Sixty and Me: stay safe as a solo senior traveler

Sixty and Me founder Margaret Manning is on a mission to empower, encourage, and motivate senior women to lead their healthiest, happiest, and most fulfilling lives.

She has built an online community of 500,000 women aged 60 and up who share their thoughts and advice on a range of topics–particularly travel. Manning says her own surveys indicate traveling more is one of the most common retirement goals of those in the community.

That being the case, Manning publishes a great deal of articles and videos about travel tips for senior women–but one in particular grabbed our attention.

Solo travel among all age groups is much more common than it used to be. It makes sense–even if you can think of a few people you might like to travel with, sometimes it’s easier to take your Dream Vacation on your own: you can go where you want, see what you want, hit your must-see spots on the timeline you want, AND you don’t have to share a tiny hotel bathroom. If you don’t mind doing things on your own, traveling solo is a pretty sweet deal.

But traveling alone can also cause some anxiety, especially among senior women. Exploring the world on your own means you and you alone are responsible for your safety, and it’s up to you to know how to avoid becoming a target, how to locate and contact authorities in an emergency, and how to protect yourself if something goes wrong.

In this video, Manning speaks with travel writer and Sixty and Me contributor Nancy Parode about a popular Sixty and Me travel topic: what can I do to keep myself safe as a solo senior traveler?