Gap Years for Grandparents
- Gap Year Gran
- GO GRANNY!
Also known as the SKI's (Spending
the Kids Inheritance)
The idea of retiring and pottering about your garden for
the next 20 years is truly a thing of the past. My father, now aged 88 has just returned from a walking holiday around Greece and he leaves in 3 weeks for Spain. Until very recently he spent between 3 and 6 months in Africa, enjoying the warmth there while we shivered and shuddered here in the Northern Hemisphere.
When I told my children's
grandmother about our planned trip she was quite quiet for
a couple of weeks. Next her son told me that she had thought
that if I could do it with two young children, there was jolly
well no way that she was going to miss out on achieving a
dream.
Using the trusty Trailfinders, she got together with a friend
and travelled to Hong Kong, Perth, Ayers Rock, Sydney, Cairns,
Christchurch, Auckland, Bangkok, Penang and then back home.
The whole trip took a couple of months and we meant up at
a few spots along the way which was absolutely wonderful for
the children.
Back home now, her only regret is that she didn't do it sooner.
At the comfortable age of 60 plus she is now planning an extensive
trip across the States.
Humphrey Walters, an international
management training guru (www.humphreywalters.com), believes
that the most important element is the simple decision to
take a break:
Once you make a decision to take
a sabbatical, to do something, you don't need to base it on
an event or activity. If you wait for something to drop out
of the woodwork, it won't happen and a lot of people
do.
People should simply take the plunge because the payoff
is massive. The trick is to create the dream for yourself.
Look for a dream. At the outset you don't need to know what
it is.
|
.jpg)
