How baby boomers became Generation Jet Set!

Forget competing over kids, careers and loft conversions. Now it’s all about ticking Antarctica off the to-do list...

DITCH any thoughts of stay-at-home retirees. Over-65s now go on more holidays a year than young adults — an average of 4.1 trips a year, according to travel association Abta. It is also the age group taking the most holidays abroad — indulging twice a year, on average, and spending more than any other generation. Here, four authors reveal how they joined Generation Jet Set . . .

FRIENDS COMPETE OVER LUXURY GETAWAYS

Linda Kelsey, 65, lives in London with partner Ron TRIPS THIS YEAR: Six DAYS ABROAD: 49 MILES: 13,651 BIGGEST SPLURGE: Italian break, £3,500 FOrGeT keeping up with the Joneses, today it’s all about keeping up with the air miles. No longer competitive about kids, careers or loft conversions, you might think those of us in our mid-60s and beyond would be over outsmarting our peers.

But in one area rivalry remains rife. For us baby boomers, travel has become the field of last-gasp one-upmanship. You don’t ‘ go’ to places, you ‘do’ them — then tick them off, like appointments on a to-do list.

Frankly I feel a little lax, and certainly rather poor, when my Generation Jet Set friends reel off their latest trips. So far this year pals have boasted about going on luxury liners in Antarctica (where the only ice that gets broken is the chunk dropped into a highball glass by the on-board barman), racing round the palaces of rajasthan, and getting up close and personal with the gorillas in rwanda. The truth is that if I had the money to do it in style rather than steerage, I’d be tempted.

Then there are those friends who don’t have as much money, but do have the time (which currently neither my partner nor I have) and do it more ‘authentically’.

What this means is disappearing for a month several times a year and crowing about how they’ve experienced the ‘real’ rather than the tourist thing. Boasting of staying in small inns rather than five- star hotels, taking bumpy buses and rickety trains rather than taxis, they are Generation Jet Set with moral superiority.

I’m a novice at this, having spent most of my time since the age of 18 chained to a desk, rarely taking more than two weeks off once or twice a year.

But at the start of this year, coming up to 65, I found myself thinking: ‘If not now, when?’ The idea of getting away is increasingly irresistible.

So when a friend suggested a few days in Vienna in February as she was researching a book, I jumped at the chance. It’s a city I know well from my art history studies and it was great to supply a free guided tour of the Klimts and introduce her to the martinis at the American Bar.

No sooner was I home than my partner posited a week in Israel (the home of his birth), with a detour to the rose-red city of Petra in Jordan. It would have been churlish to refuse.

returning to London, I realised it was only two months until my mid-60s birthday. Who knows what the next five years might bring, I found myself thinking, as one friend booked herself in for a cataract op, another for a hip replacement.

So I organised a family outing to Italy that included my partner, son, sister and brother-in-law. Off we went to Modena, where we ate at Osteria Francescana, recent winner of a best restaurant in the world award.

The holidays were mounting up. Soon it was July and time for the annual visit to the family apartment in Spain, inherited from my parents.

No longer tethered to a nineto-five, I decided to stay a month rather than my usual fortnight.

Feeling hard done by as September crept up, I booked a cheap weekend to Liverpool. We had a riotous time at The Cavern singing old Beatles tunes.

So my most intense relationship these days is with booking.

com. If spending money on more travel feels like a luxury indulgence, it’s not one I feel guilty about. I’ve worked full-time all my life and I’m still earning money. I have no mortgage and no longer buy designer clothes. I intend to absorb as many new places as I can.

Surely no one on their deathbed ever said ‘I wish I’d spent less time seeing the world’.

For now it’s still mostly short haul and short stays. My partner has no idea what plans I have for him when he retires — but it won’t be feet up in front of the telly. Unless they have satellite dishes in the Atacama desert.

FROM SUN-SEEKER TO WORLD TRAVELLER

Geraldine 65, is single Rudge, and lives in London TRIPS THIS YEAR: Five DAYS ABROAD: 33 MILES: 10,322 BIGGEST SPLURGE: A cruise in the Med for £2,500 There is something intoxicating about having the freedom to travel whenever, and to wherever,

you want. Not having to fit in with staff rotas, or travel in school holidays when beaches are busy and prices soar.

When I was in my 30s, my summer holiday — anywhere hot with a white stretch of sand — lasted two weeks. The first week would be catching up on sleep, de- stressing, getting my bearings and recovering from the tummy bug that always followed a change of diet.

The second week was spent making up for the lethargy, cramming in every activity possible. Two weeks later I’d be back at work and back to square one — needing another holiday.

But now in my 60s and newly retired, my holidays are far more frequent, far less frenetic.

With age comes experience. I travel with only carry-on luggage and delight in buying everything I’ve forgotten when I arrive. No panic, just pleasure.

So far this year I’ve taken five holidays and I’m planning my sixth. In May I met a friend in the Catalonian city of Sitges for a week of sunshine. From there it was less than one hour on the ferry for a day trip to bustling Barcelona to admire the art nouveau buildings.

In June I went on my first gourmet cruise, from Rome to Barcelona with Oceania Cruises, after friends raved about how effortless cruising is. After eight days, I disembarked 4lb heavier.

The next month it was a week at an Airbnb apartment with some friends in Porto, Portugal. But my wanderlust wasn’t satisfied, so in September I went on a family trip (with my sister, her partner and my 20- something nieces) to Snowdonia, renting a cottage by the sea.

Before I retired I’d never have spent my hard-earned holiday in Wales — I always craved sunshine. Now my time is my own, rain is not such a worry: if this trip’s a washout, there’s always the next one.

In fact, I’ve just returned from a five-night break to Padua in Italy. On a whim, I decided to celebrate my birthday there.

I’M ALWAYS RESTLESS FOR THE NEXT TRIP

Libby Purves, 67, lives in Suffolk with husband Paul TRIPS THIS YEAR: Seven DAYS ABROAD: 41 MILES: 17,387 BIGGEST SPLURGE: Flights to Tennessee, £900 WheN I read about the boom in roving oldies I wondered if I was one, as this summer I stayed at home. But with school and university terms no longer restrictive, holidays happen at cheaper, odder times. Totting up the year I found I do indeed have a gadabout tendency.

New Year in Ireland with friends, back there for four days in spring for the Fastnet film festival. A long weekend in freezing snowstorms in Norway, completely failing to see the Northern Lights but getting squeezed into a survival suit (not everyone’s a Saga cruiser) and hurled about in an inflatable boat to feed sea eagles.

Then to Den helder in the Netherlands on a youth training ship, with an exciting return journey because battling a virus I got lost in holland due to taking the wrong bus and nearly missed the night ferry.

A few weeks later I sailed down from the Scottish borders to Lowestoft, crewing for my husband ( his own over- 65 holiday instinct provoked him to sail round Iceland all summer).

That was followed by three days in Spain to see a friend’s cave-house and discover a new sort of beer.

Finally, in September, the ‘proper’ holiday: a week with my brother’s family to the U.S., because Nephew Mk 2 works in Tennessee, so it was obviously an aunt’s duty to take him and his fiancee to Dollywood. OK, it was me who most wanted to see the Dolly Parton theme park.

The six of us got soaked to the underpants on the river ride and shamefully exploited the chocolate fountain at brunch.

I’m done for now, the credit card lies panting exhaustedly at the bottom of my bag.

But the restlessness remains. Nephew Mk 1 works in Washington DC, and ooh look, rock bottom IcelandAir flights via Reykjavik. You’re only old once . . .

NO MORE CUT-PRICE CAMPING FOR ME

Angela Neustatter, 74, lives in London with husband Olly TRIPS THIS YEAR: Five DAYS ABROAD: 61 MILES: 18,046 BIGGEST SPLURGE: Trip to Japan, £2,400 The view of the iridescent lake was pure delight after hours on the road. We were sitting outside the waterside hotel in Switzerland where, on impulse, we’d decided to stay for the night.

Two hours earlier my husband and I had been in traffic on the autobahn, driving home after a break in Italy. Then a light bulb moment: we didn’t have to suffer a two-day endurance trip.

We could stop. And, thanks to my mobile, find a castle- style hotel at a reasonable price.

We spent two nights after that in quirky hotels along the route, booked on a whim.

We can do it this way now that our two sons are grown and flown. Olly is retired from film work and I am a freelance writer. I’ve tapped out many a quick article as Olly chauffeurs me to our destination.

We’ve had to convince ourselves it isn’t too indulgent or irresponsible to take several holidays — long and short — in a single year.

At this age it makes sense to spend what money we have on this, rather than knick-knacks the kids will throw out when we are gone.

Today, our trips look very different to the camping holidays and cut-price stays we relied on when the boys were small.

We love europe and our youngest son lives in Seville, having married a Spanish woman.

Our first trip there this year was in March, when england was bitingly cold and southern Spain embracingly warm. We sat reading in the gardens of the Real Alcazar, the city’s famous palace, and ate delicious tapas.

In April, Amsterdam, Olly’s home town, beckoned. I lived there in the Sixties and felt blissfully at home again, wandering the cobbled streets.

We then went our separate ways: Olly to visit a mate in the Pyrenees, I to Dresden with my brother to see the wonderful baroque buildings.

Next up, Japan. Our elder son’s wife is Japanese so we spent a few days in a traditional house with her family, before three hectic days in Tokyo.

Our youngest son and his wife had a baby while we were away, so of course we had to return to Seville again, and we made a detour to Madrid, too.

So if I tot up this year’s holidays my grand total is, I am astounded to realise, an indulgent-sounding five. We don’t have a huge disposable income, so this jet set lifestyle means some gimleteyed prioritising.

Much of my wardrobe is carefully chosen in charity shops. We avoid the ubiquitous restaurants where we live, and have dinner parties where everyone brings a dish and a bottle.

On our travels, we stay in simple places, with an occasional splurge on some glamorous folly. The impersonal comfort of most five-stars doesn’t tempt me.

But excuse me, a brochure for an enticing eastern european tour has dropped through the letterbox — I must take a look.