Travel may be an option soon

 Within a year we will be willing to travel more than we do now. COVID will be more understood, and restrictions will start to ease and most importantly, people will be willing to travel.

Whether you want to drive across the country for a few weeks or just visit a neighbouring town for the day, road trips are one of life’s greatest pleasures. Here are a few great resources for finding interesting diversions along the way:

Swimming Holes:  Listings of 1,600 swimming holes in the United States and Canada.

Roadside Attractions:  Put in your route and find wacky roadside stops.

The Outdoor Project:  Maps with great hikes, campgrounds, adventures, and more.

Roadfood.com:  Jan and Michael Stern are probably the most famous of all roadside dining aficionados. Their site, RoadFood.com helps you find casual, affordable local restaurants, cafes, diners, and more featuring regional specialties.

GasBuddy:  An app that helps you find the cheapest nearby gas station.

RoadTrippers: This also is an app, helps you find cool attractions along the way.

There are more options than ever for affordable vacation lodging.

Airbnb  and  VRBO:  Airbnb and VRBO are popular services that enable you to rent apartments, condos, houseboats, tree houses, single-family homes, and even compounds.

You will be amazed to see that all kinds of homes are available in all the remote corners of the world. Best of all, the amount you pay per night is often much less than what a hotel would cost plus you get a kitchen and more sometimes the homes even come with cars or other transportation perks.

Home Exchange:  HomeExchange is a service that matches homeowners for a housing swap. Thousands of people exchange houses every year and love the experiences and connections that are made.

Hostels:  You might think that hostels are just for young, drunken kids. However, hostels are trying to cater to older (and more sophisticated) travellers. Some hostels even offer private rooms and great amenities (if bunk beds aren’t your style). If you are interested, check out: Hostelworld.com.  You can see descriptions, reviews, rankings, and even see availability and make reservations.

In addition to offering you a great place to stay when you travel, Airbnb can also offer you an almost magical way to make money for travel (or whatever). It is easy to list your home on Airbnb as a rental for travellers who will be visiting your community. Depending on where you live, you might just get flooded with interest.

When you are retired, you have a lot more freedom to take advantage of last-minute deals and opportunities.

There are quite a few websites and apps that can help you with these spurs of the moment trips:

Hotel Tonight: Hotel Tonight is an app. They get unsold inventory from hotels for that night and make it available to app users at a big discount.

Kayak.com/explore: Kayak has a feature on their website that lets you see a map of the world and the lowest airfares from your city to anywhere and everywhere.

Intrepid Travel: Intrepid Travel books tours. You can review their last-minute deals.

Groupon: Groupon does all kinds of discounts for many different types of experiences. They also have some last-minute deals.

Lastminute.com: This site focuses mainly on European last-minute deals.

Travelzoo: Travel zoo aims to offer the best deals from the best companies.

Google Flights: Watch out, this can get a little addictive. If you plug in your departure city and dates but leave the destination blank, Google Flights will return a list of the lowest airfares available for you.

 

First National Day for Truth and Reconciliation

 September 30, 2021, marks the first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. The day honours the lost children and Survivors of residential schools, their families and communities. Public commemoration of the tragic and painful history and ongoing impacts of residential schools is a vital component of the reconciliation process. 

Orange Shirt Day is an Indigenous-led grassroots commemorative day that honours the children who survived Indian Residential Schools and remembers those who did not. This day relates to the experience of Phyllis Webstad, a Northern Secwpemc (Shuswap) from the Stswecem'c Xgat'tem First Nation, on her first day of school, where she arrived dressed in a new orange shirt, which was taken from her. 

It is now a symbol of the stripping away of culture, freedom and self-esteem experienced by Indigenous children over generations. 

On September 30, we encourage all Canadians to wear orange to raise awareness of the very tragic legacy of residential schools, and to honour the thousands of Survivors.

Tips to get yourself ready for a retirement.

There are all sorts of advice on the Internet about how to prepare for retirement. I think it is important to prepare for retirement, but when I retired I did not and so I fumbled my way through the first eight years of retirement and finally started to figure out that for which I should have planned. After 15 years of retirement, I am starting to get the hang of what I want to do. If you are approaching retirement look for and listen to all the advice you can find. As you filter through the advice, find advice that speaks to you and what you need and want to do.  Here are some ideas that I could have used when I first thought about retirement.

What do you want your retirement to look like? – Make a list of things you would ideally like to do.

Locate all pension paperwork from past and present employers, you can also use the Governments pensions tracing systems for details of pans you may be unable to trace.

Work out how much income you would need in retirement in the short term (the first 5 to 10 years) and longer-term (after 10 years).

Ideally at what age would you like to retire if you had the income to support you.

Would you like to have any lump sums to spend on holidays, home renovation or exploring things you want to achieve in retirement.

What does your government pension forecast look like? Each country has its own rules, but you should be able to access your information with effort.

What is the total of your existing pension? What income or lump sums will they provide in retirement?

Start to plan early, what risk profile and funds are your existing pensions in?

Do you have other assets to help towards building a retirement of which you are dreaming?

Make sure you are part of your current employer’s pension scheme.

Retirement planning is like using a satellite navigation system, you enter your destination, and it works our various routes, the shortest, the fastest and takes into consideration any congestion you come across.

How do you stop a bull from charging?

'' Cancel its credit card!

What do you call a snobbish criminal going down the stairs? A condescending con descending!

Why can’t your nose be 12 inches long? Because then it would be a foot!

How does a rancher keep track of his cattle? With a cow-culator!

Why did the fish get bad grades? Because it was below sea level!

What’s a bear with no teeth called? A gummy bear!

Why wouldn’t the shrimp share his treasure? He was a little shellfish!

How do you impress a female baker? Bring her flours!

What kind of cheese isn’t yours? Nacho cheese!

How do you make a Swiss roll? Push him down a mountain!

What kind of music do mummies listen to? Wrap music!

What is the difference between a poorly dressed man on a tricycle and a well-dressed man on a bicycle? Attire!

How many lips does a flower have? Tu-lips!

How do you make a Venetian blind? Poke him in the eyes!

Did you hear about the sensitive burglar? He takes things personally!

What job did the frog have at the hotel? Bellhop!

What do you call a group of unorganized cats? Cat-astrophe!

What do you call a sleeping bull? A bulldozer!

Why did the golfer bring two pairs of pants? In case he got a hole in one!

Why couldn’t the pirate learn the alphabet? Because he was always lost at C!

What do you call a seagull that flies over the bay? A bagel!

 What do you call a man that irons clothes? Iron Man!

How did the barber win the race? He knew a shortcut!

What do you call a pile of cats? A meow-tain!

How did the hipster burn his tongue? He drank his coffee before it was cool!

What do you call a row of rabbits hopping away? A receding hare line!

Why don’t they play poker in the jungle? Too many cheetahs!

Where does the electric cord go to shop? The outlet mall, of course!

What did the football coach say to the broken vending machine? “Give me my quarterback!”

Why can’t you trust the king of the jungle? Because he’s always lion!

Why did the stadium get hot after the game? All of the fans left!

When does a duck wake up? At the quack of dawn!