Helen Ditchfield Riley, a graphic artist from Manchester England, created the look of the website based on our desires and needs. We wanted a clean and simple look so that the emphasis remained on the information it contained with the only visual highlight our photographs from around the world. The muted colors used reflect those most popular with travelers and hikers and were selected because they don’t overpower the photos.

A team of techies lead by Roman Shymko of Nix Solutions in the Ukraine worked with Jacob to translate our ideas into workable reality.

I wrote the information on the site while in China and Mexico and sent everything to my editor Marla Markman in California. Knowing Marla would be reviewing all of my copy meant I could write faster and not worry as much about grammatical errors and so we got much of it written within a few weeks.

Jacob Frank (project manager/company V.P./fellow traveler/husband) was still working full-time at teaching English as a foreign language in China while managing the many aspects of the project during what free time he had.

During the last two crucial months of much of the work, Jacob was working on Chinese time, coordinating the technicians in the Ukraine, his writer/wife in Mexico, and still needing graphics from England. With all of the time differences, it’s likely that there was someone working on the website 24 hours a day.

A big thank you to everyone involved in getting the Baby Boomers Traveling website up and running!

We’re still adding content and working out the bugs on a few pages but felt it was time we got the pages up so that readers could finally see what we’ve been up to these last few months. We’ve got lots of great stuff coming which we’ll announce as we unroll the new features of the website.

In the meantime, happy trails…..

The Boomers’ Guide to Going Abroad to Travel|Live|Give|Learn is now available through BookLocker, Amazon.com, and BarnesandNoble.com. If you’d like to read a free excerpt, just click here BookLocker excerpt and you can read the introduction and the first chapter. BookLocker also has a pdf version available to download instantly on your computer for $9.99. An e-book version will be made available soon.

Join us on Facebook at BabyBoomersTraveling. You may also follow on Twitter by clicking here: BoomerTraveling. If you would like to subscribe to this blog, click on the envelope next to the word ‘subscribe’ at the top of the left-hand menu. You will receive notification by e-mail every time this blog is updated. I solemnly swear to never sell, trade or give away your information to anyone!!

Whichever image pops to mind, you should seriously consider taking a break away from one of the worse snow years on record. The additional work and stress brought about by the multitude of storms—let alone the feeling that this winter will never end—is good enough reason to consider a few weeks in a warmer climate.

I generally advise people to avoid traveling during spring break because increased demand for airline seats and hotel beds results in raised prices across the board. But shopping around and starting early, as well as a few other strategies might help you find something affordable as well as pleasurable.

1. Go where “they” won’t go: Where do students go? The beach, ski hills and home. That doesn’t mean all warm locations are off the list just those on the coast. Instead of Cancun, consider going inland to Mexico City or Guanajuato. If you don’t mind the cold and snow, avoid the big ski hills and find a country bed and breakfast for a cozy weekend away without all the hassles of a long trip. This also means avoiding inexpensive hotels and hostels as they’ll be filled with students.
2. Start shopping early: Students are busy with school, want to see where everyone else is going, and often wait until the last minute to book hoping to find deals. If you book in advance, you’re more likely to find lower prices for airfares if you insist on going to spring break destinations. If you really want to go to the coast, take the money you saved on airline fares and book into a higher-end hotel that doesn’t allow college students during spring break (find one with a pool and maybe a private beach). But, I warn you, the town and surrounding hotels will still be noisy with music and partying.
3. Consider a volunteer vacation: While some students may do the same, they’re generally not of the partying variety and won’t be there in large groups. You can find organizations in any number of warm countries that will welcome your visit for a few weeks to help them to care for children or animals, clear hiking trails, build houses, and use your many skills in a rewarding manner while enjoying time away from your regular life.
4. Take a class in another country: What’s the last thing students want to do while on spring break? You got it: study. Language, art, cooking, weaving, photography, writing—there are so many choices you’ll find it hard to decide what to take. Check your local museum and learning institutions to see whether they’re offerings classes in town or trips abroad that you might be interested in taking.
5. Just Google it: Not sure what locations you should avoid? Type in “spring break location” in your search engine and see what comes up. Take note of the most popular locations and, ta da!, your list of places to avoid.

Spring break isn’t just for students and partyers. With a bit of careful planning you can avoid the worse locations and the high prices and still get away for a few weeks of relaxation—or at least a change from shoveling all that snow.

The Boomers’ Guide to Going Abroad to Travel|Live|Give|Learn is now available through BookLocker, Amazon.com, and BarnesandNoble.com. If you’d like to read a free excerpt, just click here BookLocker excerpt and you can read the introduction and the first chapter. BookLocker also has a pdf version available to download instantly on your computer for $9.99. An e-book version will be made available soon.

Join us on Facebook at BabyBoomersTraveling. You may also follow on Twitter by clicking here: BoomerTraveling. If you would like to subscribe to this blog, click on the envelope next to the word ‘subscribe’ at the top of the left-hand menu. You will receive notification by e-mail every time this blog is updated. I solemnly swear to never sell, trade or give away your information to anyone!!

What’s keeping me so busy? A loooong list of exciting activities that have been a lot of work but I’m very proud to now offer:

My book recently released

The Boomers’ Guide to Going Abroad to Travel|Live|Give|Learn is now available through BookLocker, Amazon.com, and BarnesandNoble.com. If you’d like to read a free excerpt, just click here BookLocker excerpt and you can read the introduction and the first chapter. BookLocker also has a pdf version available to download instantly on your computer for $9.99 at BookLocker download. An e-book version will be made available soon.

A new website coming soon
This website (dorisgallan.com) will soon be joined by a new site (BabyBoomersTraveling.com) that will better reflect the content of my new book. The existing site will continue as a repository of all my other writing—yes, I used to do a lot of writing not related to baby boomers and travel and may one day return to it. The Baby Boomers Traveling site will focus on providing additional resources related to the content of the book: it will include photos from our travels around the world, travel tips, as well as links to websites, books and travel products.

My innovative boomer coaching service will be introduced and a forum will be provided for boomers to share their travel picks, stories, and photos. One feature I’m really looking forward to is introducing boomer travelers—people who have made journeys across their home countries or around the world an important part of their lives.

A Partnership with myTravelCompanions.com
This British on-line company aims to become the voice for mature travel by “blowing away the misconception that boomer travelers are only interested in tired cruise ships and tours.” myTravelCompanions helps its members find like-minded travel companions to fulfill their travel needs and share tips and experiences. I created a booklet Opening Doors: A Mini Guide for Baby Boomers Traveling for myTC that will be distributed to new members once its new campaign launches in the coming weeks.

Preparation for expert presentations:

I’ll be speaking at the Educational Travel Community conference in Rhode Island in mid-February on the needs of baby boomer travelers, on the use of blogs by tourism marketers as well as giving a workshop on blogging for beginners.  The annual gathering of tourism professionals brings about 300 travel planners from alumni groups, conservation societies, museums and art institutes plus an additional 200 destination representatives, operators and suppliers.

Creation and distribution of a travel survey:

Last week I released a travel survey asking boomers to let us know what they really think of the travel industry. If we want our needs for more active, involved and interesting travels to be reflected in the industry’s products and services, we have to start by telling providers exactly what we want. You can still take part if you haven’t already done so. All participants will receive an e-booklet and a chance to win my book The Boomers’ Guide to Going Abroad to Travel * Live * Give * Learn. You can take the survey by clicking here: Baby Boomers Traveling Survey.

Recently Featured

Many thanks to the following for featuring Baby Boomers Traveling in relation to the survey or to make their readers aware of this resource:

- Donna Hull of My Itchy Travel Feet

- Baby Boomer Blog Carnival 76^th Edition

- Bette Boomer Profiles: Doris Gallan World Traveler, Author, Travel Coach

- Twitter Peeps: @marlamarkman, @AndreaGer, @DIYSOSJulia, @xsweenyx, @susantolles, @GlobeTrekkersLI, and @Tips4Trips.

Join us on Facebook at BabyBoomersTraveling. You may also follow on Twitter by clicking here: BoomerTraveling.

If you would like to subscribe to this blog, click on the envelope next to the word ‘subscribe’ at the top of the left-hand menu. You will receive notification by e-mail every time this blog is updated. I solemnly swear to never sell, trade or give away your information to anyone!!

The travel and tourism industry was hard hit during the past five years as it continued to chase consumer dollars that were really squeezed: those of older travelers and business road warriors. It has yet to turn its attention to the greatest travel boom ever: Baby boomers—many of whom didn’t stop traveling during the Great Recession.

To make up its losses, the industry will now take advantage of the pent-up demand for travel being felt by all the people who stayed home during the past half decade. It will be more important than ever for travelers to be vigilant in spotting air fare sales, finding cheaper options for accommodations, and looking for alternatives to the usual offerings that might not meet our needs.

Many trip takers—with little time to do in-depth research—in the past have relied on the internet, newspaper and magazine advertisements, as well as travel agents to guide them. They’ve often come back less than satisfied with their travels especially considering the cost.

What do travelers want?

Early boomers—the group that’s between 55 and 65 years old—now have more time to do their own research and have recently been re-familiarized with the value of their travel dollars. They’ve consistently expressed to me their displeasure with travel offerings saying they don’t want to do what their parents did. In other words, no boring bus tours, no sedate cruises with little to do, no 10 countries in 14 days see-too-much, do-nothing packaged travel.

The same is true for later boomers (those between 48 and 54 years old) who demand even more activity and involvement in their travels. Along with much younger people, they’re sustaining the voluntourism industry as they seek travel experiences through which they can give back to local communities.

If we want our needs for more active, involved and interesting travels to be reflected in the industry’s products and services, we have to start by telling providers exactly what we want.

Please take a few minutes to fill out this survey so that I can communicate your needs to travel industry leaders as I speak across the country and continue to write about baby boomers traveling. We’d like to hear from all travelers: Not only baby boomers. All participants will receive an e-booklet Opening Doors: A Mini Guide for Baby Boomers Traveling and a chance to win my book The Boomers’ Guide to Going Abroad to Travel * Live * Give * Learn . You can take the survey by clicking here: http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/WEB22BR9LURTZQ/. Responses will be collected until Monday, January 31.

Thank you and happy travels!

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The Boomers’ Guide to Going Abroad to Travel * Live * Give * Learn is on sale at Amazon.com, BarnesandNobles.com and Booklocker.com.

Join us on Facebook at BabyBoomersTraveling. You may also follow on Twitter by clicking here: BoomerTraveling.

If you would like to subscribe to this blog, click on the envelope next to the word ‘subscribe’ at the top of the left-hand menu. You will receive notification by e-mail every time this blog is updated. I solemnly swear to never sell, trade or give away your information to anyone!!

Travel buddy, business partner, and husband Jacob (after 27 years of marriage I could add a few more titles, but I won’t) and I have visited over 50 countries and all seven continents in the past five years. Several countries such as Mexico, Costa Rica, China, Thailand, the United States, and Canada we visited several times. We also returned to live in Mexico, Costa Rica, and China.

The living and traveling will continue to be combined—you can’t very well expect us to stop now—in that we don’t intend to rent or buy a place to live for some time. Instead, we’ll be traveling across the United States and Canada to promote my book (The Boomers’ Guide to Going Abroad to Travel * Live * Give * Learn), attend travel and boomer conferences and shows, give seminars and workshops and whatever else comes our way. On long breaks we’ll return to rest in Mexico were the living is easy (most of the country is safe) and pretty inexpensive.

When we’re not on to road to promote the book, we’ll be vagabonding in the U.S., Canada and Mexico to see just how well we can apply what we’ve learned about world travel to our own continent. Some of the challenges we encountered abroad will completely disappear while others will actually be more pronounced at home.  Here are some of the differences I expect we’ll encounter:

Less challenging:

• Languages: I’m fluent in English, French and Spanish
• Currency: I understand the value of the U.S. and Canadian dollar as well as the Mexican peso
• Food: Love all of the food, especially Mexican (which is also easy on the budget)
• Lodging: Lots of friends and family who want to take us in (thanks everyone!)
• Hiking and the great outdoors: Tons of places to go, things to do and relatively cheap too

More challenging:

• Budgeting: The cost of travel is far higher in the USA and Canada than in much of the world
• Transportation: Complicated to figure out good deals (air fare, gas) and expensive too
• Food: Restaurants are expensive but portions are big so we can share
• Lodging: Fewer cheap options (very few hostels)
• Packing: Harder to pack for all seasons as well as carry business and casual wardrobes (in only two bags)

I’m sure we’ll find other things that will test us beyond these and you’ll get the chance to read all about them here and in the book I’ll be writing about our experiences during the coming year. Would love to hear suggestions for places to go—especially unusual or quirky—anywhere in Canada, the USA or Mexico. Happy Trails—we’re off again!

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Look for The Boomers’ Guide to Going Abroad to Travel * Live * Give * Learn on sale here in hard copy and in electronic format really soon.

Join us on Facebook at BabyBoomersTraveling. You may also follow on Twitter by clicking here: BoomerTraveling.

If you would like to subscribe to this blog, click on the envelope next to the word ‘subscribe’ at the top of the left-hand menu. You will receive notification by e-mail every time this blog is updated. I solemnly swear to never sell, trade or give away your information to anyone!!