The Ageing Traveller

I’m getting old. There are obvious signs of getting old. I won’t list them all, because I’d bore you. There’s a reasonable chance you’re also a bit old, or getting there, and will be familiar with most of them anyway. And if I tried to make a list, I’d find I’ve forgotten most of them. Because I’m old. But the worst thing is this. I’m reaching the point where there are more trips on my bucket-list than there is life left in me to see them. Worse still, I’ve done the easier ones. The low-hanging-fruit type bucket-list trips have mostly been completed. Which was a mistake. I should have done the tough ones when I was a bit younger. Although, to be fair to myself, I made the easy ones unnecessarily tough anyway.

Just over twenty years ago I picked a thirty-six hour door-to-door flight to Mexico to save a few quid. It was a pittance really but I was in my twenties, virtually immortal, with a limitless amount of time ahead of me. More time than cash, for sure. In 2025 I find myself looking at the twenty-four hour door to door trip to Phnom Penh and asking myself whether I can be bothered with the ordeal. There are no direct flights there. It’s a right old trek, with no way round it. So I booked the flight quick. Cambodia has been high up on my bucket-list for decades, and I’m not far away from the point where ‘can I be bothered?’ turns a little bit ‘no, absolutely not putting myself through that’. It was now or never.

There’s other signs that I’ve become a more senior, rather than seasoned, traveler. I did one of those things I swore I’d never do. I booked on a tour and followed a man around who was holding up a flag so we didn’t get lost. In my defence, it was in the Beijing part of the trip. It’s a busy city with a lot of bureaucracy, limited ticketing and we just had two days to get an awful lot done. No time to waste trying to work things out on my own. But still. I spent 48 hours following a flag. On the plus side, our guide was the lesser of two evils – he communicated through a microphone to headsets we had been equipped with. The alternative is a guide with a megaphone. Those guides should be shot. Although the net result is the same either way. Deafness. An infection gifted through shared headsets or infliction of hour upon hour of eardrum ratting noise.

There was also the fraught midnight dash to the airport when our taxi driver belatedly realised that we needed Phnom Penh airport, not the one at Siem Reap. We had less than four hours to complete a drive that takes more than five hours. After dark. On Cambodian roads with no street lighting. Twenty-two year old me would have enjoyed the thrill of the ride. I’d have reveled in the daring overtaking of convoys of trucks, squeezing back into the right lane just before a collision with the headlights speeding towards us. I’d have peeked at the speedo and urged him to give it a bit more.

Instead, fifty-two year old me spent it staring at my Maps app, watching as we made up time, checking that our travel insurance policy includes missed flights and googling ‘is it legal to kill family members in the back seats who are not taking this seriously and are laughing at an inappropriate time?’ In the event we rocked up at a near deserted airport, bailed out of our ride and ran to check-in with nine minutes to spare. I’ve never felt so alive. Family members were also still alive. Google assured me it’s not legal to kill them. Not in Cambodia. I’ll need to choose future destinations with a little more thought.

Becoming a mature ‘grumpy old man’ type of traveller has some plus points though. We reached China, the land of rules. Yes, yes, it’s not quite as free as we’re used to in the west. There are uniformed one-man-band fuhrers everywhere. But I rather liked the reassurance that any yobbish behaviour on the very clean metro system would likely be met with the swift administration of a skull crunching truncheon. Human rights issues are a bit iffy, and twenty-two year old me might have had something to say about something square with tank something man something something. But fifty-two year old me strolled right past Mao’s mausoleum well aware that the last time I walked through Bournemouth, I selected a good dozen people who should be shipped off in the night to hard labour camps. Or worse. Mostly worse. So who am I to judge? Those in glasshouses, etc etc.

Where does travel go from here, as I get older still? My line in the sand is cruises. A hard no for cruises. The only cruise ships I like to see are all sitting on the sea bed. But then, I previously drew a line in the sand at following guides around who were holding a flag, and look what happened there. So. I suppose I’ll be cruising then. But not just yet. I’m getting old. I’m not actually old. Not yet.