Frommer Is The Place To Start With Travel Cost-Cutting

Q. Would like to see a column in which you list some helpful hints on where senior citizens, with a very limited budget and fixed income, can do some traveling and sightseeing.

Perhaps some ideas on where we can serve as guides, and any helpful hints, would be most appreciated. We do like to travel but finances are a problem, especially when we read about the high costs of cruises and other ways to travel.

I am quite sure that there are many of us in the same predicament. - J.C., Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

A. Buy a copy of Arthur Frommer’s New World of Travel, published by MacMillan. The 1996 edition ($19.95) may be sold out at bookstores by now, but a new edition should be out soon.

Frommer rounds up, much better than I could, hundreds of ways to spend leisure time in innovative ways, always with an eye on costs. Frommer, the man who started a travel boom when he wrote Europe on $5 a Day in the 1950s, simply does not believe in expensive travel.

Frommer’s travelers spend their time at summer camps for adults, campuses, religious retreats, or doing volunteer work, spending a “homestay” with a family or cruising aboard a freighter. Or they embark on an arts-and-crafts vacation, find an economical spa, join a cost-cutting club or find cheaper, nicer alternatives to hotels.

Another book worth reading by older would-be travelers whose ambitions exceed their bank account is Unbelievably Good Deals and Great Adventures That You Absolutely Can’t Get Unless You’re Over 50 by Joan Rattner Heilman, Contemporary Books, $8.95 at bookstores. The book, regularly updated, lives up to its title.

As for volunteering, I have met and talked with many seniors who were working for a season as volunteers at national parks.

Volunteer arrangements must be made at individual parks and the program is so popular that jobs are gone months in advance. To choose the parks where you’d like to volunteer, start by getting a National Park Guide and Map, available free for single copies from the U.S. Department of Interior, National Park Service, PO Box 37127, Washington, D.C. 20013-7127, or by calling the Public Inquiries Office at 202-208-6985. Also free from the same office are brochures for individual parks.

State parks also use volunteers, but most of them live nearby and go home at night.

Q. Do you have the name of a travel agency or tour group that has trips in the United States and abroad for handicapped persons? Not wheelchair-bound or using crutches, but people unable to take the rigors of fast-paced tours or lots of stairs, climbing and so on? - L.S., Delray Beach, Fla.

A. No tour operators that I know of design tours specifically for people like you, but there are a number of ways to find a trip slow and easygoing enough to suit your needs.

Linda Kundell, spokeswoman for the U.S. Tour Operators Association, made up of dozens of companies that offer tours all over the world, said that just reading the itinerary of a tour tells a lot about the kind of trip it’s likely to be.

Someone looking for a leisurely trip, she said, should favor tours in which all luggage is handled by porters, at least two nights are spent in every hotel, and the bus leaves at a civilized hour in the mornings. Participants should be able to arrange for ground-floor rooms or rooms near elevators, she says. A tour should not include too many places in a day, involve many steps and climbs, or fail to schedule free time.

Upscale operators are more likely to run leisure-paced trips, Kundell said.

People looking for specific kinds of tours can find out if such tours exist by contacting National Tour Association, 546 E. Main St., Lexington, Ky. 40508, 606-226-4444. NTA will provides a free listing of member tour operators specializing in whatever interests the would-be traveler. Travel agents should then not only book the trip but notify the tour company of any special requirements, such as room location.

There are also some tour operators that specialize in travel for older persons. Their tours are deliberately slow-paced, and some offer long-stay arrangements in various cities and resorts. These companies do not work through travel agents.

Saga International Holidays, 222 Berkeley St., Boston, Mass. 02116, has escorted tours, extended stay vacations, cruises and a division called Road Scholar that involves enrichment classes in exotic places. Call 800-343-0273 for general information; 800-952-9590 for cruises; 800-621-2151 for Road Scholar information.

Senior Ventures, another low-cost program for older participants, is held at a group of western universities; call 800-927-0111.