What do you do when the kids move out? Don’t sit and mope! Take a road trip! This article will give you tons of great ideas to motivate you to take that dream vacation and enjoy your mid-life without the crisis!
So, your nest is empty.
It’s just the two of you now, and you don’t know what to do with yourself.
You and your partner find yourself sitting on the couch watching T.V night after night, doing nothing in particular.
The house used to be full of teenage drama and busy schedules, but now the only busy schedule going on is your own.
Work!
You’re either at work most of the time now, or sitting on that couch. You know you want to get motivated, get more energy, but you’re old now: An empty nester.
You’re not exactly a senior, and you’re not young. Just… empty. You lack the youthful glow you once had. You lack the energy to motivate yourself to anything but crash on the couch after a busy day of work.
You get your popcorn and goodies out, and you watch show after show. Binge watching an entire series on Netflix becomes your favorite past time.
The winter months are the worst. It’s too cold outside to do those winter activities you did when you were younger. It’s too dark when you come home from work to go for a walk.
So, back to the couch.
And maybe, just maybe, your partner sitting on the couch beside you feels the same way. You glance over and almost don’t recognize him. He’s changed so much. So have you.
You evaluate the scene, and realize you’re sick of this. Something has got to change. You need that busy household back. You need real life drama in your home again.
So you call the kids over.
You plan for a great visit, but they’re too busy.
They always seem to be too busy.
And you go back to pouting… and watching Netflix.
Then one day, almost like it suddenly happened overnight, you become grandparents. Not just once, but twice, and then three times.
And counting!
Now, surely you will get that busy household back again.
You invite the grandkids over.
Scratch that, you invite yourself over… learning that it’s easier to go visit them.
Oh how glorious it is to spend time with your grandchildren.
And then you learn there is a whole other realm of tiredness you never even realized. Those little ones take a lot of energy, and you suddenly become very thankful you had children when you were young.
Having babies is for young people. Us older gals need to appreciate that. We need to accept the truth that menopause happens so that we don’t keep having kids.
Can you imagine being a new mom at 50? On rare occasion it does happen. But that would be tough. Children tire you out!
Grandchildren tire you out!
So, as much as you love your children and your grandchildren, you now start to appreciate your alone time. You now start to appreciate your empty nest.
But more than that. You now start to see your empty nest as opportunity.
Opportunity for what you ask? For YOU!
There comes a time in every person’s life when you ask the question, do I use my time wisely? As an empty nester, we sometimes forget about our own future.
We’ve raised our kids, know how to work for what we want, and for the most part, have an established routine and general process to our lives.
But what do we do with the rest of it?
After the kids, after the grandchildren come to visit. After a hard days work.
ROAD TRIP!
We go on a road trip!
For me and my husband, we find we like to go on short road trips. You know, so you can get back to your comfortable bed, take your pills, and relax before you hit the hay.
Stupid old age!
What ever happened to spur of the moment? I love spur of the moment road trips. But it seems the definition has changed. A road trip now means, we have to be near a bathroom.
We can’t just pack light. We have to bring our paraphernalia bag and toiletries. All those medications we take, or health supplements for this and that must go with us.
We have to pack up the sleep apnea machine we got suckered into using every night. Heaven forbid we forget one night fiddling with that machine, breathing like Darth Vader.
We can’t be gone too long either, because we need to get to bed on time. We can’t break the routine you know.
All these added things just seem to ruin it.
Road trips should mean that anything goes, like it did when we were young. But unfortunately it doesn’t, and we have to work with age appropriateness once again.
As we age, we start to realize our limitations have to be worked into our plans.
But where can the empty nester go that includes all that?
Let’s explore the possibilities.
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RVing
There are a lot of options for RVing.
You can rent a pull behind camper, or RV, or even fly or drive somewhere, and then rent an RV once you’ve arrived at your destination.
Or, You can simply buy one.
I personally think it’s easier to rent.
And example goes something like this: My husband and I have always wanted to take a trip to the East Coast of Canada, and have been looking into options.
We’d really like to spend some time on Prince Edward Island. It’s supposed to be a beautiful place to go RVing. The trouble is, how do you get there with an RV.
We live half across the country. So, the question is, do you haul a camper behind your vehicle all the way there, or do you fly, and then rent?
For me it’s simple, just fly there and rent an RV. Less hassle that way. But whether or not my husband really wants to camp is another story.
We used to camp a lot when our kids were little. It was alway very stressful with little ones. It seemed to be more work than fun, at least for me. All the kids stuff we had to drag along, was a pain in the butt.
And the laundry was endless afterward.
Yet, we have a lot of fond memories of camping with the kids.
I’d stay in a tent and rough it any day. But nowadays my husband prefers staying in hotel rooms along the way. Yuck, I say. But that’s what happens when you get old. You like the comforts a hotel can bring.
At least some of us.
There is also an option to rent a cottage once you’ve arrived at your destination. That may be a compromise for us. A cross between camping and a hotel. Perfect!
There are a lot of options on Air Bu0026amp;B as well as websites that specialize in this.
Regardless of what we finally decide upon, I know that RVing is a great way to see the countryside, even if we stay in a hotel at night, or a cottage for a week. We would still have to rent a vehicle to travel to special points of interest.
Maybe we can rent one of those old VW vans with ‘Peace’ and ‘Love’ written on the side to reflect our hippy roots.
I’d like a ’66’ model like myself, thank you!
It would work perfectly!
It’s an RV! A strange one, but it’ll do!
Notice how I keep going back to the RV idea.
Such a nice idea!
At least for me.
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CRUISES
If you’ve never stepped foot on a cruise ship before, you don’t know what you’re missing.
My husband and I went on our first cruise a few years ago to celebrate our 25th anniversary.
It was amazing. We took the Norwegian Cruise Line to Alaska, and I must say, it was a trip of a lifetime. Never have I ever had so much fun!
Everything was done for us. They waited on us hand and foot. The service was great and we were treated like royalty.
We especially liked the ‘all you can eat’ buffets. They 5 star restaurants were amazing too. It’s like a small city inside a cruise ship.
You never get bored!
There was entertainment every night.
And if you didn’t want to sit in a theater, there were programs of all kinds throughout the ship.
You could jog on the promenade, or just laze in a lounge chair at the top of the ship. There were hot tubs and a swimming pool; a tennis court, and shopping.
And we met people from all over the world.
The only trouble I had was with sea sickness.
Nobody told me you could get sea sickness patches that stick on your skin behind you ear. You were supposed to apply them a few days before the trip. It’s a patch that slowly releases medication through your skin so you don’t get seasick.
I discovered the seasickness patch after we set sail. We had to meet on deck for safety drills the first night, and as we crowded into our section, I noticed everyone was wearing these circle patches behind their ear.
When I asked what they were, someone told me, “Didn’t anyone tell you? You need a seasickness patch.”
Well, just hearing that made me feel sick.
After investigating, we found that these patches were not available through the ships doctor. We were told they are prescription only. My doctor would have had to prescribe them, BEFORE the trip.
Obviously, that did not happen.
The only thing the ships doctor had on board was gravol.
My husband and I were shocked!
We were sure we could get our hands on the patch somehow.
But that was not the case!
I had good days and bad days. I only felt sick when we were out to sea. When we were near land, and traveling the winding passages, it wasn’t so bad.
I remember going out for a nice supper with my hubby, only to fall ill right when the meal arrived. I immediately left, leaving my poor hubby behind, to bring the meal to my room.
When he arrived, I moaned, “Get that away from me!”
Poor man!
He got some gravol from the ships doctor, and I was out like a light.
I would have taken the gravol sooner, but I didn’t want to feel like I was drugged up the whole trip. That’s why people had the slow release patch. No spaced out feeling.
Offshore excursions were the highlight of my trip, because it didn’t involve seasickness. The amazing Alaskan countryside was breathtaking.
The harbors were my favorite, as well as the mountains and passageways as they wound through forests that came flush with the sea.
In short, our Alaskan cruise was well worth the money, and it wasn’t even as expensive as one might think.
We had a travel agent book it, but if we go on another cruise, I think we’ll book it ourselves. We relied on our travel agent to book us connecting flight flights so we didn’t have to worry about a thing.
She did that on the way there, and we had no trouble at all.
It was a different story on the way back.
We didn’t have enough time to make our connection flight at the Vancouver airport. The flight from Anchorage had arrived late, and so getting through customs took too long. We had to run and run, and then got lost.
It was like running around in circles inside a maze.
When we finally did make it on to the plane, I was bawling. It was such an ordeal. I can’t imagine anyone with health issues being able to run the length of the Vancouver airport. It was difficult.
So, note to self. Make sure you always get a direct flight. Connecting flight that are so close together, are too hard to make.
As we started to taxi down the runway, we looked down below to the tarmac and realized our luggage had not been so lucky. They had not been able to put it on the plane.
That was the last we saw of our luggage for quite a few days.
Air Canada had lost our luggage.
Losing your luggage is quite traumatic, because everything you own is in those bags. We had medications, personal things like makeup and irreplaceable souvenirs. Electronics and valuables of all kinds.
My heart sank when our flight arrived home and our luggage did not.
There was no compensation for it through Air Canada. Others have similar stories but were compensated greatly by other airlines.
I vowed right then and there that I’d never fly with Air Canada again.
When they finally tracked down our luggage and sent it to us, it looked like it had been through a war zone. Our beautiful newly purchased luggage, had arrived dirty, scuffed up, and ripped.
I highly suggest, if purchasing luggage for a trip like this, that you don’t cheap out, and you get the hard-shell luggage and not the fabric luggage just in case they lose it and it take on a trip of its own.
We found out our luggage had taken a trip all across Canada by mistake. We were lucky we got it back.
All in all, despite a few problems, our cruising adventure brought us memories that will last a lifetime. I would certainly do it again, but next time, I’ll make sure I get the seasickness patch a few days before I leave.
I will also make sure all our flights are direct flights. If there are none available, I will make sure we have a layover of a few hours before we have to make a connecting flight, just in case it takes longer to go through customs or if a flight is late or delayed.
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DAY TRIPS
Day trips can be quite nice. They are a lovely alternative to packing suitcases and sleeping in an uncomfortable bed.
Day trips can consist of anything from going to museums in your own town, or a few hours away.
Antiques are our thing.
My husband and I share the value and beauty of old things, so when we travel we like to find local antique shops. Even yard sales.
It’s a cheap adventure, but worth so much in other ways.
Day trips can also consist of hikes and biking, though my husband doesn’t enjoy that as much. Me on the other hand, I love them.
But doing things that both you and your husband enjoy is important.
If you’re alone, and going on an adventure, then it’s a different story. You can hike and meet people, or bike by yourself and take in the scenery at your own pace.
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THE SPA
Going to a mineral spa is one of my favorite things.
As we get older we like to soak in warm water and relax. One place in particular is our favorite place to go: Manitou Mineral Spa.
The water is natural forming and known to cure whatever ails you. Now, we can all use that as we age, can’t we.
Even just going to the local swimming pool can be an adventure when you get older. We like to take the grandkids, and really have a ball.
Doing enjoyable things as we age, doesn’t have to cost a lot of money, nor does it have to include an overnight stay.
We can enjoy day trips to the fullest.
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CANOEING
A few years ago, we purchased a canoe.
It was a good idea at the time, and we certainly enjoyed ourselves. The trouble is, it’s heavy, or at least heavy for aging empty nesters who don’t have muscles like we used to.
It didn’t take us long to realize we couldn’t keep lifting this canoe on to the top of our vehicle. We tried several different ways to lift, but it is still very exhausting if you’re not used to it.
Also paddling the canoe is not easy. Even if you’re a pro at it, it does take a lot of arm power. And what I find is, as I age, my arm muscles become weaker.
I’ve tried to work out more and build my muscles up, but no matter what I try, my arms still seem to be weak.
I guess that’s what happens when you get old.
So, we decided to buy a light motor for the back of the canoe. This is a lifesaver. I can’t count how many times we needed that thing.
My suggestion if you want to try canoeing is to buy a light motor for sure, and invest in something that will help you load the canoe, or transport it more easily so you don’t end up with tired sore arms, back, and shoulders.
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SHOPPING TRIPS
Shopping trips shouldn’t be overlooked. I look forward to travelling to the city to go to Costco, or just going out to a movie.
The town I live in, doesn’t have much for entertainment, so when we want to do something fun, we travel the hour and a half to the nearest big city and go out to the movies, or go mini golfing. or take in some event that sparks our interest.
Sometimes these simple little day trips can bring the greatest joy.
So, don’t overlook them.
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MOVIES
As I said previously, our little town doesn’t have a big movie theatre so the selection is poor. Whenever my husband and I have some time off, we like to go to the cheap theatre and watch a double feature.
Have you ever done that?
We watch one after another.
It’s fun, and we always sneak our favorite food in too. I know I know. You aren’t really supposed to do that, but it kind of reminds me of being young again.
It’s fun to be rebellious and sneak in illegal contraband even if it’s just a can of coke.
You have to make your fun where you can, and how you can. Life is too short to be serious all the time and follow the rules.
As we age we need that excitement.
Our kids laugh, but hey… fun is fun!
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FISHING
Fishing is not canoeing.
This is something I am adamant about. When we take off on a canoe trip, I don’t want to bring my fishing rod and worry about catching fish in a small boat.
Sure we’ve done it many times, but it isn’t enjoyable to me. I always feel like we’re going to end up tipping over and falling in the water.
A canoe is wobbly.
So, rather than worry about fishing in a canoe, we love to drive up north and rent a fishing boat for a few hours.
Usually, I’m the only one that is successful in catching, a fish, but that’s another story. My husband can never understand why the fish seem to flock to me.
Little does he know that I just politely ask them to bite my line.
We’ve had a lot of fun renting a boat and going fishing for a day. The last time we were out was memorable.
We almost ended up in the water. A storm came upon us quickly and the winds increased dramatically. We were pushed into a cove called ‘Widowmaker’ and I now know why they gave it that name.
We were pushed to the point in the lake and couldn’t get out. Our motor was full of weeds and we couldn’t get it to work properly. We ended up having to row out, but that didn’t work very well.
I yelled at my husband, and he yelled at me. We were quite a sight. If anyone had been nearby, they would have never believed we had been married for 30 years. Or, on the other hand, maybe they would.
It’s funny what stress can make you do.
I was never more scared.
Luckily we got out and lived to tell the tale.
It’s times like these that we look back on, that we realize adventure is good for the soul, even if we nearly drowned.
Thankfully we didn’t, but you know what I mean.
Life… it’s an adventure!
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WALKING TRAILS
We have a plethora of walking trails in my community that wind through the river valley.
I love walking on these trail.
My husband doesn’t like walking for long periods of time, but I sure do.
So I go alone.
I don’t mind going alone. In fact, it’s a great time to meditate and reflect on my life. It’s great therapy. I can walk for hours and hours.
It’s where I do my best thinking. It’s where I pray. It’s where I sort through my problems and regain my energy.
I take in the scenery and breathe…just breathe!
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VACATION PACKAGES
Other than buying a vacation package for our cruise to Alaska, I have never purchased one. When I think of a vacation package, I think of going to Mexico, or the Bahamas, or some place tropical, but it doesn’t have to be.
There are many vacation packages that empty nesters can go on right in your own backyard. You can buy vacation packages by bus, train, or even by horse.
I love horseback riding, and would love to go on a wagon trail ride. I’ve have looked into these, and you can actually go cross country on a real trail ride like the pioneers.
I’ve even looked into buying a vacation package to many of the guest ranches around the world. They seemed to be very costly, but if I had the money, I’d certainly buy this kind of vacation package.
We stayed at what we thought was a guest ranch for our 20th anniversary one year, but it turned out to be a disaster. We didn’t realize it had gone bankrupt, and so when we arrived, it was barren. No horses, no animals, just a goat in the kitchen and bad food.
So, do your homework before you go.
They can be well worth it if you pick the right one.
I’d love to stay at a ‘real’ guest ranch.
You don’t just buy a vacation, you buy an experience. I would love to have someone take me on a horseback ride, cook over the open flame, and teach me how to rough it.
It would be hard to convince my husband, especially after the last disaster, but maybe he might want to trade in our comfortable bed for a weekend sleeping under the stars beside a horse.
Not likely.
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LONG TRIPS
Snow birds, they call them. Pack up your things and temporarily move to Arizona. That’s what many empty nesters do. They escape the cold.
They’re the smart ones.
I don’t know if I’d ever like to do that though. I’d miss my grandkids too much. For me, the joy of living near my kids is that I can actually have a relationship with my grandkids.
I value that.
Sure it would be nice to go on a vacation once in a while, but there is nothing like home sweet home.
Too long of a trip for me, makes me miss the comforts of home, and the familiarity of the things I have been accustomed to. I’d miss my kids, my grandkids, my bed, my office, my sewing, my kitchen. I’d miss biking around my neighborhood, and walking on the river trail.
No, I wouldn’t want to go on an extended vacation. I’d like a couple weeks, even a month, but longer than that feels like a disruption of life.
But for many, they fly south for the winter every year and love it.
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RETIREMENT
Last but not least, let’s talk about retirement.
It means something different for everyone, and when I think about it, I often think of vacationing whenever I want.
And I hope that’s what retirement will be fore me. But honestly, I don’t really know if I want to retire.
Yes, I want to go on vacations.
Yes, I want to be done with the 9-5 rat race.
But do I want to sit in my rocking chair and get old?
No!
I’m the kind of person that has to have a project or something to keep me busy.
Don’t get me wrong, I love doing nothing some days. I love curling up with a good book on a rainy weekend. I love making popcorn and binge watching Netflix on my day off. But, outside of that, it’s gets boring fast.
I’ve heard of ‘retirement classes’ people take to teach them how to retire. Crazy, but I understand how it can take people off guard if they don’t prepare for it. The lifestyle is very different from working for a living.
For me though, even if I retire from my day job, I still want to work. I just want to work at my own things. Like my writing, and my sewing. I’ve always felt like I never have times for my passions because I am always running to work.
It consumes almost every part of my life.
THAT is what I’d like to change. If retirement can give me more time for the things I love, then bring it on. If retirement can give me opportunity to be the entrepreneur I have always wanted to be, then perhaps I need to look at it in a different light.
I can write another book, or work on my blogs. I can sew more quilts, and get into sewing professionally. I’d love all that.
But in the meantime, I have to be happy with what I have, and that’s not retirement yet.
One thing is for sure – whether or not I’ll actually be able to retire, or even want to, I know that I want to make time for fun!
I want to go on vacations.
I want to take day trips.
I want to go on tours and mini holidays.
I want to travel with my husband.
I want to explore the world in my older age, but just for a while. In the end, I want to come home. I want to be near my children, and grandchildren.
That’s living to me!
If you can enjoy life on your own terms as an empty nester, and throw in little trips here and there, you have it made. No real responsibility like when you were young and raising children. You don’t have dependents anymore. You don’t have teenagers to keep an eye on, or worry about them staying out all night. It’s just you now.
You’re free!
So, my advice is to explore the many road trip ideas for empty nesters we’ve covered here, and just go with it! Have fun, be adventurous, and start thinking about YOU again!
Don’t focus on the empty nest, instead, look at it differently. This is your opportunity to enjoy your life to the fullest without dependants to worry about.
Take that needed vacation.
And when you come home, you’ll appreciate it all the more!
Check out some MUST-HAVES in my Travel Shop!
Click HERE For Other Articles on Crunchy Menopause.
References
- Science Daily
- The North American Menopause Society
- Harvard Health
- Endocrine Web
- NCBI (Pub Med)
- Alternative Medicine for Menopause (LCBI)
- Healthline
- WebMD
- Women’s Health Concerns
- Reader’s Digest
- Mayo Clinic
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Author Kathleen Morris
Kathleen Morris is a successful published author, blogger, and Youtuber. She enjoys writing about things she’s passionate about and making a difference in the world.
