Grey nomads: Australia’s traveling seniors

Grey nomads in Mundi Mundi, photo by Granny Bee from Flickr

Pretty much every winter, Australia’s vast network of outback roads fill up (as much as they can, which means you occasionally see more than two) with camper vans and caravans, driven by happily silver-haired people cruising the country to see the Giant Prawn.  Australians call them the Grey Nomads, and that sounds like a much more interesting way to spend your retirement than taking up shuffleboard in Boca Raton.

The website Grey Nomads is a wealth of resources for nomads trying to hit the road, including tips on trailer rentals and suggestions for maps.  It also has a killer classified section, so you can find someone to housesit your bunaglow for the year or two you’re off.  Grey Nomads Employment hooks up wanderers with employers and vice versa; your employability skills don’t deteriorate with age.  My 91-year-old grandfather is better with computers than some of the kids in my university.  Grey Nomads Australia offers pre-travel advice and a forum to discuss options, and is community-run and supported by grey wanderers all through Australia.

The common thread is a retired age group, a desire to, as one site puts it, “BYO accommodation”, and a lust for the open road.  Australia provides a lot of open road for your dollar, so it’s no wonder we see lines of caravans in rows at national parks; the easygoing attitude of most Australians makes wandering around their gorgeous landscape the next logical life step.  Why keep working till you’re 101 when you can retire, get your benefits, and see the world?  Aspiring grey noamds, take note: there’s loads of fun stuff to see, and an appreciate subculture of support in Australia…if you’re not sure where to go or what to do, learn a right hand drive, and come to the Southern Hemisphere. (And the nomadicism isn’t reserved for the roads alone: plenty of grey nomads are also taking to the sea and dropping anchor in all the little Oceanic islands in the Pacific and Indian Oceans)