Encore (A Special Report) -- Travel --- Splitting Up: Some spouses are going their separate ways when traveling in retirement
By Perri Capell
1532 words
14 July 2007
The Wall Street Journal
R5
English
(Copyright (c) 2007, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.)
Jody Verrengia wanted to travel to exotic destinations after her husband, Tom, retired from his job as an airline pilot 2 1/2 years ago. But when he told her that he didn't want to take trips involving airports and flying, Ms. Verrengia, age 55, decided to go overseas anyway -- without him.
Ms. Verrengia, who lives in Miami, joined the Women's Travel Club, a women-only tour operator in Bloomfield, N.J. In April, she went to Morocco, her first trip with the group.
"I'm young, healthy and able to afford to get out there," she says. "There are lots of places I want to go, so I said, 'I'm doing this.'"
Retirement, almost by definition, is a time when wives and husbands finally get the chance to travel more. The assumption, of course, is that couples will take trips together. In some cases, though, spouses are going their separate ways, as one person says no to travel and the other goes off to roam the world.
In most cases, travel experts say, the one who's roaming is the wife. Women "are standing up and saying, 'It's my turn,'" says Marybeth Bond, a San Francisco-based expert on the women's travel market.
Just how many retired spouses are traveling solo isn't known. Generally, tour operators say they don't ask whether their solo customers are married, and "typically, they don't tell me," says Debra Asbury, president of Women Traveling Together, a women-only travel company based in Edgewater, Md. "All we ask is age, so we can pair people up to share rooms."
Still, of 500 women customers surveyed by Women Traveling Together in 2003, almost two-thirds reported leaving behind husbands or boyfriends within the previous year to join an all-women tour. On average, these women say they toured once a year with their husbands and two or more times annually with groups of women.
Ms. Asbury estimates that about one-fourth of her customers are married women in their 50s and 60s traveling singly. Their husbands were either business-road warriors and don't like taking long trips involving airplanes, or the couples have different travel interests, she adds.
"The wife may want to do a garden tour, but her husband could care less about gardens, so he says, 'Go and have a good time,'" Ms. Asbury says.
The change has helped create a niche within the travel industry. The number of women-only tour companies in the U.S. offering more than five trips annually now numbers more than 21, up from seven in 1995, according to Ms. Bond in San Francisco. Additionally, more than 120 tour companies in the U.S. market women-only trips with their other offerings, she says.
Wives, of course, can find friends to join them on mixed tours, but many prefer to go solo with women-only groups. For starters, they have the freedom to choose when and where they want to go. There also is no need to find companions who want to visit the same places and are available to travel at the same time. Trip participants get a built-in group of potential future travel partners, Ms. Bond says.
Phyllis Stoller, managing director of the Women's Travel Club in New Jersey, says she formed the club in 1992 because her husband wasn't interested in traveling to unusual places, and she couldn't find friends to go with her. Her favorite destinations are the Middle East, India and Southeast Asia, where she enjoys exploring craft markets and bazaars. Ms. Stoller, 60, says the club now has "thousands" of members, growing 35% just in the past two years.
For older women, arranging travel is very much an "immediate thing," she says. "They don't want to wait for friends. They want to go when they want to go." Most women on her tours are between 45 and 55 years old, Ms. Stoller says.
With children gone and mortgages paid, many older wives have discretionary income for travel, which is another reason why catering to the older women's travel market makes good business sense. "Money doesn't seem to be an obstacle," says Ms. Asbury in Maryland. About 75 of her clients have gone on four or more trips with her company, she says.
Of course, men have long taken trips without their wives, usually for specific purposes -- to fish, hunt, golf or participate in other sports activities, Ms. Bond says. By contrast, women like to travel to discover. More than two-thirds of participants in adventure-travel trips are women, she says. "The typical adventure traveler is not a 28-year-old male," she says. "It's a 47-year-old female who wears a size 12 dress."
Indeed, men and women's preferences when it comes to travel seem to diverge with age, some experts say. Women, for instance, appear more willing to tolerate travel hardships, says Ms. Stoller. This year, her company is offering tours to China's Tibetan Plateau, Peru, Kenya and the Baltic countries, among other destinations. Retired men, she notes, generally like comfort and tend to enjoy returning to the same place each year.
Tour operators also point to an unusual camaraderie that exists among women who take trips together. Not having to be responsible for family members allows them to be more carefree than usual, says Ms. Bond. "We travel more with women now because we get so much out of it," she says. "We get support, we laugh a lot and we aren't responsible for anyone else."
Ms. Bond, 54, says her husband, an attorney, takes one vacation trip with her annually and it tends to be "pretty scripted and upscale," she says. "Nothing can go wrong." But when she travels with women, "we are free and wacky -- it's one big pajama party."
For their part, husbands left behind often don't seem to mind. Elsie Lorber, 74, a former educational consultant in Lafayette, N.J., has been taking overseas trips without her husband, Charles, for more than 15 years. She usually takes at least one trip annually to Europe with women friends from high school or her daughters.
"He likes to stay home," says Ms. Lorber of her husband. "He can go to Burger King, Pizza Hut and all the other places I don't let him go."
For his part, Mr. Lorber, 76, a former school principal, says he's happy she's doing something she loves. "It's OK with me," he says of her trips. "She just loves to travel and I don't."
Jackie Scott always dreamed of seeing the world, but her husband, Maurice, said he didn't want to travel after their retirement in 1984. She says he doesn't mind staying home with the dog while she visits foreign countries without him. "I said I was going," she says, "and he said that was OK with him."
Since then, Ms. Scott, 77, has seen most of the world. Her husband bowls several times weekly and takes care of the house while she's away, and, she says, is always glad to see her when she returns to their home in Boise, Idaho. "I thought, 'I'm not going to stay home just because he doesn't like it,"' she says. "I'm adventurous and it's nice to be doing something on my own."
Indeed, on the couple's 45th wedding anniversary, she took a cruise with her daughter, Rhonda, a travel agent. "We've been married 56 years and after that long, it's just another day," says Ms. Scott.
Of course, wives aren't the only ones traveling without spouses after retirement. Some husbands travel alone as well.
After retiring from a financial manager post at Graybar Electric Co. in 1994, Gerald Spillman, now 72, bought a motorcycle. A good friend had also retired and bought a bike, so they began taking trips together without their wives. That friend has since died, but Mr. Spillman, who lives in Redwood City, Colo., now goes on about seven or eight motorcycling trips annually with other friends.
Last year, he rode motorcycles in Laos, Thailand, China, the French Alps, Mexico and U.S. destinations with biker friends or on organized tours. "I like seeing the world," he says. "I stay home for a month, and I get bored."
Meanwhile, his wife enjoys being home and gardening or remodeling the house and doesn't mind his sojourns, Mr. Spillman says. But his solo travels come with a catch: For every one or two bike trips he takes, he must take his wife on a cruise.
The upside, Mr. Spillman says, is that absence does make the heart fonder. "When you have been married 50 years," he says, "you tend to appreciate each other more after you have been apart."
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Ms. Capell is a writer in Idaho. She can be reached at encore@wsj.com.
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