Adventure Travel Is Increasingly Not Just for the Young

When Peter Cox wrapped up his career as a paediatric critical-care doctor at age 65, he celebrated by signing up for the Tour d’ Afrique, a transcontinental bike trip with TDA Global Cycling. The roughly 5,600-mile route from Cairo to Cape Town spans 10 countries over 74 days of riding with just 28 rest days. Riders average 74 miles a day and spend only 10 nights in hotels. They camp the rest of the journey.

Cox wasn’t the oldest participant. The group had five riders over 70.

Outfitters specialising in adventure travel say the average age of their customers has ticked upward since Covid, according to a survey by travel research company Skift. At TDA, for example, the average client age currently is 62, compared with 57 pre pandemic. And some 6% of its clients last year were over 75; before the pandemic, the percentage never exceeded 1%, the company says.

Adventure South NZ, a New Zealand-based outfitter, says the average age of its hiking and biking guests was 55 during the 10 years before the pandemic. It jumped to 65 directly after.

A U.S.-based operator focusing on trips for women, Adventures in Good Company, says its average guest age rose to 62 in 2023, compared with 58 pre pandemic, and on many of its most-challenging trips, ages skewed even higher. Last year a 73-year-old completed a nine-day slackpacking trip along the Appalachian Trail in Georgia that averaged 7 to 16 miles a day, and an 80-year-old woman completed a nine-day trekking tour of Mont Blanc in France.

About 4.1 million Americans will reach 65 years old this year . “Sixty is the new 40,” says Shannon Stowell , president of the Adventure Travel Trade Association. “My dad stopped being active at 50.… People are living longer, healthier lives and are more active than ever.”

Intensity with comfort

Adventure travel doesn’t have to be as intense as it once was. Stowell says it has gained popularity with an older demographic in part because there are more comforts available, such as lodges with good food and guides who will transfer your gear. “Trekking to Machu Picchu or Everest Base Camp used to be so much more hard-core,” he says. “Better gear and more professionalism in guiding have made these adventures more accessible.”

Also, clients in the 55-plus crowd have traveled more than their parents and grandparents did, Stowell says. “They’ve done Rome and Paris. Now they want to go deeper to places like Mongolia,” he says.

Cox, who is now 70 and lives in Toronto, rode 2,547 miles from Bangkok to Ho Chi Minh City last year. This spring, his wife, 60, will join him on a 35-day, 1,637-mile bike expedition in Morocco. And in 2025, he plans to pedal 3,295 miles in the Himalayas from Srinagar, India, to Kathmandu, Nepal.

“I’ve never been on a cruise or to an all-inclusive resort,” he says. “The nice part of cycling is you’re moving at a speed that allows you to interact physically and emotionally with the environment.”

On long rides, Cox experiences discomfort in his shoulders and hips, but he says regular stretching has kept most aches at bay.

Rita Tellerman of New York City celebrated her 70th birthday in 2019 by cycling 1,885 miles through Madagascar with TDA Global Cycling. The trip featured 31 days of riding, nine rest days and a mix of hotel stays and camping.

“It ticked all of the areas that took me out of my comfort zone,” she says. “It was my first trip to a Third World country. I had no clue about camping equipment. And I’d never ridden a gravel bike.” The retired public-health nutritionist started cycling at age 50 and says her speed isn’t what it once was. “It pisses me off when I can’t keep up with the 50-and 60-year-olds,” she says.

Time and money

Such trips require significant time and money, two assets that many older people tend to have at their disposal. Monika Sundem , chief executive of trip planner Adventure Life, says her company’s trips, which average eight to 10 days, cost $600 to $800 a day per person. Her customers in the post-65 range, meanwhile, have gone from 23.5% in 2019 to 35% last year, and they are booking such trips as treks in Patagonia, mountain biking in Ecuador and climbing in the Alaskan backcountry.

Todd Rutledge , owner of expedition specialist Mountain Trip, says 60-plus customers make up 19% of clients on his Alaska Range itineraries. “A lot of people tell us they didn’t want to go away when their kids were at home,” he says.

“Our trips are a hefty investment,” says Rutledge, whose multi-week to two-months-long expeditions typically cost $10,000 to $60,000. Most require a high level of fitness, too. “People age 65 and older statistically are more likely to experience some form of altitude sickness,” he says. “We’re not physiologists or trainers so in 2018 we partnered with a company to design personalised training programs for guests—and most, particularly our older guests, take advantage.”

Deb Shucka, 72, of Battle Ground, Wash., walks and hikes regularly to maintain her fitness for hiking vacations. She celebrated her 70th birthday trekking el Camino de Costa Rica, a roughly 175-mile cross-country trail with a peak elevation of more than 7,600 feet.

“At one point our guide told us, ‘Every morning starts with breakfast and a hill,’ and he wasn’t joking,” she says. “I had to stop a bunch on the hills but I never felt impaired,” she says. Guides transferred bags, which she says made the 16-day trip more appealing. Along the way she slept in tents, cabins and on the floor of a village community centre.

Last year, Shucka completed the Cape Camino, a roughly 400-mile route in South Africa, and she is hoping to trek in Ireland this fall. “When I retired at 63 it dawned on me I have to do these things now even if my husband doesn’t love to travel,” she says. “I’ve fallen in love with travelling by myself .”

Surf’s up

Betsy Cuthberton, 65, an accountant in Vail, Colo., and her retired husband, Mike Cuthberton, 66, recently took a vacation in Costa Rica so they could learn to surf. “We aren’t sit-on-the-beach people,” the wife says. “We do TRX classes and yoga a few times a week so we’re still physically capable of trying anything.” The couple, who are devoted skiers, booked a weeklong stay with Surf Synergy, a surf camp in Jaco that incorporates training, yoga and massages into the programming.

Surf Synergy co-founder Marcel Oliveira says he has seen an uptick in 65-plus guests wanting to surf for the first time. He assigns each guest two coaches so they always have someone with them in the water, whether taking off on a wave or getting out of the water. Betsy Cuthberton stood up on her first wave, and her husband was up and riding by the end of the first day.

“Not once did anyone say, ‘You’re too old,’ ” she says. “I believe staying young is embracing a mindset where you’re always learning.”

As a competitive rower in my long-ago prime I sometimes used a racing strategy called fly and die. Sprinting to an early lead often yielded a fast overall time, even if I couldn’t hold my torrid pace through the finish line.

Some professionals take a similar approach to their desk jobs, starting their workdays with a 5 a.m. to 9 a.m. shift. They are up before the sun—and, more important, before their co-workers—to get a jump on the workday and impress the boss.

Nothing screams go-getter like a predawn email! Getting stuff done early allows them to clock out midafternoon and still look like stars, even if their routines require Ben Franklin-esque sleep schedules and vats of caffeine.

Melissa O’Blenis rises by 4:30 a.m. for prayer and Peloton time before starting her job at the digital consulting firm Argano.

“I just love checking things off my list,” she says. “I need that focus time away from Teams messages, email notifications and text alerts.”

A mother with two sets of twins, O’Blenis, 48, often breaks for her kids’ afternoon sports without feeling guilty or judged. Colleagues jokingly call her Granny because her 9 p.m. bedtime makes the early starts possible. But Granny got the last laugh when she was promoted to a director-level role in March.

More than 90% of knowledge workers want to flex their hours, according to surveys by Slack’s Future Forum . In the pandemic many of us got in the habit of handling personal commitments during standard business hours, then catching up on work tasks later .

Now that the office battle is largely over, fighting a return to rigid, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. schedules might be workers’ last stand. But managers complain about afternoon dead zones when employees are out of pocket.

The solution for more workers is starting sooner instead of finishing later. Workflow software maker Asana reports that 21.4% of users are logging on between 5 a.m. and 9 a.m. this year, up from 19.8% in 2021. About 12% of work tasks are completed before 9 a.m., the company says, compared with 10% before the pandemic.

Early-bird bosses

Gibran Washington and his basketball teammates at Hofstra University used to run at 6 a.m. He maintained his early wakeups while climbing the ranks in food-and-beverage management.

By 9 a.m. meetings, he had already exercised, meditated and put in a couple of hours of work.

“I always found myself more prepared than my colleagues who hadn’t had their first cup of coffee yet,” says Washington, 40, who doesn’t drink coffee. Now he is chief executive of Ethos Cannabis, a chain of 12 dispensaries in three states, and rises as early as ever.

Waking and working ahead of the pack is a common CEO habit, from Apple ’s Tim Cook to General Motors ’ Mary Barra . Even if your ambitions are less grand than the corner office, starting early could help you stand out for one simple reason: The boss is probably up, too, and taking notice.

Matt Kiger says being the first one into the office helped him catch his manager’s eye and advance after changing careers from education to media sales. He would set his alarm for 5 a.m., hop a train from Connecticut to New York and be at his workstation before 7.

“I thought, ‘What is it going to take to break through?’” he recalls. “‘It’s going to take being there when my boss comes in, already at my desk making phone calls.’”

Now a senior vice president for digital sales at Townsquare Media , Kiger, 47, says much of the daily communication among company leaders happens by text and phone from 6 a.m. to 8 a.m. It’s possible to succeed as a night owl, he says, but people who sleep in risk missing a window when many executives are awake and accessible. While some working parents can’t swing early-morning meetings, others like Kiger say they are the key to being present at kids’ after-school activities.

Getting the worm

Matt Sunshine—whose surname surely predestined him to be a morning person—wakes at 5:30 a.m. to read the news. Then he cycles or takes a Pilates class and is on his computer by 7.

Sunshine is CEO of the Center for Sales Strategy in Tampa, Fla., which helps healthcare, media and professional-services companies generate leads. He doesn’t expect his 55 employees to follow his schedule but says it becomes progressively harder to get his attention as the day goes on and his calendar fills up with meetings. He also tries to log off by 5:30 p.m. for family time, so working after hours won’t necessarily make an impression.

“If you want to get my attention, a good time to get me is first thing in the morning,” Sunshine, 55, says. “Because people know I’m an early riser, I think that does influence other people to do the same.”

Elvi Caperonis’s morning routine is next-level organised. Her alarm rings at 6 a.m. She goes for a run at 6:30. At 7 she showers and eats breakfast. At 7:30 she opens her laptop and sets a timer for 25 minutes. That’s her first block to focus on the most important task of the day before a five-minute break. She repeats the on-off work pattern throughout the day.

Caperonis, a technical program manager at Amazon , makes a daily to-do list with nine items. She rates one critical, three medium-level and five lower-priority. This helps her work efficiently and in the right order.

The 41-year-old works from home in Florida and often picks her daughter up from school at 2:30 p.m., freedoms she has preserved partly by being highly productive early in the day, she says. Much of her job involves identifying potential risks to a project’s success, and when she sends an early-morning alert it arrives really early for company leaders in the Pacific time zone.

“They appreciate having that information first thing when they open their email,” she says. “In my experience, leaders are also early birds.”