Senior Traveling with Lele

Michelle (00:02)

Welcome once again to another episode of Decluttering 55 Plus with Michelle Passoff, where we talk with experts, authors, geeks, and authorities about a range of topics of interest and concern to our Baby Boomer listeners and those who love them. We not only talk about conventional clutter, like papers, clothes, and other stuff, but we address next level clutter. What’s next level clutter, you ask? Well, it’s areas of life that can be confronting or confounding as we age.

They’re clutter because we have a tendency to sweep them under the carpet, put them off another day or forever. Instead of turning our back on them, we take these topics out into the light of day so we can examine them and learn new things, get in action and get things done. In the end, we assert that facing life head on will invigorate you and be supportive in creating a legacy, not a mess. Here we talk about health and fitness and food.

digital decluttering, social relationships, preparing a memoir, what to do next and where to live in retirement, getting financial and legal papers in order, and even making final arrangements. Today we’re going to talk about travel, because that’s one of the things retirees often make at a point to do when they have more time. They whip out that bucket list, pack their bags, take to the planes, the trains, and the automobiles to see the sights far and near.

Lili Boutel is one of those people who not only started to travel when she left her job as a financial planner after 25 years, but she started to trek. She even wrote a book about it, and before she could say boo, she had a Facebook group called Senior Travelers and Trekkers, which grew to 40,000 members in the beat of a minute.

I’m not going to tell you all about LeLe, but I’m gonna let her do the honors. So let’s welcome her. She’s visiting us here today from, I think it’s Missouri, right LeLe? Yeah. Okay, I got the state right. Okay, it’s out there, you know, to a New Yorker, it’s kind of out there, you know, beyond the Hudson River. Right. But now I’m in Florida, so I’m learning more about other parts of the United States. So let’s start talking about

How did you make the transition between being a financial planner to what? To doing what you do now and what is that?

Lele (02:59)

Well, that’s a good question. So one of the perks of my job as a financial advisor was I could actually earn trips if I qualified. And so every year I was able to earn one or two trips because of my job. Yeah. And so we actually started traveling back in 2004 and got to go to places all over the world because of earning these trips through my job. And that was always my goal.

is to be able to travel. ⁓ So obviously after I retired, which was a couple of years ago, I thought now I can actually have more time to travel and actually have a little more freedom to decide, you know, where I want to go. Because the trips I earned were in designated places. that’s, it’s just always been a dream of mine to travel.

Michelle (03:51)

What was the first place on your bucket list?

Lele (03:54)

Gosh, you we love Italy. you know, any place in Italy has always been on our list, but there are other places that we wanted to go like Greece, and we were able to go to the Greek Isles, and we love that. So yeah, any place in Europe, we’ve actually enjoyed going to, and in fact, next fall, we’re going to Eastern Europe, which we’ve never been to.

Michelle (04:18)

Yeah, that’s exciting. I’m going to be interested to hear about that. I’ve traveled a lot in Europe myself, but in fact, I have a Belgian citizenship, ⁓ yeah, but, ⁓ so I can even stay there if I want, but, I have not, I have not been further East. So I’ll be interested to hear about that. Now you did, you not only traveled, you trekked. So what is, what’s the difference? What’s a trekker?

Lele (04:46)

So a traveler would be anyone open to traveling any mode of transportation. And that’s mostly what we’ve done over the last years. Bus, plane, train, automobile, that’s mostly what we’ve always done. But I had it in my heart to do a trek, particularly the Camino de Santiago, because when I saw the movie The Way with Martin Sheen that came out in 2010, I thought,

I would love to do the Camino de Santiago, which is a 500 mile pilgrimage across northern Spain.

Michelle (05:23)

Wait, wait, stop, stop. Did you say 500 miles? Yes. my God.

Lele (05:28)

One of my goals was I would love to do this pilgrimage in honor of my son. Because in the movie, Way, Martin Sheen plays a character who walks it in honor of his son. And so I thought that would be perfect. So what happened is in 2022, a colleague approached me and said, would you like to, I would love to do the Camino de Santiago, would you? And I’m like, yeah, I’ve always wanted to do that.

So we started planning together and we ended up walking in May of 2024.

Michelle (06:05)

Wow. does it, the Camino de Santiago, where does it start, where does it finish, and how far did you go on that trip?

Lele (06:15)

So there are many Caminos actually. ⁓ Your goal is basically a place called ⁓ Santiago de Compostela in Spain. And that’s where the cathedral in honor of St. James is located. And that’s your end result is to end up at this cathedral where you’re laying down all your burdens also in honor of St. James.

Michelle (06:39)

So two questions rolled into one. How do you prepare for such a long walk? And why did you think a walk would be a healing process for you in the ⁓ wake of the loss of your son?

Lele (06:54)

You know, that’s a great question. So I knew walking would be healing for me because one of the things I did, my son passed away from lung cancer. And one of the things I did for 12 years leading up to his death was I walked around a lake every day for about, it’s about 3.3 miles. And I would just, you know, just release all my cares and just talk to God.

And that was probably the most healing thing I could have done and the most, the thing that gave me the most healing and release from that whole situation. So I knew it would be, I knew walking would give me that. So I knew that a trek would be also healing, but I’d also heard other people say that, you know, that particularly the Camino de Santiago is basically, it’s a healing trek. Now, one thing,

Just FYI, I mean there are people that will do it more for physical or mental, but you meet many people that are there to release burdens. You know, whether they’re transitioning in life, they’re getting ready to retire, or they just need healing from some ailment. You see all kinds of things, but the nice thing about the Camino is that everyone’s walking for a purpose. So it’s unlike any walk that you would ever do.

Because yes, because everyone is there for a reason and it’s not typically not just physical, but often, you sometimes you will meet people there for a physical reason. So what an unusual thing about the Camino is everyone you pass says, Bwene Camino, ⁓ which is, you know, have a good track, you know,

Michelle (08:38)

So you have a connectedness with, you meet people along the way and you have a connection with everybody you’re meeting along the way. Is there a map that takes there or a leader or people randomly start and finish where they want?

Lele (08:52)

Both. So some people go in a group with someone like a guide. I did not, to be honest, I didn’t run into that hardly at all. Most people are either walking individually or they may walk with a friend or a spouse or maybe a small group. You’ll see everything there.

Michelle (09:14)

Okay, that’s sound. Is there an organization around the Camino Trek or how do people find out about the Camino?

Lele (09:26)

Well, that’s a good question too. So one thing that led up to the site you referred to called Senior Travelers and Trekkers is that another Camino Walker and author and I started a site called Senior Travelers on the Camino and that has actually grown to 65,000 followers. because we found a niche among people over 50 that wanted to do this or had done it,

and they go to the site to ask questions like, what kind of shoes should I wear? Or what’s the best hiking pole? Or should I stay in an albergue, which is like a hostel, or should I stay in a hotel? And here are my physical issues. What should I do and can I do it? So you have all manner of questions from people on the site and you’ll get all kinds of answers.

Michelle (10:18)

That’s a Facebook group called Senior.

Lele (10:24)

Travelers on the Camino.

Michelle (10:26)

senior travelers on the Camino. And then how did that lead to senior travelers and trekkers? Is that the other Facebook site that you asked?

Lele (10:35)

So the way that it led to that was that I did another subsequent trip actually last year and it was to the Cotswolds. Now what led up to that was I really wanted my husband who couldn’t walk the Camino just because he had some leg issues, he couldn’t walk that far. So we did some research and we decided, you know, the Cotswolds in England, which is a very small

area of England that’s full of these very quaint, costal stone houses and buildings. And the towns are maybe, you know, six miles, maybe, you know, not even up to nine miles in distance from each other. And we decided to plan a trip there. And so we made all the arrangements and arranged to have our luggage transported, kind of like I did on the Camino.

and we ended up walking through the Cotswolds last year. So basically to share ideas about good places to go for seniors, that’s what triggered my interest in starting another site for anybody, not just people, you know, walking on the Camino de Santiago.

Michelle (11:50)

So that’s called Senior. So Facebook is a good gathering place to… It is. If you’re wanting to trek or you’re wanting to travel, you can go to Senior Travelers and Trekkers. Now, what are the most common conversations that you’re going to find going on on Senior Travelers and Trekkers, which I understand grew like…

blockbusters. went from nothing to 40,000 people in how much time and what are people talking about?

Lele (12:21)

Probably

within six months. Yeah, within six months. So again, we just happened on to these niche groups, which are seniors who have the time and want to travel, but they want to know other people’s experience and what has been a good experience for you. So some of the questions we’re getting ⁓ or conversations is, have you ever thought about going to Sri Lanka or?

You know, I’m thinking of going to South America. What’s what are the best places to go and what do you recommend? Or, you know, I’m going to Iceland. Do you have any recommend recommendations on places to stay? You know, or places to fly into if you want to go to a small area, what’s the best place for me to book to fly into? And what are the best sources of transportation to that place? So those might be some of the

questions that you would encounter on senior travelers and trekkers.

Michelle (13:23)

So you can almost just go there and see what people are saying and be an armchair traveler if you ⁓ don’t have a ticket anywhere yet, but you might be inspired to. Well, I want to really… we have a… Yeah. It gets your mind thinking, maybe I wasn’t thinking about going to Iceland, but it sounds like a great place to go. So you may find yourself expanding your bucket list.

Lele (13:34)

lot of people that are doing that.

Exactly and I was shocked when I put I was just gonna say I was shocked when I put out a question You know, what? Where are your what is your next destination? Where would you like to go? What’s on your bucket list and many of the places were places I’ve never even thought to go so I was surprised

Michelle (14:09)

Well, that’s a lot of fun. And that’s one of the things that people think of doing after their retirement. So it’s a good place to stop in and play a visit to senior travelers and trekkers. So that’s all we’re gonna have time for today. So ⁓ we’re gonna have to wrap this up. And I wanna thank you so much for ⁓ coming to the show. Now for all of you out there with the wanderlust, go ahead and… ⁓

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