Take flight on the silver migration

Staying put in one place for 10 weeks or more is the holiday of choice for the over-70s – and the ultimate ‘immersive’ escape. Emma Thomson reveals the places where you’ll never get bored

Remember those holidays when you wished you could have stayed longer? When you dreamt of spending days getting lost in the streets of a new city, returning to a favourite café until you were counted as a local, or having more time for day trips further afield? Retired travellers are now grabbing that chance with both hands. A recent survey from the insurance company Staysure revealed that nearly three in four people going on holiday for longer than 10 weeks are aged over 70.

“Retirement is no longer seen as a time to slow down and put your feet up,” says Stuart Lewis, chief executive of Rest Less (restless.co.uk), a digital community for the over-50s. “The pandemic has turbocharged many people’s sense of wanderlust, whether that is planning extended trips to see family living abroad, stretching out a postponed holiday with an extra week at the end, or taking the plunge on that holiday of a lifetime.”

The majority choose to escape the bone-chilling winter months, but this doesn’t always have to mean longhaul flights – there are sunnier European options, too. The key difference is that picking a single place and staying for months, not days, transforms you from tourist to explorer. Renting a long-term apartment or Airbnb property breaks the holiday hotel bubble and provides the chance to immerse oneself in a new culture. You can make friends with locals, learn a new language and uncover the secret side of a destination that only comes from devoting time to it.

It’s also part of a growing movement to travel more slowly, purposefully. It’s not the same as being a backpacking “grey gapper”: this is about travelling in a more meaningful way that suits the slower, wiser pace of life better suited to adventurous septuagenarians. This is the Silver Migration.

UNITED STATES

New York – to paraphrase the wise words of Ol’ Blue Eyes, Frank Sinatra: “If you can make it there, you’ll make it anywhere.”

One of the world’s most iconic cities, New York has become a film character in its own right. She’s a brash broad, home to 8½ million people, of whom more than half live alone, so don’t be intimidated at the thought of a longterm visit. Try Airbnb (airbnb.com) or Urban Living International (nycity apartment.com) for furnished apartments and studios. New Yorkers can be a bit guarded, but beneath their rough exteriors are hearts of gold. To break the ice, try apps such as City Socializer (citysocializer.com/newyork/meet-people), Meet Me (meetme. com) or One Roof (oneroofapp.com), which helps neighbours living in the same building meet and make friends.

Three months here will fly by, but there is a multitude of day trips to go on to balance the fast-paced city life. They include the hippie, artistic town of Woodstock (not to be confused with the site of the 1960s festival), the village of Sleepy Hollow with its working farm and mill from 1750, the forested 8,000-acre Mohonk Preserve (where you will find 40 miles of trails for hiking and horse riding) and beachy walks along the flat peninsula of Little Stony Point, near Cold Spring in the Hudson Highlands State Park Preserve.

How to get there Virgin Atlantic (virginatlantic.com) flies from London Heathrow to JFK from £402 return

Covid rules All travellers must show proof of full vaccination on entry, and most will also need to show a negative test result taken no more than one day before travel before they board their flight

Messing about in boats: take a day trip from New York to Mohonk Lake