What are your plans?

When asked this common question in response to retirement,  I want to say I plan to talk to myself (more than I already do), fart and nap. Nice short words. Talk more, fart more and nap more.

But travel is what people very often do if they are healthy and not broke, and that's what I plan to do. 

My former coworkers focused their party decorations on Ireland and it IS my first destination.  But Northern Ireland, Scotland and England are also on my list. And Mexico in the fall. Maybe Morocco and Costa Rica next year. Then there is that former love from Peru now in Germany...

But you can't make travel your primary focus in retirement, or can you? I think finding something meaningful to do is the point; travel doesn't seem meaningful in that you aren't giving back. Being a tourist might contribute to the local economy or might not; you might be a SERVAS member and be a sort of ambassador of international good will. Okay, great, but meaningful work (certainly volunteer work counts) seems like what I would need to feel my life is meaningful.  A life of service means something.