Don and Darlene Reeves unload the luggage from their car. After a long day on the road, this married senior couple is eager to get out of their close confines and into cozier surroundings. A concierge steps out to offer warm greetings and assistance with their bags. Coming in from the chilly evening air outside, Don and Darlene walk into the warmth of their lodgings for the next few days. While the service is prompt, and the lobby neat and welcoming, the two haven’t just stepped into an upscale hotel. Rather, they have booked a three-day visit to a retirement community — and with onward travel to a few others across the country. While most of those who walk into a retirement community are doing so to come home, start a shift, or visit a loved one, Don and Darlene are actually here on vacation.
For the past five years, this is how Don and Darlene have been able to stay active travelers, even in their mid 80s. While the usual mode of hotels and airports can make leaving home feel inaccessible for many seniors, staying in communities designed to accommodate senior needs has allowed travel to remain a large part of the Reeves’ lives. In fact, both claim it’s improved the experience overall, and this must be true, as this check-in marks their 41st visit to such a community.
“We’ve always traveled as much as we can,” says Darlene. “When we signed up here (Parkside Village), I told my husband that we’re gonna travel as long as we can because the day’s gonna come soon when one of us — or both of us — won’t be able to do it.”
When the two were choosing to make a new home in a senior living community, Resort Lifestyle Communities stood out for one of their amenities — one that not many other communities of their kind offer. It was the ability for residents to book up to four nights at any community for free. As lifelong travelers, it was clear where they’d be calling home.
“We heard about the travel program right away,” says Darlene Reeves. “The manager said there was no cost, because we’re already paying rent at our home community. We said, ‘Oh, sign us up!’ So we’ve been traveling like this for five years.”
Years ago, when Don was a school teacher, the summers were open for him, Darlene, and their children to hit the road and explore the country. Since then, the two have visited all 50 states and, in recent years, even taken their adventures overseas, with Thailand being their most recent destination. According to Don, he’s always been partial to the Southwestern states for their wide, vast landscapes. For Darlene, she’s more drawn to the colors and festive spirit of New England in the fall. Now, with ample time and a means of making travel more convenient, the two have been able to visit their favorite regions with relative ease. ‘Relative,’ because as Don says, they actually drive to all these places — except Thailand — from their home base in Colorado.
Beyond the ways community living has helped the two stay active in their journeys, Don and Darlene also describe how independent retirement living has enriched their lives at home.
“You form a little family, and you watch out for other people,” says Darlene. Don continues, “That’s why we moved into this place. We like the travel plan, but we also really like the community.”
According to Darlene and Don, they’ve also enjoyed the other features that community living has offered, such as a resident-organized Catholic mass, an on-site physical therapy partner facility, a beauty salon, and the general sense of connection.
“I feel safe here. I walk the hallways, and people are friendly and smiling. It’s nice,” says Darlene.
The reality of traveling as a senior is that needs do change; what worked at 35 will not work as well at 75, 85, and so on. Ensuring that the means of travel and lodging are equipped to meet those needs is as important as scheduling an itinerary, deciding where to visit, and planning a budget. For Don and Darlene, traveling by road and staying in communities has not only made them feel safer but also eliminated the need for hotels. According to the two, this style of travel has totally surpassed the experience.
“On our next trip, we’ll have to stay in a hotel, and I tell [Don], ‘Oh, that’s like camping!’ But yeah, very spoiled,” laughs Darlene. “At hotels, the experience is very impersonal. They’re happy they have your money, but you pay more than what you get. This one time, we stayed at a high-priced hotel; I could stand at the front door and touch the bed. Then, you had to go sideways to get into the bathroom. I thought, ‘this is ridiculous.’”
By contrast, the Reeves feel like the warmth, convenience, and consistency of community accommodations has eliminated an aspect of travel that’s often the most uncomfortable for travelers — staying in a place that doesn’t feel like your own.
“The big thing about traveling to these communities is that they’re all similar and friendly when you come in,” says Don. “They’re very welcoming because they’re expecting you, and we’ve stayed in some of them a number of times, like the one in Salt Lake City. So, when we visit, they say, ‘hey, you’re back!’”
“I like it because I feel safe, I’m welcome there, and it’s just like being at home,” Darlene says. “I don’t have to worry about a lot of things. As Don said, most of the people are very welcoming.”
When walking into a community, the welcome is warm beyond mere politeness in customer service. According to the Reeves, it’s almost as if they’re welcomed in like honored guests or old friends, whom everyone has been eager to see. Don describes his experiences as he enters the lobby, with bubbly concierges excited to welcome the two inside. According to Darlene, she notices that in most of the communities she’s visited, everyone from the managers to the custodians has been very friendly and excited to meet the new faces who have come to stay with them for the next few days.
To them, they feel the care goes beyond just creating a positive customer experience. It’s genuine. In fact, there have been times when the concierge or manager helped the two book around special events and holidays in the area, such as the Albuquerque Balloon Festival. Another time, Darlene remembers a community that had already booked their guest suite but needed a place to rest, and the team saw to it that the Reeves stayed in their hospitality suite.
The service doesn’t begin and end within the community's walls, either. Given how the Reeves travel, staying in multiple communities over the course of a trip, the concierge teams of each community are always working in coordination with each other, so they know when to expect their guests or change course if a change of plans were to come up. It’s as if a travel agent, hotel manager, and local tour guide were all working in tandem. Additionally, the couple says they even get snacks for the road from the culinary team when there’s a surplus from breakfast and lunch services. It certainly beats the typical fast-food stop on most road trips.
Once Darlene and Don have made their way into their suite, unpacked their bags, and unwound over a fresh-made meal, the fun part of the trip can finally begin. According to Darlene, she and Don plan their trips to account for a few things: which part of the US they’re eager to see, which points of interest are worth seeing, and which exciting events are going on — both in and out of the community. After all, a full day out and about is exhausting even for younger travelers. Having a social event closer to their room can be helpful, especially after recuperating from a day of driving.
“We always get one of their menus for what they’re gonna do in that week, and then Don usually scopes out what’s interesting in that town,” says Darlene. “Then, when we get back, hopefully they’ll have happy hour going on, or we’ll just talk to people and find out what they’d recommend.”
As Darlene and Don have both experienced, the residents of each community have been welcoming and eager to invite a new person into their fold. Throughout their travels, as Don says, the two have been invited to community games and activities, anniversaries, concerts, and even a rosary, which Darlene attended as a special guest.
Apparently, the residents have even served as crucial guides on several occasions. On one trip to the northeastern states, Darlene remembers sitting with a group for breakfast in Parkers Bend, where they discussed their plans to visit Philadelphia.
“This group says, ‘What’s your agenda today?’ We tell them we’re going to go to Philadelphia. They say, ‘How are you planning to do that?’ I tell them we’re going to drive. They said ‘no, oh no no no.’”
According to Darlene, the residents proceeded to plan a route, detailing which station to drive to, what train to take, and the best station at which to hop off the coach.
Over their five years using the program, the Reeves have witnessed grand landscapes and visited famous sites, but the moments of resident connection have been among their most cherished travel memories. Darlene discusses another trip to New York, where she made a friend with a ‘little old lady’ who drove her and Don to mass. She kept in touch with her and some other friends they’ve made across the states.
When Darlene and Don leave on one of these trips, it never really feels like they’ve left home. The landscapes, cities, culture, and accents may change, but there’s also this feeling of belonging wherever they go. Being a resident of Resort Lifestyle Community gives the Reeves something in common with everyone else in that network. It goes deeper than simply knowing where everything is upon entering a building. According to them, the staff and the residents of each community feel that Don and Darlene belong. So, after a day spent following the tourist path, the Reeves can always come back to a place that feels like home. In some ways, it is.
When other seniors ask for advice on how to start or continue traveling in their older years, Don and Darelene always offer the same advice: book early, contact the concierge, make a list of cities to see, and write down the phone numbers for nearby communities. But, above all else, “just do it! Don’t wait,” says Don.
“If you wait, you’re not gonna do it,” says Darlene. “[You] stop and think, ‘oh, that might be too hard. That’s not for me.”
According to the Reeves, hesitation only makes the prospect of traveling seem more intimidating than it is. Don recommends starting small — go somewhere nearby to get a feel for it and enjoy the small but fun differences you see.
“It’s fun. We always tell them, ‘You can’t go wrong. It’s just a good time,” says Darlene.
Up next, the Reeves plan to go to Florida to see their family. As Don says, they plan to go through Kansas and Tennessee before descending into the Deep South. Once in Florida, the two plan to go down the Gulf Coast from Tallahassee to Naples — visiting the Florida communities they have not yet seen but are eager to see — and then across the state into Miami, where they’ll meet their children and grandkids. While it’s no small trip, Don and Darlene’s five years of experience doing just this speak for themselves.