D R E A M

“If you can dream it, you can do it.”

— Walt Disney

marina with red and white lighthouse in the distance

RESOURCES FOR DREAMING

IDENTIFYING YOUR PRIORITIES

The best trip is the one that you are really interested in taking, but the world is huge and the possibilities seem to be endless. When you need to decompress and relax, it might not make sense to take a trip to a major city. Do you have at least 10 days and want to go abroad? If your retirement budget is finite, you might want to prioritize those locations that require the most physical stamina and save U.S. travel for later.

To narrow down your list, take a few minutes to prioritize what you would like to see and do on this trip:

Once you’ve decided what sort of landscape and activity might suit you, you can look at travel websites, blogs, books, magazines, and social media to help choose optimal destinations. If that doesn’t work, however, you can play with the interactive Washington Post vacation finder to get a recommendation.

In the Travel Articles section below, I have collected the best travel destination articles in the following categories: “Best Places,” United States, North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, Oceania, and Arctic + Antarctica.

TRAVEL STYLES

Because your travel style can evolve over time, an important question to answer is what activity-driven travel style(s) you’d prefer for this particular trip:

active travel
adventure travel
backpacking
budget travel
cruising
culinary travel
cultural travel
eco/sustainable/green travel
educational travel
experiential travel
heritage travel (see discussion below)
luxury travel
relaxation travel
road trip/RV travel (see Road Trips tab)
slow travel
train travel
volunteering

For resources on size-driven travel styles, see the GROUP SIZE tab on the AWAY-DECIDE page.

HERITAGE TRAVEL

If you aren’t familiar with the term “heritage tourism,” it is defined as “traveling to experience the places, artifacts, and activities that authentically represent the stories and people of the past and present.” In keeping with genealogy shows like Who Do You Think You Are? and Finding Your Roots, some travel companies have teamed up with historians and genealogists to make heritage travel a little more personal. Check out the articles under the HERITAGE TRAVEL section below to explore your options.

ROAD TRIP RESOURCES

If you have the time, a road trip can be one of the most cost-effective modes of travel. They also give you a little more flexibility in itinerary planning. If you need inspiration, most of the websites listed on the MEDIA-TRAVEL WEBSITES tab have articles devoted to road trips, and we have saved a lot of interesting articles in the U.S. ROAD OR DAY TRIP section below.

GENERAL

The following websites and guidebooks concentrate on road trips exclusively:

Note that the Furkot Road Trip Planner maps out itineraries detailed in 19 travel guides, including a couple of the following road trip guides:

SCENIC DRIVES

If you’re interested in making a scenic drive, check out these websites to find a route:

ELECTRONIC CHARGING STATIONS

These websites and apps will help you find electronic charging stations on your road trip:

H+A ROAD TRIP TIPS

Before you hit the road, we have 8 useful road trip tips to take you from planning your itinerary to scheduling your departure time.

For tips on how to track the weather, see our answer to the Q+A WITH H+A question “How Should I Track the Weather Before and During a Road Trip?”

VIRTUAL TRIPS

Don’t underestimate the value of taking a virtual trip to decide where to go next. Virtual trips can help you cross certain destinations off of your bucket list or complement a prior trip. They might also be a great escape for someone who is temporarily or permanently homebound.

For more tips, see A How-To Guide for Planning a Virtual Trip. If you want to direct your virtual travel to a specific location, we have organized some Google Earth trips by location with a separate breakout for multi-country trips in this map:

Use the toggle button on the upper left-hand side to see or hide the map menu:

If you speed up the plane’s animation, the Google Earth tours are especially fast and fun. We enjoy the Google Earth Voyager “Street View” (blue circles) and “Nature” (green circles) tours as well as the Google Map Treks the most.

QUICK TRIPS

If you are homebound and just need a change of scenery, try WindowSwap. It’s a website that lets you look through someone else’s window for a little while. You might be surprised at how good that feels.

No time for a road trip? Click the “Next” button on Random Street View to see a road to somewhere else.

If you just want to walk, drive, or take the train through your favorite city listening to a local radio station, try the Travel Remotely website. You can also explore live radio by rotating the Radio Garden globe on your computer or via their apps.

Enjoy!

TRAVEL WEBSITES

In addition to the travel section of your newspaper, online travel magazines and other websites can be terrific sources of travel inspiration, especially for luxury travelers. You can subscribe online to get their emailed newsletters for free or simply follow them on social media. Here is a preliminary list of some helpful websites:

You might also try taking some travel-inspired online courses, like those provided by Context Conversations, to influence the direction of your next itinerary.

TRAVEL BLOGS/PODCASTS

In between trips, it can be helpful to subscribe to some travel blogs for more inspiration and tips. Blogs are generally free websites with frequently updated articles that are usually written in an informal, conversational tone so that you get a feeling for the personality of the author and their travel style. There are thousands of blogs online today, so the choices can be overwhelming. If you don’t know which ones to read, take a look at these blogs to get started:

If you need more ideas, the On the Way blog has two helpful lists with links to various “travel couple” and 50+ blogs and websites.

You’ll see that you can subscribe directly to the blog’s newsletter with your email address (or you can set up a free email account for the sole purpose of reading travel-related information). If you are not inclined to read a bunch of emails, however, you can get updates automatically (and read when it is convenient for you) using a feedreader, like Bloglovin’ or Feedly, on your computer or via their apps on your phone or tablet.

Likewise, travel podcasts can be excellent resources for inspiration and itinerary planning. See 12 Travel Podcasts for the 50+ Traveler for a list of podcasts that we think offer (1) practical travel tips (2) relevant for 50+ travelers (3) with reliable hosts.

TRAVEL BOOKS, MAGAZINES, AND MOVIES

Sometimes, it is a lot easier and faster to just flip through a book or magazine, put a few post-it notes on the pages, and then pass them across the coffee table to share. Here are a few destination-type books to give you inspiration:

Take one look at their gorgeous covers and add them to your birthday wish list today!

You can also subscribe to the following print magazines:

If you have a tablet and want to save money, you should try to use your library card to download print magazines for free. For example, my public library offers these travel-related magazines through RB Digital:

National Geographic Traveler Magazine
National Park Journal

Finally, if you’re looking for a travel-inspired movie to watch, check out these lists:

For more ideas, check out (1) the articles under the “Media” section below to find travel-related articles on books, television shows, movies, music, and podcasts, or (2) our webpage with over 200 of the best travel memoirs and travelogues published between 1800 and 2021 grouped by continent and/or country, depending on where you want to go.

TRAVEL ARTICLES

Every morning, I read travel-related articles from hundreds of sources and save the very best for our readers under the subcategories below.

Newsletter subscribers receive updates and my notes on the week’s highlights, so subscribe at the bottom of this page if you’d like to be a better-informed travel planner before your next trip.

You can browse this collection using the drop-down menu below or do a word search by hitting (1) CTRL+F on your computer, or (2) the three vertical menu dots (AKA the kebab menu) in Chrome to select “Find in page” on your mobile.

RESOURCES FOR DREAMING

TRAVEL ARTICLES

"Best Places"

United States

North America

South America

Europe

Africa

Asia

Oceania

Arctic + Antarctica

Cruise

Media

U.S. Road or Day Trip

Heritage Travel

Virtual Trip