Is Travel worth it

 I read a post over at Sightings Over Sixty that asked the question is Travel is it too much trouble. His answer was yes it is, and I tend to agree, but it is something that I have put behind me at this point. My wife cannot travel due to a number of underlying conditions. In fact, she has trouble leaving the house. So, travelling with my wife is not something that I will be doing soon, but I am hopeful that things will get better and we will again be able to travel.

Part of why travel for seniors is troubling is it is very expensive due to the cost of travel insurance, both medical and cancellation. My last trip was from Vancouver to Edmonton for a Celebration of life for three days. Most Canadians do not know this but the health insurance we have in our home province does not help you if you are hospitalized in another province. We know that if we are travelling to another country we need medical insurance, but many forget that we need it if we travel to another province. Because of COVID I also thought I should have cancellation or trip interruptions insurance. There are a lot of joys in getting older, but there are also drawbacks. One of these is that when you hit 75 the cost of both medical travel and trip cancellation insurance goes up. For my 3-day trip, the insurance cost almost half the cost of the ticket. I was not expecting to pay over $300 for insurance in addition to the ticket.

Travel is worth it but only if you travel with good medical travel insurance, which as I understand goes up as we age, so if my wife gets better and we can travel in a few years, we will have to plan for expensive travel insurance as well as the more expensive flight or other travel costs. Today I am happy not to travel as the pent-up demand, according to the news, is not being met by the industry. I read every day of people waiting for planes, or flights being cancelled. I am torn, I would love to travel now, but I am also happy that I cannot, so I dream and plan our next trip and I am putting money away for it now.