Retirement Realities: Senior Trips

Mark Oberlin joins us to discuss travel tips in retirement. 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is West Michigan's Morning News, Steve Kelly and Brett Keita.
We call it retirement Realities. Mark Oberlin on the liveline
with us now in retirement. Mark, thanks for doing this
again today.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Always a pleasure.

Speaker 1 (00:13):
Might we also add thank you you and your son Steven,
who still represents the Oberlin Group Wealth Advisors of Raymond James,
for your huge donation. Absolutely for the Turkey dropt Thanks man.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Yeah, it's the greatest cause in Grand Rapids and around
the world right now, fading hunger.

Speaker 1 (00:29):
Speaking of around the world, let's dig a little deeper.
We touched a couple of weeks ago on the idea
of taking trips once you get retired. Planning is important.
Where do we start, Well.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
Let's start domestically, because this is the one that maybe
is easy right in front of our face, and we
don't do it. Real IDs. You know, this is their
base up in arms. They have to apply for a
new idea with a special stamp and whatever. It's going
to be required to travel from state to state and
just bite the bullet tsa just enough yesterday. But they're

(01:00):
gonna start charging eighteen dollars per person if you don't
have a real idea if you want to fly at
Grand Rapids to Florida, so just do it. But internationally
that's always the challenge. That's what people tell me. Let's
not we have friends at dinner, but you know he's
retiring next year. We do travel more. Number one, Right
where you're gonna go, maybe Europe from Mexico or Canada

(01:21):
or whatever, You're gonna need to get a path for it,
so just do it. It takes like four to six weeks. Now,
it's one hundred and thirty bucks. It's good for ten years.
You're gonna need it if you want to step outside
of the US border, so more important if you want
to come back in. You know, some countries like Australia
New Zealand require the travel bes up. This is just
another money grab. It's fifteen to twenty five bucks every

(01:43):
time you go, so just again plan on that little
extra cost. Some countries is like in Asia South Africa,
they require yellow fever shots. It's good for a lifetime.
Kind of go ahead and do it if you can
do this year the Kin County Health Department, just call up,
make appoint and tell them where you're going to go
and they'll line up all the shops. She needs my

(02:04):
favorite TSA pre check and global entry boy about eighty
five to hundred bucks. And you know, the three biggest
stressors in life is you know, getting married, having a baby,
and getting through the TSA's mind. So do it. You know,
we just recently traveled to Europe and it was a
bree So just get in and out of there, into
the lobby of the gate and you feel so much

(02:26):
better having done that. So those are just some of
the three four or five mandatory things you gotta do
if you want to travel these days.

Speaker 3 (02:34):
And mark one of the things that, especially if you
have someone getting older. I know that my mom and
my brother dealt with this with getting my dad back
and forth at the end of his lifetime from Florida
and stuff. Is any mobility issues you might have, right,
And then you've talked about you and Steve paying for
bathroom facilities over like in Italy and stuff. So I
mean share with us that because I had no idea

(02:55):
about things like paying for the bathroom and all that
kind of stuff.

Speaker 2 (02:58):
Well, I mean number four on the list, it's probably
finding a bathroom in a foreign place. Right, you all
got to go, you know, everybody over there goes the
same way. So but largely in Europe, the bathrooms are free,
the public toilets, and of course you can use the
one in the restaurant in the hotel, but just get
some spare change, because you know, these aren't a lot
of you know, it might be twenty five cents or

(03:19):
a euro or something like that, but it's not expensive.
But then I got to get you in for free.
But the mobility is a big one too, obviously seniors,
you know, the older we get, we don't wear on
as mobile. But if you need a wheelchair, like let's
say you got a connection in Minneapolis, or you know,
this takes a long time to get from terminal to terminal,
gate to gate, you have a pre range of wheelchair,

(03:41):
just get right through there. My siblings do that, and
it makes travel that much less stressful once you get overseas.
A lot of the streets in Europe are like cobblestone,
so that you're gonna if you have a walker or cane,
you might want to just plan ahead, get a really
good pair of walking shoes. I see people watching these

(04:02):
cobbles phone streets in clogs and sandals, and their feet
are killing them, so invested in the decent Pairwaukee shoes.

Speaker 1 (04:10):
There you have it. It seems simple, but my gosh,
follow through. Don't worry about fashion. We standing and I
did the same thing. We both tried a bunch of
shoes on and then we bought comfortable shoes and I
wore them every day when we were in Italy and
it was rocking. So there you have it. We'll have
them back again again. Thanks for your help with the

(04:31):
turkey drop, Mark Oberlin, thank you so much for your
time today, bone vyage.

Speaker 3 (04:38):
Look at that