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There wasn't a lot of time or money for travel when Velma Beare, along with her late husband Tom, was raising three kids and helping with their higher education. Now it's hard to find the Burlington, Ont., woman at home.

Last year the great-grandmother and former legal secretary took one of her adult daughters on a Mexican cruise and the other one to Italy and Germany. She spent a month at a condo in Spain, toured Buenos Aires and Iguazu Falls with her son, cheered on the Toronto Blue Jays in New York, attended a wedding in Whistler and visited friends in Vancouver. A year earlier she got heck from her children for going parasailing while vacationing at a beach.

Velma Beare is 85. She considers herself “very lucky” that good health and money from the sale of her house allow her to indulge her passions for exploring new places and making new friends.

For someone her age, she's a rarity today. But her globetrotting lifestyle could become the norm as the baby boom population bulge acquires its inevitable grey hair and wrinkles. Where Canadians currently 65 and older opt for traditional destinations such as Florida and Arizona in the winter, the aging boomers below them are more adventurous and willing to travel farther, says David Redekop, principal research associate with the Conference Board of Canada. As the boomers grow older, the 55-to-64-year-old market segment will drive the travel market over the next decade. This is especially true since Statistics Canada is projecting a slowdown in the birth rate that will put a damper on the family-with-kids segment of the market, he says. That puts Canada in line with the worldwide trend. Jacob Kirkegaard, a research associate at Washington's Peter G. Pererson Institute for International Economics, recently told a world tourism conference that “the number of elderly in the world is simply set to explode.” Longer lifespans and lower birth rates will mean more grey travellers, particularly from Asia and Latin America.

Eventually the sheer volume of travelling grannies and grandpas may lead to massive crowding at popular destinations, entry restrictions at fragile historic monuments and higher accommodation prices as the pool of cheap labour dries up.

In the meantime, a new generation of healthy, affluent, active and curious seniors is launched for take-off to the far corners of the globe. Just don't call them seniors, elderly or old.

Because of the perceived stigma of the “elder” label, the venerable Elderhostel organization has adopted a new name — Road Scholar — for programs aimed specifically at baby boomers. Elderhostel, based in Boston, began offering educational travel programs in 1975 and now operates across North America and in 90 countries around the world.

The new Road Scholar clients (average age 63) are independent and curious, says spokesman Adam Hurtubise. Tours designed for them include more behind-the-scenes experiences and independent-learning opportunities than traditional Elderhostel programs (average age 73).

Here are some of the other trends that are shaping senior travel:

All in the family

John Roe and Karen Calvert of Mississauga, Ont., have plans to bring each of their 12 grandchildren, alone or in pairs, with them on an exotic foreign trip at roughly age 12. They have already done Italy and Egypt, and Southern India is coming up. They book through Adventures Abroad, of Richmond, B.C., which specializes in small group tours, some of them designed for families with children.

The couple exemplify “multigenerational travel,” one of tourism's new catchphrases. Increasingly seniors are footing the bill to bring their grandkids, adult children or often large family groups on trips or cruises with them.

“Rather than leaving a big inheritance to be spent after they're gone, they are experiencing this wonderful vacation with their family now,” says Lori Copeland, business development manager with Toronto's Merit Travel. The agency handles bookings for CARP: Canada's Association for the 50 Plus and for the Retired Teachers of Ontario.

Comforts at sea

Twenty-two per cent of cruise passengers are over age 60, according to the Cruise Line International Association. But the passenger profile is changing, says Erik Elvejord, a spokesman for Holland America Line. Those age 55 to 65 are more active and more demanding of comforts than those in their 70s and 80s.

The longer the cruise, the older the passenger. The average age is 50-to-60 on a 10-day cruise and 70-to-75 on a 114-day world cruise, says Elvejord. (The line has come to expect at least one death and one medical evacuation on those longer cruises, he says.)

Snowbirds find new perches

Florida's traditional role as the winter home of Canadian seniors is under siege. Michael MacKenzie of the Canadian Snowbird Association says most of the group's 70,000 members still spend four to six months in Florida each winter. But Arizona, Texas and California are coming on fast because of less-restrictive tax laws and lower insurance rates. And for the first time this year, the association will hold an information session in Mexico's Lake Chapala area for Canadians wintering there. Snowbirds are also getting younger, says MacKenzie. Many working people in their 50s now winter in Florida, carrying on their business by the Internet.

In Portugal, more Canadians than ever are spending one to three months of winter in the Algarve region, says Maria Nogueira of the Portuguese National Tourist Office. And Toronto-based Goway Travel sends about 400 Canadian snowbirds a year to Australia's Gold Coast. Accommodation and flights from Vancouver start at about $4,000 for a month, $6,500 for three months.

Timeshares are a-changin'

It is becoming increasingly common for upper-income Canadian baby boomers to sell their big houses, buy a condo, then invest the profit in a timeshare or fractional-ownership unit at a resort. This allows them to holiday at their new property, often at a beach or ski slope, on an annual basis or to work out an exchange at a foreign location.

Whether still working or retired, they are choosing destinations they would never have thought of in the past, says Gloria Collinson, president of the Canadian Resort Development Association. Among these are Africa, Dubai and China.

Travelling on the edge

Eldertreks, a Toronto-based adventure tour company for people 50-plus, marks its 20th anniversary this year with business growing about 20 to 25 per cent a year.

“Twenty years ago Costa Rica and Turkey seemed remote and exotic,” says owner Gary Murtagh. Today's tour options include Papua New Guinea, Mongolia, Tibet, Timbuktu and both the North and South Pole.

Scoring points

Trevor and Mary Owen of Ottawa stored up Air Canada Aeroplan points during their working years and traded them in for business-class tickets to Australia and New Zealand after their retirement. That helped cut the cost of a six-month big-splurge trip.

So many people are hoarding frequent-flier miles for their twilight years, however, that airlines are getting nervous. It is more profitable for carriers if miles are traded in quickly. That's why Aeroplan recently changed its rules so that miles now expire after seven years.

‘Voluntourism'

Victoria writer Alison Gardner coined the word “voluntourism” in 1995 to describe the phenomenon of travellers donating time and labour to help communities they visit. “Today, mature-senior travellers make up the majority of volunteer-vacation helping hands, both within their own countries and in other countries,” says Gardner, editor of Travel With a Challenge web magazine (travelwithachallenge.com). Her list of senior-friendly volunteer vacation agencies includes Habitat for Humanity and the Land Conservancy of British Columbia.

Have wheelchair, will travel

The number of disabled travellers is growing as boomers become seniors, says James Glasbergen, director of accessible travel with World on Wheelz, a division of Frederick Travel in Waterloo, Ont. At the same time, facilities for the disabled are becoming available even in exotic locales. The company arranges independent and small-group tours for people of all ages with special needs. It even does safaris in South Africa and tours to Egypt's pyramids. It can also arrange for oxygen and for rentals of wheelchairs, bed lifts and scooters.

Pack your bags

Elderhostel: www.elderhostel.org

Road Scholar: www.roadscholar.org

Eldertreks: www.eldertreks.com

Adventures Abroad: www.adventures-abroad.com

Goway Travel: www.goway.com

World on Wheelz: www.worldonwheelz.com

CARP: www.carp.ca

Canadian Resort Development Association: www.crda.com

Canadian Snowbird Association: www.snowbirds.org

Senior-friendly volunteer vacations: www.transitionsabroad.com

Cruise Line International Association: www.cruising.org

Special to The Globe and Mail