You’re never too old to travel

When you’re young, you never imagine getting old.

Even when you’re old, you might still feel fit and lively and crave new adventures. But often that’s not the case. Too many elderly people are sitting at home alone, bored and slowly vegetating. Meanwhile, countless hotels, restaurants, tourist attractions, transport companies and guides are desperate for business during off-peak seasons.

Eureka - put the two together and you get the genius idea of subsidising trips so pensioners can enjoy fun and friendship on affordable holidays, while helping the travel trade survive low seasons.

That’s what Chile is doing in its Vacaciones Tercera Edad (Senior Citizens Holidays), with subsidises of up to 75% on all-inclusive trips. It’s not just about saving them money, it’s also about the physical, psychological, and social benefits that the government can give its elderly citizens. It’s a brilliant scheme that other countries could learn from, to improve the wellbeing of their citizens and help domestic tourism to thrive.

It’s heart-warming to see silver-haired women smiling with their new friends in front of snow-capped volcanoes, cycling through gorgeous vineyards, or dancing and singing karaoke to the hits of their youth.

The holidays include the bus, train or airfares, accommodation in 3-star hotels, all meals, day trips and activities, with some optional excursions too. Given the target market, they also include insurance and a paramedic on hand.

So how cheap are we talking? Well, how about a 7-night trip from Santiago to Villarrica in the lake district for CL$360,000 ($374). Or seven days of wine and gastronomy in the lush Maule Valley for $471,000 ($489). Other options are 3-night escapes to attractions nearer home for $95,000 ($97). For 2025 there are 40,000 places up for grabs, with some selling out as soon as they go on sale.

Chile has some spectacular scenery, like the world-renowned Atacama Desert and the blue-tinged glaciers of Patagonia. But extreme climates and other factors limit the high season to December-March, leaving a long off-peak period when the travel trade suffers. 

The National Tourism Service (Sernatur) devised Vacaciones Tercera Edad in 2001 to fill the gap. It’s proved a huge boon for the 156 travel agents that plan the trips and for all the local services they use, and about 95% of the suppliers involved are small, medium or micro enterprises.

“Almost all the tourism areas in the world have a problem with the tourist season because people travel in concentrated periods of the year and not in significant numbers in the rest of the year,” says Sernatur’s National brand manager Francisco Escobedo Lorca. “It generates a flood of tourists and the prices increase at that time of the year, but there’s a lack of business for the rest of the year. So we said ok, we have to get people going to tourism destinations in the dates that nobody wants. It’s really very simple – it’s people having a good time and getting to know places that it would be difficult for them to enjoy otherwise, while the subsidises help the tourism entrepreneurs to earn some money in periods where it would otherwise be difficult.”

Maritza Alvarado, the owner of Patagonia Adventure Chile, says the scheme has helped revitalise the industry. Her company designs tours around Chile’s far south, including Tierra del Fuego island with its King Penguin colony.

The guides she hires usually spend high season with foreign cruise ships, and many have more than 20 years of experience, yet they struggle to find work in off-peak periods. “Our idea is to hire people who are not going to get a job in the winter, when younger guides can work as drivers or in supermarkets. For people over 50 it’s more difficult to find a job, so all our guides are over 50, and we have one lady who’s 72,” she says.

Analyst Geraldine Carvajal Herrera, who works on the Sernatur programme, says Chileans are family-oriented and tend to look after their parents, so loneliness isn’t such a big issue as it is in other countries. Some elderly people book four or five trips each year, sometimes taking an adult son or daughter with them.

But it’s even more beneficial for the less fortunate. “On our social media networks people say they’re in their 70s and live alone and they take these trips because they want to meet new people. A lot of people have made friends on these holidays and they get together again on another trip,” Geraldine says. Other places are reserved for low-income people over 55, or anyone over 18 with disabilities.

Demographics show that the travellers are 70% female, which Geraldine attributes to various reasons. Women generally live longer, and culture also plays a part. “For the older generation in Chile, men are a little apagado - less social. They lose their energy and enthusiasm,” she says. “Women have more energy, they’re more active and they have better social networks. Women often travel with their daughters or friends, while men usually only travel with their wives. It’s rare to find men travelling alone. So in our groups they’ll typically be 30 women and one men - but he’ll be having a great time because the women dance with him and he loses his fear.”

My friend Miguel Mendoza agrees, since he’s waved his mother-in-law off on many Tercera Edad trips. “There are always maybe 20 women and just two men, because the typical old men in Chile are fome.” (slang for boring.) “When men get to a certain age,” he says, indicating himself, “we get boring. The women are different, they’re more adventurous. My father-in-law only travels because my mother-in-law makes him!”

One bonus is that the scheme is not only open to Chilean citizens, since ageing foreigners with Chilean residency can join in too. I’m in!

For more details, click the VTE page here: