen was not entirely wrong.
Vienna doesn't try to charm you. Doesn't have to. The architecture does the talking. Schonbrunn Palace took half a day and Frank read every placard — his version of enthusiasm. The Belvedere had a Klimt exhibit where I stood in front of The Kiss so long Frank went to find coffee.
Here's the thing nobody tells you. Vienna is one of the most accessible cities in Europe for anyone with mobility concerns. The U-Bahn has elevators at every station. Trams are step-free. Sidewalks are wide and smooth, not the cobblestone obstacle courses you get in Bruges or Rome. A day pass for all public transit costs 8 euros.
Coffee culture is real and nobody rushes you. A melange at Cafe Central cost 6.50 euros and I sat for an hour and a half reading a novel while Frank people-watched, which for Frank means sitting silently and looking content. Dinner for two with wine at a neighborhood Gasthaus rarely broke 50 euros.
Budget $120 to $180 a day for two. Go in May or September.
Savannah, Georgia: Where the Speed of Life Drops to Something Reasonable
Drove from Charleston in 2023 because the cities are only two hours apart and Frank believes any drive under four hours doesn't count as a road trip. Barely qualifies, in his mind. The man once drove Wilmette to Yellowstone and called it "a decent stretch."
Savannah stopped me cold. Not the architecture, though the squares are beautiful. Not Forsyth Park, though we walked it twice. The pace. Everything moves at a speed suggesting the whole city agreed, collectively, to calm down about fifty years ago and never looked back.
Stayed at a B&B on Jones Street — $165 a night, run by a woman named Elaine who left a cheese plate in our room and knew Frank's name by the second morning. Leopold's Ice Cream on Broughton Street has been open since 1919. The line is worth every minute. Tutti frutti. Fight me.
Walkable. Almost aggressively so. Twenty-two squares laid out on a grid, most with benches and shade. If your knees can handle flat ground and occasional curbs, Savannah works. The trolley tour is $35 and covers everything for people who prefer sitting to strolling.
Budget $120 to $170 a day for two. Go in March or November. Summers are approximately the temperature of the sun, and this comes from a woman who lives in Scottsdale.
Quebec City, Canada: Europe Without the Jet Lag
The destination I mention when somebody wants a European feel but can't handle the flight. Or the currency math. Or the airports.
October 2019. The drive from Montreal took two and a half hours and the fall foliage along the St. Lawrence was the kind of beautiful making you say something stupid like "nature is showing off," which I said and Frank ignored, which was appropriate.
Old Quebec is a UNESCO World Heritage site looking like a French village that got lost on the way to Normandy and decided to stay. Cobblestones, yes. But the Upper Town and Lower Town are connected by a funicular — a fancy word for a little cable car costing $4 CAD — and it saves your knees entirely.
Chateau Frontenac dominates the skyline. Didn't stay (rooms start around $350 CAD) but had drinks in the bar and pretended we belonged. Dinner at a bistro in Petit Champlain: duck confit, a glass of Bordeaux, $42 CAD for two courses. My high school French, dormant since 1975, resurfaced with enough force to order dessert and ask for the check. Frank was impressed. The waiter was tolerant.
Budget $130 to $190 a day for two in USD. September or October for the leaves. Winter is beautiful but brutal. Grew up near Lake Michigan and know brutal. Quebec winter is worse.
The Places I'd Skip (and Why Nobody Else Will Say It)
Every list of travel destinations for seniors acts like every place is wonderful. They're not.
Santorini. Gorgeous in photographs. In person, in July, it's a cruise ship port where 8,000 people are photographing the same three blue-domed churches while blocking the sidewalk with selfie sticks. Walkways steep and narrow. Restaurants charge $28 for a salad costing $9 in Athens. Frank and I went in 2016 and spent more time in lines than looking at the Aegean. Skip it. Go to Crete instead. Bigger, flatter, cheaper, better food, and you can actually sit down at a restaurant without a reservation made six weeks in advance.
Rome in summer. Magnificent city. Horrible timing. The Colosseum in August is a 98-degree oven with a two-hour line and no shade. November 2012 was better, though the Trastevere hotel shower had five unlabeled knobs, one of which produced ice water forceful enough to make me scream until a maid knocked on the door. November Rome is manageable. Summer Rome is an endurance test disguised as a vacation.
Alaska cruises. Marv from Frank's golf group did one last year and said he spent more time in the buffet line than on deck. Fly to Anchorage, rent a car. More bears, fewer matching windbreakers!
Actually, let me correct myself. Some people love cruises. If sitting by a pool and eating at scheduled intervals sounds like heaven, a cruise is your trip. My objection isn't cruises. My objection is pretending a cruise to Alaska is the same as seeing Alaska.
The Logistics That Make or Break Every Trip
Is it just me, or does every article about senior travel destinations skip the part that actually determines whether you have a good time?
The destination is maybe 40 percent of the trip. The other 60 percent is logistics, and logistics at 72 are different from logistics at 45. Profoundly, physically, financially different.
Bathrooms. The hotel bathroom matters more than the view. Grab bars. Walk-in shower. Non-slip tile. Would trade a balcony overlooking the Mediterranean for a bathroom where nobody's breaking a hip at 6 AM. Not pessimism. Math. Call the hotel before booking. Ask specifically. "Do you have walk-in showers?" is a sentence you learn to say without embarrassment, because embarrassment is a luxury you trade for safety sometime around 68.
Walkability. Can you get from the hotel to dinner without climbing something that would challenge a mountain goat? Google Maps has a walking directions feature that shows elevation changes. Use it before you book, not after your knee is already having a conversation with you about your life choices.
The flight. Anything over eight hours, pack compression socks, book an aisle seat, and schedule nothing for the first 24 hours after landing except sleep and food. My body holds grudges post-transatlantic for about three days. Plan around this the way you'd plan around weather. Because it is weather. Internal weather.
Insurance. Travel insurance runs roughly $40 a day for anyone over 60. Get it! Medicare covers nothing abroad. An air ambulance back to the U.S. costs over $100,000. Frank's knee replacement in 2021 happened twelve minutes from our house with full coverage, and the bills still made me dizzy. Now imagine foreign hospital math with zero coverage. Understanding what aging at home actually costs puts these numbers in perspective.
The single supplement. If you're traveling solo, most hotels and tour companies charge 25 to 100 percent extra because you're using only one pillow. Ask before you book. Say the words "single supplement" and listen to what happens. Road Scholar waives it on their Solo-Only programs. O.A.T. waives it on 92 percent of their 2026 trips. If a company charges you $3,000 extra to sleep alone, find a different company.
The Trip I Haven't Taken
Kyoto. Cherry blossom season.
Wanted to go since 1988, when The Makioka Sisters by Junichiro Tanizaki opened a door in my brain that never closed. The sisters viewing the cherry blossoms every spring. The ritual of returning to see something you know will be gone in a week. There's a folder on my laptop. Articles. Itineraries. A hotel in Higashiyama bookmarked so many times the browser probably thinks I've already been.
Carrie said, "Let's go together." Four years ago. I keep saying next spring.
Frank has no interest in Japan, which is fine because Frank has no interest in anything without a golf course or a grill, and marrying him meant accepting the itinerary consequences. Going alone would mean something bigger than a plane ticket. Deciding, at 72, to be the kind of woman who flies to Kyoto by herself. Maybe I've been more independent than I realized all along and the only obstacle between me and a cherry blossom is the willingness to stop asking permission from a version of myself who doesn't exist anymore.
Well. Got serious there. Back to bathrooms.
What I'd Tell Charlene
Maria texted me after my appointment. Charlene booked the river cruise.
She'll probably have a fine time. River cruises aren't the worst way to see Europe, especially if you prefer pre-organized travel and meals on a schedule. My objection isn't the boat. It's the assumption a predetermined route through someone else's highlight reel is the same as actually being somewhere. Standing on a dock in Budapest for four hours isn't the same as getting lost in Budapest for three days, finding a ruin bar in the Jewish Quarter, eating langos from a street cart for 800 forints (about $2.25), and watching Frank try to pronounce "koszonom" so many times a waiter finally patted him on the shoulder and said, in perfect English, "You're welcome."
That was 2017. Frank's one-word review: "Surprising."
If Charlene asked me? Go somewhere flat. Go where the food is cheap enough to eat well twice a day without anxiety. Pick travel destinations where the transit system was built for people over 60. Shoulder season. Call about the bathroom. Get insurance. Pack half of what you think you need.
And go. Not next year. Not when everything's perfect. Now — while your knees still cooperate and the world still surprises you and Frank still writes one-word reviews on a yellow legal pad he thinks nobody reads. Retirement has enough things to adjust to without adding regret to the list.
I found it years ago. Under "Vienna" he'd written "Clean."
Under "Home" he'd written "Best."
Forty-seven years, and the man still gets me.
