The Traveling Widower

Tag: Solo-traveling

  • Travel Is Complicated…Who Knew?

    Entrance to the Traveling Widower Travel Agency featuring a dark door, a sign indicating 'Photographic Gallery Inside', and a decorative light fixture.

    February 19th, 2026

    I’m not really starting a travel agency but I feel like I could run one of late since that’s all I seem to have been doing the past few days..weeks…months. As I strolled along a trail on my daily walk/limp the other day,  I started thinking about how making travel arrangements has changed over the past half century  (I’m really old).

    When I first started working, back in 1978, we actually had travel agencies that took care of everything – you picked up a phone (a land line of course), told a real person where you wanted to go, and magically, an envelope with tickets and an itemized itinerary showed up on your desk or mail box. As online capabilities for reserving airlines and hotels appeared a decade or two later, the burden of travel reservations slowly moved away from travel agencies to the travelers. Hotels and airlines ramped up on reward programs, which likely accelerated the migration for both corporate and personal travel to online reservations. Reaching frequent flyer goals, such as 100K with United, became something of a game for IT consultants –  increasing points outweighed getting to your destination so that flying to Chicago from Denver with stops in Seattle and Fargo made perfect sense. 

    When we first got married (1975…I told you I was really old), vacation travel for us was just hopping in a car and staying with friends and family, or looking for the cheapest hotels. We rarely traveled anywhere by plane, and there were travel books that listed hotels along highways and various destinations. AAA was great for planning trips.  Once we both started working, we relied on our company travel agencies until the Internet made everything available online, and then we both became pretty adept at making reservations. We rarely did long-term planning – sometimes we just decided (usually after a glass or two of wine) to head off to somewhere – Ireland, Italy, Maui. No problem – we just pulled out our laptops and coordinated on hotels, cars and flights. The one time we used a travel agency, we wound up in separate seats on a long flight to Tahiti. But after that experience, we always handled all of our own reservations. 

    Jan and I were a pretty good team at most everything we did together, except for tennis. That’s a long and painful story which I’ll share if I ever start drinking again. So now that she’s gone, travel reservations are just one more formerly shared task that I now have to do solo. Bummer. Given the number of trips I have been scheduling, this has become something of a necessary burden, especially for some of the more distant destinations (now that I’m a world traveler). 

    A table with a National Geographic Expeditions brochure featuring a woman and a llama, several invoices, and a mug.

    Up until recently, I’ve been focusing on just two tour companies for my adventures, and both of these, National Geographic/Lindblad and Natural Habitats/World Wildlife Federation, have travel agents who take care of pretty much everything. It’s just like the good old days – I speak to a real person, provide them with what I’m looking for in terms of flights and they take care of everything. For example, on my Grizzly Bear trip with Natural Habitats, I wanted to get there a day early to see a bit of Kodiak on my own, and then stay in Anchorage for a few days rather than heading straight home. The Natural Habitats agent worked it all out for me. All I have to do is figure out where I want to go in Kodiak and Anchorage. I did something similar with my first trip to Iceland, arriving two days early so I can visit a weird volcanic chamber, and maybe go snorkeling in the continental rift. All I had to do was reserve my extra-curricular activities – National Geographic took care of the rest. 

    So up until now, my life as my own travel agent has been pretty easy. But now I’m making my own life more complicated. There are quite a few touring/cruise companies that cover the Arctic and Antarctic, and not all of the smaller ones have their own travel agency. The hard part though is comparing each of the tours – how large are the ships, number of passengers, solo cabin size, comfort features on the ship. The larger ships are usually more luxurious, but with more passengers, the excursions are more crowded and require staggered scheduling. The smaller ships on the other hand, may not have as many creature comforts (hot tubs for example), but you get to spend more time doing what you came for. Finding reviews is important as well – I was keen on going with one particular company for the Svalbard trip, which emphasized how they welcomed solo travelers on their web site. The reviews told a different story, so I went with another small-ship company.

    One complication with the small companies is trip insurance – it’s a necessary rip-off, since most foreign destinations require at least minimal coverage for emergency medical and evacuation services (including shipping your body home…never mind, lets not go there). The larger companies offer insurance as part of a package, which you pay with the final invoice. With smaller companies, you are on your own, and usually have to pay within 15 days of the initial deposit. Ouch.

    So now that I’ve settled on this one particular cruise company (Poseidon) for two of my trips to obscure, far away places, I’ve discovered that there are some good reasons for using travel agencies. The first trip I booked with Poseidon travels to the Falkland and South Georgia Islands (penguins!!), and starts and ends from Ushuaia. Now that was easy with National Geographic/Lindblad – they had a charter flight from Santiago Chile, where we stayed at a Four Seasons for one night. As it turns out, all other scheduled flights go out of Buenos Aires, and for most of them, you have to switch airports. OK, complicated but I can figure that one out – it may require an overnight at a hotel airport, but I’m good with that. I’ve already done that a couple of times, where I fly to a major hub, stay at a nice hotel near the airport, and then take an early flight to my destination. That way I’m not as rushed and exhausted when I get there. 

    The next trip later in 2027, is a nightmare. I really wanted to go to Svalbard, Norway after seeing a series on Apple TV, The Long Way Home (worth watching). This is truly one of the most remote spots in the world, accessible by plane via either Oslo or some really small city in Norway (Tromso). That makes it hard enough. But (there’s always a but for me) I’ll be finishing off a Natural Habitat photography tour in Iceland just before the start of the Poseidon one, and will be leaving from Reykjavik Iceland. There is no easy way to get to Svalbard – I will have to stay overnight somewhere in Norway, and may wind up stopping in Copenhagen to get there. I have a long time to figure it out, since I’m not leaving until July 4th, 2027…but I’m already worrying about it.

    A few people have asked me how I manage all the travel arrangements for the many trips I’ve scheduled so far, and they are usually surprised that I’m doing this all on my own. I kind of surprise myself sometimes. It’s time consuming and sometimes frustrating, especially now that I have eight trips in 2026 to manage (…there’s still a few gaps), and then another five so far in 2027. I keep spreadsheets which lists costs, important dates and task reminders, but even with that, I find myself having to dedicate entire days sometimes for the initial scheduling of a trip, and then follow ups when I have to make payments or schedule airline travel. I have inserted automated reminders in my calendar for payment dates, and spend a lot of time checking out various excursions for my free days on the trips. For the first Iceland trip, I had already booked the magma chamber (another cave) trip, and had hoped to do a really weird one – snorkeling in a continental rift zone. In really cold water. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately), the tour operators do not book anyone with any type of heart disease. Kind of makes sense – that’s why I have declined the “polar plunge” opportunity twice. So I’m doing a half-day tour to see Puffins instead. Safer I guess, and those little guys are so cute. Sort of like penguins that can actually fly.

    Two puffins standing on green moss with pink flowers, near a body of water.
    Not my photo…I wish it was

    I’m not really complaining about any of this – it’s kind of hard to bitch about traveling this often, to so many strange places, and it’s not like I’m pressed for time any given day when I’m not traveling. In some ways, it is sort of like a work replacement, without the free food.

    Two days and I’m off to Baja and the friendly Grey Whales. I did not get to pet one the last time I was down there. This time for sure.

    A gray whale breaching the surface of the water with a mountainous landscape in the background.

    Peace

  • The Cavitation Cabin Blues

    The Cavitation Cabin Blues

    The first two days have been absolutely amazing in terms of the Alaskan landscape, the wildlife, and pretty much all aspects of the trip. It is strange being back on a National Geographic/Lindblad ship – this one is the sister ship for the one I was on in Baja, and there is a comfort factor in knowing where everything is. Plus, the expedition lead remembered me from the Baja trip, and the marine naturalist I know from my last whale watch trip in Moss Landing – he was the naturalist on the Blue Ocean ship. A very small world it is. 

    The first day we cruised around into the inner passage channels, headed for a spot where we would explore the coast in the Zodiacs. That worked out great, since we spotted Brown Bears – finally. I have not seen one since a horseback trip outside of Yellowstone, many years ago. And that was not a good experience. 

    After that, we headed off North towards Glacier Bay, quite a ways off. We had reports that we should be able to see the Northern Lights that night. Even though I was already tired (more on that in a bit), I headed out to viewing area on the bow  at 10:00 – it was cold and extremely windy, plus the ship was moving really fast. Looking off to the North, there was a glow of sorts over the mountains – not very exciting. For the dimmer Borealis displays, you need to take photographs to see the colors – I’m not sure why, but it worked. It was a real challenge trying to take photographs with a heavy wind and rocking boat, but I did get a few nice shots (which I’ll be working on with Photoshop).

    I played around with the camera for a while, and then suddenly, the sky lit up as huge cruise liner sailed past us – it was like having a giant Christmas tree cruise by. Hideous. Kind of ruined the experience.

    So here’s the rest of the story on being tired. My cabin is on the lowest deck, on the very rear of the ship (aft). I’ve been on this level on my first two NG expeditions, and while you do hear the engines, it is actually a very soothing sound. But as the ship picked up speed, the hum was drowned out by an extremely loud rattle and bang, sort of like a bunch of marbles in a can. This was neither soothing, or a replacement for Melatonin.  After a second night of this, I did bring this up to “hotel manager”, and spoke to the captain. Much like the Arachnid Suite in hotels, I have learned that you should never reserve the Cavitation Cabin on cruise ships. The rear-most steerage level cabins on the smaller ships happen to be right above the propellers. As the ship picks up speed, you get cavitation (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cavitation). There was not much the crew can do about the sound – the ship has to move and unlike nuclear submarines,  cavitation is common at high speed. But they did lend me a set of Bose sound cancelling headphone for the remainder of the trip. Maybe a discount on my next cruise would have been nice.  I’ll survive. I don’t sleep well at home either. 

    100 lb (not really) porthole covers – head crushers

    Day two was amazing, even with just 3 hours of sleep due to cavitation noise. I woke up early (due to cavitation…OK I’ll stop mentioning it), and peeked out the porthole (I had to lift the cover first…very heavy, easy to crush your head) to a view of chunks of ice floating by. Hmm….must be near a glacier. Sure enough, by the time I got out to the front deck, we were already pulled up in front of the John Hopkins glacier. Wow. I’ve seen a few glaciers before, but this was incredible.

    The plan for the day was to cruise through Glacier Bay (another National Park off the list, woo hoo!), mostly looking for wildlife or anything else of interest to view from the ship. No stops or off-ship excursions. That was fine by me. The scenery was incredible and there were all kinds of beasties to see. I was exhausted after a few hours from wandering around the decks to get different views of the surroundings, or heading back to the cabin for different lenses. I eventually moved my camera bag up to the lounge to give my knee a break from climbing stairs. Here’s a few shots (many more to come once I get home)

    I have never seen anything like this area – the water was like a still pond, perfectly flat, surrounded by snow covered peaks. There were otters, sea lions, and a variety of birds all over the place as we cruised by. Plus, the scenery was beyond belief. We did hit a fog bank for a while, which was a good excuse for taking a break, and offloading some photos to my SSD storage. That and getting some food into my system (lunch). 

    I spent the rest of the afternoon watching the world go by, standing around with 20 or 30 other photographers and bird/scenery watchers as we cruised Glacier Bay. Incredible scenery. Every few minutes, a sea otter or some other interesting bird (Puffins!!) would float by, and the scenery just go better and better as we cruised along. After a while, you just sort of sat there, put the camera down, and just let it all soak in, and just relax for a change. What an incredible experience.

    But traveling alone still sucks

    As I’ve said before, I may occasionally mix some of my widower related experiences and thoughts in the travel posts – I can’t help avoid leakage from the journal I created a few weeks ago. So here goes.

    I absolutely love going on the National Geographic/Lindblad expeditions – they are so incredibly well run, and they offer incredible opportunities for photography and outdoor activities. The cruises are fantastic since they are true expeditions, but with all the high-end features you’d get from the more traditional luxury cruise outfits. Great food, outstanding service, comfortable accommodations, but with a focus on adventure.

    But, the vast majority of the travelers are couples. While everyone is like-minded in terms of their interests, I am still absolutely terrified at having to socialize with 90 or so complete strangers, especially at meals where I need to ask a group if I can join with them. It is still so far out of my comfort zone. For some reason, probably because of the lingering depression from our 50th anniversary a few weeks ago, I initially gave into my introverted self for the first day or two. It is just so hard meeting couples my own age, while I’m off on my own without Jan. Sometime you just feel like a leper, even though most everyone is incredibly understanding.

    Fortunately, I was able to pull out of my funk, and have begun to socialize with a number of couples so I’m not eating by myself. I’ll be OK for the rest of the trip. I’m guessing every trip will be like this – I’ll always feel strange traveling without Jan. 

    End of sad moment…back to enjoying the trip. Much more to come, especially once I figure out how to work with all the raw images on the iPad.