Age Boldly: A Clue to Why "Gray Divorce" is on the Rise

Articles and Happenings

Now and then in Zug Switzerland. In the right photo, Jeannie, age 5, is on the far right.

Jeannie Ralston’s time in Europe wasn’t JUST a honeymoon. It was a bit of a homecoming. Between the ages of 2 and 6, Jeannie and her family lived in Zug, Switzerland (in between Zurich and Lucerne). She made a stop there on this trip so she could show Mike this gorgeous city, which played such a significant part in her family history.

In the right picture she is on the steps of the main church in Zug for her younger brother’s baptism. In the photo, with her, from left to right, are her older brothers Jeff and Jack and her older sister Janyce. She posed on the same steps earlier this week, and this and other moments—strolling on the lakefront promenade, staying in the hotel where the family first set up camp when arriving in 1962, seeing the apartment building they called home for 4 years—filled her with deep nostalgia.

Jeannie at dinner at Zug restaurant owned by a family friend.

She’s proposing that she and her siblings (five including a younger sister who was born after they left Switzerland) return for a trip down memory lane, before anyone gets too old to travel. (The trip would include a visit to Zermatt, under the Matterhorn, where four of the siblings learned to ski.)

She’s also thinking of a NextTribe trip to Switzerland, which would include a visit to Zug—which is certainly under the tourist radar but so enchanting that it has one of the highest number of millionaires per capita in the world.

The one hitch—Switzerland is quite expensive. But the scenery, the ease of travel, the sense of security and order may just be worth it. What do you think?

Ain’t that the truth! She’s still not quite ready to go gray but she’s getting closer every day.

Jeannie Edmunds is playing tourist in Austin, her adopted home town. “I wasn’t born in Texas but I got here as fast as I could,” she says, echoing what many other transplants to the Lone Star State have said. She first moved to Austin in 1971 to go to college, and now that she’s back, she says this will be her final move.

She and Dave went to the Zilker Botanical Garden for the first time (loved it) to some street fairs, tried a few new restaurants, and she keeps discovering more fun murals, vintage shops, and friendly young people. “The older I get, the more I appreciate the young people here who seem to genuinely want to engage with people my age. I don’t think I’ve ever felt more accepted and welcomed in any city than I have here.”

Enjoy the reads!

This Week’s Reads

This week we offer you the first in our series of travel transition stories, essays on how a particular trip— or living somewhere new—changed her.

Transition Travel: Are You Ever Too Old to Run Away From Home?

What to do if your job has been the organizing principle of your life for 33 years? You escape to South America to keep your sense of wonder alive.

And from the archives, another story about what fuels women after retirement, how it differs from what men want and what this tells us about Gray Divorce.

Men Are from Golf-land; Women Are from Freedom-ville

A new study concludes that men view retirement as a final chapter, while many women see a fresh start. A hint to the rise in "Gray Divorce"?

Want more? Check out our library of 1,600 articles.

Happy shopping, and safe travels—

Jeannie Ralston, CEO + Jeannie Edmunds, Chief Operating Officer

Trips We Love…And Think You Will Too

A Spectacle of Fire and Ice

For all its raw, elemental beauty, Iceland also offers refined Nordic sophistication—world-class restaurants, striking architecture, cutting-edge art, and excellent shopping. It's a place of wonderful contradictions: wild yet welcoming, remote yet remarkably progressive (hello, most gender-equal country in the world).

All the details here.

Come to a Cooler August in the Mountains

Did you know that in Oaxaca, the temperatures in August are in the upper 70s? NextTribe has a love affair with Mexico. Jeannie Ralston called it home for four transformative years of her life. It’s so close that it’s often taken for granted by North Americans who haven’t explored much beyond its famous beaches and tourist hot spots. But Mexico has an incredibly rich tapestry of culture, from a huge variety of soul-stirring cuisine to astonishing classical and modern art, architecture, and deep history.

The crown jewel of Mexico (other than San Miguel de Allende, of course) is Oaxaca, nestled in the country's mountainous South. Here, ancient Zapotecs and Mixtecs built great cities and temples, while Spanish colonizers later created one of Mexico's most enchanting and vibrant colonial towns—a UNESCO World Heritage site, Oaxaca City.

The Oaxaca Trip preview is Friday June 12, 6:30 pm. Please RSVP here:

All the details here.

UPCOMING TRIP PREVIEWS

Good food, good fun in Oaxaca.

All are Virtual Events start at 6:30 pm ET, unless otherwise noted.

Trip Previews are presentations about upcoming trips for those who may be curious, but haven’t booked it yet. Someone attending each Trip Preview will win a $400 discount in a random drawing unless the trip is Sold Out.