Dear Jaclyn and Heidi,
My husband I have found that life on the road is turning us into the laziest people ever! We had every intention of joining the bushwalking, kayaking, fishing, non-TV watching grey nomad gang when we started out … but things haven’t worked out that way. We’re more than happy to spend days sitting around reading books, munching on snacks, and discussing why there’s no need to hurry to the next spot. We sometimes pull up for the night and are still there three weeks later … and we often don’t bother looking at slightly out of the way ‘beauty spots’. Oh, and if we’re near a town we’ll always get takeaway food rather than cooking. Will we ever find our hidden energetic selves? I’m 69 and Bill is 72.
Francesca
It may not be the way everyone chooses to do it, Francesca, but the grey nomad lifestyle is certainly suiting you! You both seem to be in agreement about how you want to travel and that is really important. Nonetheless, it’s also vital that you look after your health. Whiling away your days in a chair, reading books and munching on snacks sounds great, but it will come back to haunt you if you do it for month after month. It seems a shame also not to at least see what is around while you are in a particular area. After all, you might never be back there. Maybe you could find more of a balance. Perhaps, you can have one lazy day, and then a more ‘active’ day the next. You might find this helps you to enjoy the ‘lazy’ days even more than you do now.
Jaclyn
Grey nomads travel in different rigs, want different things, and stay in different places.The most important thing is that they are out there enjoying the experience. It seems you and Bill have got it about right, Francesca. There are plenty of blister-footed, heart-rate monitoring ‘energetic’ grey nomads who would give their eye teeth to be sitting in your campchair! So many travellers desperately try to please their partners by hiking up some God-forsaken mountain, or trying to do this or see that just to show off to their van park neighbours or to family at home. It’s great there are still people out there rejecting the ‘Been there, done that’ travel mantra. You truly are free, Francesca.
Heidi
