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How To Tell If You Travel Like A Baby Boomer

Like to start planning more than four months out?
If the UK is on your bucket list, you may travel like a Baby Boomer.
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If the UK is on your bucket list, you may travel like a Baby Boomer.

It can spoil the intrepid vibe -- when you're off the tourist track, discovering an authentic experience and a bunch of Baby Boomers stumble in.

Boomers are the original adventure travellers. In their younger years, they were the ones making Goa legendary, trekking the Silk Road and (gasp) hitchhiking across the outback.

Today, though, Baby Boomers are aged between 52 and 70. Their beach party days are behind them, but their wonderlust will never be quenched.

Retirement website YourLifeChoices asked more than 5000 Baby Boomers what they looked for in travel and people of all ages may find themselves nodding along to their answers.

Boomers like to have things planned, with about half booking their trip seven to 12 months before leaving. You may chuckle but we all know a few 20-somethings who've got a 12-month countdown until their holidays.

In order of popularity, Boomers wanted to travel to the UK, then around Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the US.

By far, their favourite airline was Qantas, taking 38 percent of the vote, with Emirates at 12 percent and Singapore Airlines at 11 percent.

When it came to package tours, about three quarters preferred independent travel, listing their group travel gripes as a lack of flexibility, early starts, being 'herded' in a group and annoying fellow passengers.

Amen to that.

The big way Boomers differ from young travellers comes down to the question of money, with 39 percent of Boomers choosing the upper limit for spending on their next trip.

So, basically Baby Boomers want to travel the world, they're not going to scrimp on airfares and they already know where they'll be off to in 2017. It sounds pretty good actually.

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