Tours
Jacada Travel will help you get close up to a zebra on a luxury African safari.
I wasn’t too familiar with Jacada Travel, a London, England-based company that specializes in luxury private guided tours in Latin America and Africa, but a new Gold Award from Travel Weekly in their 2013 Magellan Awards made me take notice.
Jacada Travel was named a “Best Overall” tour operator by a panel of travel industry leaders and insiders.
The company is just five years old and promises to deliver personalized travel experiences, which they’ll design for you based on your wants, needs, desires, and, no doubt, a few whims.
If cost is no object — or at least not the defining object — in your pursuit of bucket list safaris in Africa or Amazon tribal encounters in Peru, Jacada Travel will make it happen.
Baby boomers (as well as other travelers such as… Continue reading
Walking the World group — all aged 50-plus — hikes in Ireland. Photo from Walking the World
In a previous post I talked about Walking the World, an adventure tour company headed by veteran guide Ward Luthi, which caters just to travelers age 50 and up and specializes in walking and hiking trips in Europe, Asia, Latin America and beyond.
Luthi — who has met challenges as an Outward Bound instructor and successful tour company owner since 1987 — is now taking on new ones: giving back to local people around the world — particularly to those in Central America — who, as he puts it, “have given so much to me and my fellow travelers.”
Giving back is one of three pillars of Walking the World’s motto: “Get Up — Go Wild — Give Back.”
“Get Up” essentially means getting off the couch or up from… Continue reading
Back in the 1980s, Ward Luthi — an experienced Outward Bound instructor and adventure tour guide — served on the President’s Commission on Americans Outdoors. The commission, he says, found that “active outdoor travel was rated one of the top three goals of older adults.”
Walking the World trips are limited to those aged 50-plus — who are mostly baby boomers. Photo from Walking the World.
Based on the commission’s findings, Luthi in 1987 founded Walking the World, which he says was the first company to offer active outdoor adventures just for those aged 50 and above in the U.S.
It was a prescient move, because with almost all the 76 million U.S. baby boomers — the most active generation of older travelers ever — now reaching 50-plus (the youngest boomers are 49), Luthi’s target market is growing exponentially.
I’ll be talking more about Walking the World tomorrow and… Continue reading
Boomers explore Angkor Wat with Classic Journeys. Copyright Classic Journeys.
At Classic Journeys — a company that specializes in walking tours with cultural components around the globe, as well as culinary and family trips — baby boomers are the prime target market.
In fact, according to Classic Journeys co-founder and president Edward Piegza, fully half their guests are aged 60 or older, and, he writes, “their thirst for adventure is alive and well.”
Classic Journeys attracts boomers for all the reasons I’ve been writing about in this blog:
* Itineraries span the globe from Morocco to New Zealand, Turkey to Cambodia, Corsica to Costa Rica, Argentina to Zambia — 33 countries on five continents — helping to slake boomers’ thirst for seeing parts of the world that are off the beaten track. (See my previous post on boomers’ taste for the exotic.)
* Classic Journeys walking trips are adventurous… Continue reading
Leopard in tree — Botswana. Photo by Mark Lakin, Epic Road.
Combining luxury and adventure travel — two boomer favorites — with another boomer hot-button, “transformative experiences,” Epic Road offers customized trips that, for now at least, focus primarily on African safaris and the Arctic. Plans are in the works to expand into Asia, and Epic Road will work with clients to set up trips in other regions of the world if requested.
Luxurious adventure trips are offered by a number of other companies. The Epic Road twist is those “transformative experiences,” including specific humanitarian and conservation initiatives that travelers can build into their journeys if they choose. (See my previous post on tours popular with baby boomers that give back to the local communities they visit.)
Started by two longtime friends and devoted world travelers, Mark Lakin and Marc Chafiian, Epic Road’s declared ethos is “to raise… Continue reading
Is St. Petersburg, Russia, on your bucket list? Photo by Dennis Cox/WorldViews
Could be sky diving, could be bungee jumping — could be any number of things that might actually have you kicking the bucket somewhat before your allotted time.
Or, in my case — and that of many other baby boomers — it’s traveling to as many places as we can before we’re immobilized in one way or another.
Now, some of these may well include a certain level of risk: trekking to Machu Picchu; angling for a great shot of African buffalo on a safari in Kenya (tip: angle away while remaining safely in your vehicle); even climbing the Great Wall of China (some of those… Continue reading
Boomers on a ROW Adventures river trip. Photo from ROW Adventures
If you want to know how important boomers are to adventure travel tour operators, ask Peter Grubb of Idaho-based ROW Adventures, which was named Travel and Leisure’s top tour operator for 2012.
“VERY important,” Grubb told me, especially since most of ROW’s international trips are comprised primarily of members of the baby boomer generation, now aged 49-67. International trips may range from sea kayaking in Baja and whale watching in British Columbia to snorkeling in the Galapagos and venturing to Machu Picchu. Boomers, he notes, often have more time and money to spend on such trips than other groups.
Boomers also join many of ROW’s domestic adventure trips, which include rafting, hiking, kayaking and canoeing in the Pacific Northwest and beyond. (ROW began as a small Idaho river-rafting operation 34 years ago and has expanded rapidly over the past… Continue reading
Explore Europe on your own on a Rick Steves “My Way” tour. Photo by Catharine Norton
The recent well-publicized flap about George Zimmer — founder and longtime TV pitchman for the Men’s Wearhouse — being fired by the company he started got me thinking about the power of personality in travel product branding.
Zimmer and other celebrated pitchmen — notably KFC’s Colonel Sanders, Frank Perdue of Perdue Farms chicken fame, Wendy’s hamburgers Dave Thomas and popcorn king Orville Redenbacher — all became the public face of the companies they founded.
And when they died or became too old or too controversial and were no longer able or considered suitable to serve in that role, their companies all suffered to one degree or another. (This New York Times piece offers good background on the topic.)
I had to think a bit before coming up with an equivalent personality… Continue reading
Overlooking the Atlantic in Casablanca, Morocco — a baby boomer favorite destination. Photo by Clark Norton
It’s been a widely accepted premise in the travel industry for years that Americans want shorter vacation options. The classic two-week vacation of days of yore has gone the way of nickel candy bars and Cokes, a relic of the 1950s. (Yes, folks, there once were such things as nickel candy bars and Cokes.)
In its place are “long weekend” trips or — if the traveler is really fortunate — a week to get away and recharge. Everyone is too busy, office work is piling up, the kids have to get back for soccer practice, the dog is lonely — all the usual reasons in a stressed-out society.
Understandably, the travel industry has responded by offering shorter tours, long weekend getaway packages, and other ways to feign a true travel experience without using… Continue reading
Boomers Atop Masada in Israel. Photo by Clark Norton
Baby boomers — the most-traveled generation in history — are ready to hit the road in record numbers as they gain more leisure time in retirement, but are you ready for them?
Boomers account for a third of all leisure trips taken and four-fifths of all money spent on luxury travel, yet many tour operators either take them for granted or ignore them altogether. One reason might be that they don’t know what makes boomers tick.
Of course, not all boomers — born between 1946 and 1964 — are alike or think alike, but in general (like all generations) they have some key characteristics in common.
Here are five ways to attract more boomers — and their spending power — to your tours:
1. Avoid the terms “seniors,” “elder” or any implications that boomers are “old.” Boomers may be aging, but… Continue reading
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