I'm Retired! Now what?

June 24, 2026

Most normal people view the chance of going on a vacation as one of the most exciting, joyful events of their year, and depending on their age, they’re as giggly as a high school girl on prom night or someone who is experiencing the birth of their first grandkid.   Then there’s me.  I anticipate going on a vacation with the same agonizing anxiety of a job interview for some position I’m highly underqualified for or a blind date with some distant friend’s third cousin whose physical description lies along the lines of, “She has a healthy appetite and her other issues are beginning to clear up nicely.”

Regardless of what kind of joyous adventure I have planned, by the time my departure time rolls around, I’m a nervous wreck to the point where I’m nearly hoping that a War of World alien attack breaks out just so I can have a good reason to cancel my trip.  I plan these trips out weeks or months in advance, but after the excitement of all the booking and planning wears off, I start hoping that some kind of family issue, natural disaster, or new world order calamity will happen so I don’t have to carry out my plans.  However, with just two days left before my trip, I’m starting to believe I’m going to have to pull this one out.

I have no fear of flying, and I find that driving across the country by myself is actually kind of fun.   It’s all the other stuff that freaks me out.  Stuff like, will I get there on time?  Will I be able to find my flight?  Will my vehicle break down?  Will I be able to find my tours?  Will I be able to find a place to park?  Did I get any dates screwed up?  Did I book a hotel in the wrong city?  Is there a Chicago, Alaska?  Did I schedule two tours at the same time?  Did I check 10:00 pm instead of 10:00 am?  Yea, it all gets a bit stressful to the point where I just want to stay home and mow my lawn.  Of course, this brings up the question, will I be able to mow my lawn before I leave so I don’t come home to a small rain forest for a front lawn!  I’m still hoping for that alien attack!

To be honest, this is all a bit of a needless panic attack.  Once I’m on my way and carrying out all these cool and exciting adventures I’ve booked I’m usually fine, but regardless where I go or what I do, my favorite activity always seems to be my trip home.  Sometimes I think I’d be happier if I just stayed home and looked at someone else’s vacation photos on FACEBOOK.  However, in my life’s experiences I discovered that it is the things that I didn’t do that I regret, far more than the things I did do.  I look at going on trips a bit like running a marathon.  It’s really cool to tell people that you’ve run a marathon and the actual running must be a bit of an experience, but how many people actually look forward to running twenty-six miles?  Even the most devoted runner is thrilled when they finally cross the finish line.

Generally I find the planning part of the vacation to be an absolute blast!  After I decide where I want to go, I dive into the internet with reckless abandon!  There are so many travel sights and so many tours to jump on!  There are bike tours, river tours, segway tours, haunted tours, historical tours, food tours and so on and so on!  And with great exhilaration I’m clicking away on these travel sights nearly squealing in excitement, thinking I’ll do this tour here and that tour there.  Some times it’s the same freaking tour, but there’s one tour during the daytime and the other is at night.  As far as I’m concern, I’m just covering all my basses.  Once I drove down to Galveston, Texas and went on four different haunted tours in that city.  Wow!  Who would have ever thought that Galveston was so full of spooks!  But apparently, I wanted to get to know them all on a first name basis!

So when I’m planning a vacation, I become a devoted follower of about five different internet sites, all of which are telling me what I need to do.  I’ll read one site that tells me, “You haven’t lived until you’ve done a segway city tour!” and I’m like, sign me up!  Then there’s one that tells me about all the spooks I’ll see on a certain haunted tour,” and once again, sign me up!  And then there’s a haunted tour that involves a river cruise, and then there’s a bar hopping haunted tour.  And again, sign me up for all of them!   Of course, I’ve got to do the minibus tour as well.  And then there’s the food tour.  Oh, and let’s not forget the museum tour!  Sign me up!  Sign me up!  Sign me up!  I’ll deal with the credit card bill later.

Indeed, I’m like an eager bride picking out her wedding dress when I’m sifting through this tour and that tour.  However, after I have filled every morning, afternoon, and evening with this tour and that tour I suddenly come to the realization, “Good gosh!  Am I really going to have to do all of this stuff?”  Suddenly reality kicks in and I realize that I’ve scheduled so many tours that I haven’t allotted myself any time to eat.  Indeed, it can all get a bit overwhelming.  Maybe this is why I lost ten pounds on my last vacation.  The 27-mile mountain hike that I wandered through might have had something to do with that as well.

Speaking of walking, I always have to take that into consideration as well.  What looks like a few inches on a map can turn into quite the little hike in the real world.  So I’ve got to plan my tours close to each other and even calculate how long the walk between tours will take me.  In Margaret’s mind, the most important part of planning these tours is my survival.  She’s always convinced that I’m going to be mugged wherever I go.  With this in mind, there have been times when I want to ask my AI, “What are my chances of survival if I walk through this neighborhood?”  Yes, that can add to my vacation anxiety.

Perhaps I wouldn’t be freaking out quite so much over these trips if Margaret might disturb the laws of nature and pry herself from her couch long enough to join me on these little adventures.  However, the little wife lives by the philosophy that we pay over two hundred dollars a month for TV services, and if she leaves her TV viewing couch for more than four hours a week, she feels that we’re not getting our money’s worth.

There are certain disadvantages to being a solo traveler.  Perhaps the most defined one is the fact that restaurants generally hate you and encourage all loners to wander on down the street to the local Burger King.  There’s far more money for them from the big family than the one social outcast.  However, the biggest issue with being a solo traveler is the fact that when I book a tour there is always that possibility that I’m the only one who booked it!  Now if I had a significant other, friend, relative, or even a large dog that I could pass off as a human accompanying me such would not be a problem.

 Most tours will operate with two happy travelers, but guides generally refuse to put out the effort if it’s just little ole me showing up.  I probably have at least one tour cancelled every trip because I’m the only one who booked it.  Also when traveling alone, there’s always that simple notion that I don’t’ have anyone to share the joyful experience with.  Then again, isn’t that why we invented FACEBOOK?  This way we can share our experience with people we’ve known since kindergarten.  Or I can annoy the heck out of all those people who picked on me in high school with my boring vacation photos.  Ah, sweet revenge.

Of course there are also advantages of a solo traveler.  The biggest being, “I can do whatever the heck I want!”  Well, I can as long as I text Margaret every night to ensure her that I am still among the living.  For some reason she’s always convinced that I’m going to be mugged, murdered, run over, fall off a cliff, or get mauled by the local wildlife.  Okay, I’ve only come close to a couple of those, but that leads to another advantage of being a solo traveler.  Unless I’m posting my every move on social media who really knows what I’m doing.