“I need a vacation from my vacation!”

Do you know that saying? I’m living it right now. Just back from two weeks in Japan, I’m barely functional, having seen as many shrines and gardens as I could, ferreted out off-the-beaten-track neighborhoods, and eaten enough grilled eel to last a lifetime. I logged double-digit miles daily, hit “70 floors climbed” according to my phone a couple of times (talk about “active travel”!), and wore through the soles of my walking shoes. My knees are angry, very angry, at me.

NextTribe takes groups of women ages 45+ on fun, transformative trips across the country and around the world. See where we’re going next right here.

But I wouldn’t  have it any other way, especially now that I’m in my 60s. Just when conventional wisdom may say to slow down, I’m picking up the pace.

Running Up That Hill

Here’s why: When I was younger, I had this illusion of time unspooling almost endlessly. If I didn’t hit a highlight while traveling, it was okay. My reasoning: To quote Arnold in The Terminator, “I’ll be back!” 

But aging means I may not be. Who knows if I will get to Japan again? Not only does the world look like a delicious travel buffet laden with options calling my name (Brazil! Morocco! Denmark!), mortality may well limit my return voyages. All too often, friends and acquaintances of mine have been diagnosed with health issues, from knees and hips in need of replacement to serious illnesses, curtailing their ability to travel. As you move through midlife, there’s no guarantee that there are decades available ahead of us to journey around this planet. 

So I am all-in on carpe diem, or seizing the day. Which is one reason why, when my husband suggested we get up at 4 AM one morning in Kyoto, I said “sure.” The goal was to make our way to the famous Fushimi Inari Taisha shrine. This is the place you’ve seen a million times, with its endless strands of vermilion gates weaving up the mountain, passing through thick forests and past dozens of shrines. It’s a favorite of Instagrammers and known for getting packed with snap-happy hordes, brought by dozens of tour buses, by mid-morning. Hence the early wake-up call.

I’m all-in on carpe diem, or seizing the day. Because there’s no guarantee that I’ll be back to a given location when so many destinations are calling my name.

Anyway, off we went at dawn. Thankfully, the sun was already up as we walked a mile or so to the train and then popped out a few blocks from Fushimi Inari Taisha. Were we the first to arrive? Not quite, but among the very few. We made our way through the rustling trees, past clusters of statues to the scenic overlook. There, the city of Kyoto lay shimmering in front of us in the early morning sun, ringed with Kelly green hills in the distance.

Very Active Travel: Keep On Moving

I was ready to head back down, but my husband said, “Let’s finish the loop.” A sign nearby said we’d have another hour or two of hiking to complete the shrine’s loop. I was tired, hungry, and that one cup of hotel-room coffee had worn off. Couldn’t we head back down and go find a nice cafe somewhere? We saw the view, why go further, I wondered. 

But “because we’re here” was the answer. Might as well go all-in, because I may never be here again. So up we went, weaving through more of the brilliant orange-red gates, smelling the piney forest, and thinking of how this Shinto shrine was founded in year 711 and what life would have been like then. The top of the loop was a “no biggie” moment – there’s no spectacular view or sculpture marking the spot, but we knew we did it. We’d seen the full path that had drawn devotees and travelers for centuries. And done so without the crowds, which we saw building as we made our way down.

Up we went, weaving through more of the brilliant orange-red gates, smelling the piney forest, and thinking of how this shrine was founded over 1,000 years ago.

There was no down-time after that: The rest of the day and trip was spent ticking “must-see” spots off our list and trying to experience what daily life was like in Japan. We got lost in back alleys, poked around art-supply stores, and got tangled up with hordes of uniformed school kids and fast-walking business people. Rather than succumbing to the temptation to grab dinner at the hotel (the easy way out), we wandered around at night, yawning nonstop, until we found ourselves at a tiny restaurant with just six seats at a counter. There, thanks to the joys of translation apps, we drank homemade plum wine and ate griddled fish while the proprietor shared her love of K-pop with us. Seventeen hours after we had left, we returned to our hotel room, beyond tired but elated at having inhaled so much of the city and its culture.

Going Full Speed Ahead

I’m not the only one running myself into the ground when traveling (though don’t think that NextTribe trips go this hard; they always allow for leisurely shopping, beverage stops, and down time). Maggie, 62, of New Orleans, took on the Coast to Coast walk from one side of England to the other (190 miles or so) with two friends and one sibling. “It was harder than I expected!” she says. “But it felt like such a big adventure and achievement, walking through the Lake District and down little lanes, past moss-covered stone walls…so picturesque. It felt like a now-or-never mission since I’m not getting any younger. I figure I can lie on a beach on another vacation in the future.”

With most of her travel bandwidth spent visiting her far-flung adult kids, Renee says she packs it in and ‘makes it count’ when on vacation.

Other travelers of a certain age define “overdoing it” differently. Renee, 55, of Tacoma, says she intentionally overschedules herself when she travels. On a recent trip to Buenos Aires with her husband, she had an intense itinerary, packed with museum visits, boat rides, walking tours of street art, an empanada-making workshop, and tango lessons. “I went to Argentina well-rested and came back a wet noodle, but a transformed one,” she says of what she describes as “the trip of a lifetime.” She explains that her grown kids are now living far from her West Coast home and she visits them often. “The time to explore other parts of the world is very limited for me and my husband, so we’ve got to make it count,” she says.

Know Your Boundaries

Obviously, no one is saying you should wear yourself out so thoroughly that you can’t enjoy yourself and take in all that is unfolding around you. Nor do you want active travel to make it difficult for you to rejoin life easily when you return home. Know your limits physically: If there’s a knee replacement in the near future, maybe now’s not your Machu Picchu moment. Even if you’re only traipsing around Rome, if your body is telling you it really can’t, don’t. 

But otherwise, I say to strongly consider packing in as much as you can and snoozing through the flight home. Because if you’re old enough to be reading this, you’re probably old enough to remember the title of a certain Seals & Crofts song – We May Never Pass This Way Again – and take it to heart.