I Am an Important Target Market!

WooHoo! Listen to this! A study [by Hawes, a guy] in the Journal of Travel Research showed that we female travelers in the 70-and-up group are as sensation-seeking as younger ones, but that those between 50 and 60 aren’t. We non-male 70s love the uncertainty of unplanned adventures.

When we were 22, Mary and I lived by Europe on Five Dollars a Day and the Youth Hostel Guidebook (or whatever it was called). Every day was full of glorious uncertainty. Hostels were about $2.00 for a dorm room including breakfast.

No planning even worked in places like India and Thailand where we would watch the other airline passengers climb into hotel buses and be whisked to their American-style lodgings while we opted for a YM- or YWCA or cheap hotel and a local way to get there.

I feel only slightly guilty about all the planning we’re doing for this trip. A recreational glance into the availability of hostels/hotels in Paris proved to me that if we wanted a place to stay, we better book it now. One thing led to another as I spent an additional day planning out each stop and then two mornings making hostel/hotel reservations on the Internet.

It proved to be a good idea because I finally realized how quickly thirty-five days can fill up when you want to go to so many places. I had to cut out some of the choice ones for equally choice ones, remembering, for instance, that Mary really wanted to see Carcassone and I really wanted to see St. Malo. We won’t get out to the tip of Brittany. We won’t get to St. Puy, the place with the church stuck on the pinnacle of a high, skinny mountain, and we won’t see the china factories in Limoges, along with a hundred other wonderful places. What we do see will be fantastic!

But it won’t be like this was, our first day (November, 1961):

“Our next ride was with a great giant of a woman, Lianne, in a tiny Citroen 2 CV like the one our Parisien outlaws drove [more about them in a future entry]. Full of energy and enthusiasm, she would have turned off the road and jounced over a farmer's field if the spirit had moved her. Showing us one of the dozens of maps she had with her, she assured us we'd never make it to Dreux that night and that instead we should head for the hostel at Ergal.

“Fine, but where was Ergal? Off the main road. She'd take us part way then point out the direction and we could walk it.

“It was a fine evening, just before dark. Silhouettes of trees at the edges of the fields were just visible against the sky. Tiny diamond-pointed stars peeked out and night fell blackly around us. How exhilarating, walking freely down a dirt road through the countryside without traffic or buildings crowding around.

"About two miles later, when we'd all but given up hope, an arrow tacked onto a tree pointed the way to the hostel. A few minutes more and we were in Ergal, our first provincial village.

“There seems to be no more than 50 people living here. Just after we got checked in to the hostel, we had to walk down the road to the farm for milk. An empty wine bottle from the hostel served as the container for rich creamy milk that must have only recently left the cow.

“We then found the grocery store and bought sausages, bread, chocolate, fruit, soup and vegetables, probably enough for an army but we were hungry after our busy day. The people there were friendly and curious, recognizing us immediately as hitchhikers, which assured us we were now professionals though it was only our first day at it.

“The only heat in the hostel was from the stove in the kitchen where we lingered as long as we could. It's a wonderful old house built out of stone hundreds of years ago. The family that runs it was very nice, and the room we had was so cold we had to wear our mittens, coats, and six blankets to bed.

“Hitchhiking is so much fun! All day we've felt so free, as if we could walk as far as we wanted, in any direction, and still meet friendly, warm people at the end of the road.”

Not to fear, Mr. Hawes. These two older women will still have plenty of unplanned adventures and find warm people at the end of the road!