The age of travel

Old and young we are all on our last cruise.
(R.L.Stevenson)

These two young travellers, students from India and America asked me to photograph them outside Stirling Jail as I was passing.

This is a popular tourist attraction though sadly it is outshone by its neighbour, Stirling Castle and this is reflected in the numbers: the castle gets over 330,000 and the jail 13,000.

This got me thinking about travel and the burgeoning SKI holidays (spending the kids inheritance) phenomena.

Earlier we had met up for lunch with some friends, two who had just returned from Vietnam and another two off to India in the autumn.

I did a quick count around some of my other older friends and these were the places they had visited in the last year: Burma, India, Australia, New Zealand, France (ski-ing),
Antarctic, Estonia, Russia, Thailand,Morocco,Poland,America, Egypt and Jordan.

Our local library, reflecting these older globetrotters, last year launched a Travel club where members can share their experiences.

Once exotic travel was confined to young backpackers or the rich.
That's no longer the case. The Grey Pound is everywhere.

Only a few weeks ago I met a 92-year-old woman who had just travelled 1,000 miles up the Amazon.
She was clambering back into a boat in the Caribbean after swimming with stingrays.