Travel style

72 and 77 here, and returned in October from Bangladesh and India. Travel now with a small rolling suitcase as backpack was getting to heavy on our backs. Travel on our own, did trains we booked thru Cleartrip and got a nice Senior discount. We did take 2 night trains with sleepers. Tend to stay 4 or 5 nights in each city, in sort of flash backpacker small hotels or guest houses. If we get the superior room in a guesthouse, it is almost always nice.

People are to me more important than sites - same here. Just being there, seeing people with their children, old people kind of shuffling around, markets, day-to-day life. As for staying in brothels ... I don't know, we've stayed in few places with a lot of prostitutes, but the men are always bothersome to my wife and sometimes the women "bother" me just a little, too, but no need to go on about that.

Anyway, flashpacking in SE Asia for the most part. Some cheaper places, but aircon important to us. We're in Oakland right now, on the way to Asia. Had dim sum at a small takeout place (with seating for four people) for breakfast and lunch 3 days in a row now - <$7 for the 2 of us.

Mainly just being alive (we're 65 & 66).

I'm 60, and after teaching on Solomon islands for several years in the 90s, This is my favourite holiday place.
When I am travelling elsewhere, though, my preference is hiring a car to drive myself, or staying in one place for several days at least.
In Europe earlier this year, I did a 1 week Rhine cruise with a friend, which I highly recommend.
I have knee problems, which rules out backpacking and places without ground floor accommodation or a lift. I found European trains great, except for the need to drag luggage up a steep ladder to get on. (Australian platforms are level with the door of the train.)
Big tourist coaches can be a problem, as they have fairly steep stairs.

My wife and I travel together. We have small light backpacks and wear nylon travel clothing. One set of clothes on us and two sets in the pack.

We generally stay in low end Lonely Planet or cheapest Hostelworld hostels/hotels. We always get private rooms, sometimes with ensuite. In our late 50s we are almost always the oldest people in the hostel and of late this is starting to bother me a bit. I am finding more and more that young twenty somethings are a bit hard to take. I am getting tired of hearing how everything is 'awesome.' Tired of listening to sentences that end in a question and have the word 'like' popping up in every second word. As in, "Like Cairo is like really awesome? I'm gonna go to the like pyramids today, they are totally awesome?" Young hostelers, who I assume must be fairly well educated and mostly middle class, do not seem to know how to eat with a knife and fork. I am a bit shocked at watching these 'kids' lick their knives and chew large chunks of food off the fork. End of rant.

We use public transportation, trains busses and taxis. In areas of the world that are cheap we try to go first class. We never get organized tours, prefering to explore on our own.

We try not to rush around too much. We see no need in 'seeing everything.'

In our late 50s we are almost always the oldest people in the hostel and of late this is starting to bother me a bit.
I'm usually (not always) the oldest person at my hostel but, really, I find it quite enjoyable.

Maybe because I'm a female solo traveller and, as taranaki_chick said in another posting, people missing their mums might gravitiate towards older women? Perhaps, being in a unit you get ignored?

But loosen up a bit! The 'youngsters' are interesting and often have good info to exchange if you can accept them as they are. And when you scratch beneath the surface you very often find quite lovely people.
Plus, they're on holiday - it's a good excuse to eat and maybe even speak differently from the constrictions of home life. Just look on them as another interesting tribe. Personally, I've made a lot of good and lasting friendships that way. (Again, I realise it's harder if you're a two-some.)

The one thing about young people that got me in Europe (and this was on a one day coach tour in Athens) was incredibly bad language from a group of 20-something American women sitting in front of a number of 40 plus people. It sounded like they were trying to impress someone, but everyone else in the coach was disgusted.
(And I work as a counsellor with adolescents, so I have heard it all).

I appreciate what you are saying Go 2 and I understand what you mean about language, Ozzie. I think sometimes that the problem is with me as an older person more than it is the young hostelers. Afterall, I have been doing this sort of trip and travelling in the backpacker style since I was in my early twenties and now sometimes feel out of place as the oldest person in the hostel.

To give another example of my alienation as an oldster. In one hostel we went down to breakfast and the room was filled with 20 somethings. I said good morning and a few glanced up and mumbled. All of them, every single one of them, had their heads in an electronic device. Some were texting, others were tapping away on lap-tops, others had ear phones plugged in and one was reading a Kindle. Not only were they ignoring my efforts at conversation, they were ignoring each other. I don't travel with any electronics and I began to think of myself as some kind of backpackingasaur.

I really like backpacking though. Everytime I return from a third world backpacking trip I say never again but I always go back to it as it affords a more indepth glimpse of the local culture. With backpacking the traveller is forced to interact with the locals without the shield of a guide or tour operator to sanitize things. There is a very definate appeal to doing things 'close to the ground.'

I know what you mean about the electronics - most of the teenagers I work with are symbiotically attached to something electronic. They seem to be able to talk at the same time, though.
I am pretty electronically literate, but don't use my phone online for financial reasons, and still don't own an MP3 player - I don't really have a use for one.

I find the younger folk like to hang out with other younger travelers and really miss out on being in touch with the locals. Hostels insulate you too much from the reality of where you are. Like mentioned about, they are glued to the internet for hours on end, go out in groups, stay out late at the clubs, watch movies for hours, eat banana pancakes for days on end, etc. They just don't get to see the "local" side of where they are staying. I prefer a room in a private house, or a small, locally owned guest house. When I see every table with a LP or Rough Guide book, it's time to leave. Plus, to be a backpacker, you don't need to travel with one...rollers are frowned upon by this group.

Hostels insulate you too much from the reality of where you are.

Funny - that's the way I feel about hotels. (Though private guest-houses are ok, I guess.)

I've travelled with both backpack and roller and never been treated differently. Except that when I have a backpack there are always willing hands to help me put it on.

And of the 'united nations' group of 8 young people I took out to a fabulous (and cheap) music-playing restaurant in Kashgar (China) on my last night there, six had asked me if they could tag along too. It wasn't in LP, and just proves their heads aren't in the clouds all the time.
Mind you - I don't go to many budget airline destinations or conventional tourist haunts ...