“I think I wanted to find the niche [of] how to help people become comfortable with travel and by giving practical travel advice for seniors, because I think it's a niche that's not really being well served right now,” Sievers says.
Sievers and her mother drew on their own experiences traveling to empower seniors or those with disabilities who may feel hesitant to explore the world. Through tips, stories and insights, Mom and Me Travels provides a resource to help seniors navigate the joys and challenges of travel, showing them that adventure is always possible, no matter their age or limitations.
As a lifetime travel enthusiast, Sievers has traveled with her mother for about 15 years, the last 11 of which have included two international trips and one domestic trip each year. Despite being senior citizens, they do not plan to slow down anytime soon and believe proper planning will ensure they keep traveling.
“Even as we age, and health issues come up more frequently, with a little common sense and some good resources, we’re not letting anything slow us down or keep us from experiencing what the world has to offer!” Sievers writes on their website’s biography page.
Sievers was encouraged to write about her traveling tales by her husband, who noted she had so many stories to share. She then started watching YouTube videos about creating a travel website and figured it did not “sound too bad.” She created one last October with seniors as her niche audience.
Sievers took note of a Pew Research Center report from last year stating that in 2054, the number of adults who are 65 or older will have grown to 84 million. She then referenced a figure from Money magazine that American Boomers had accumulated $80 trillion of wealth, according to Federal Reserve data. With those two figures, she made a correlation that “there’s a group there that is not being served” who have the funds for a trip and would potentially be interested in her website.
“There's a lot of people online who have travel blogs that are like, ‘I travel for a living and I live in places for a month at a time, this is what I do,’” Sievers says. “Well, that's not really helping the seniors that I see when I travel.”
Her primary goal when she began was to share experiences with her mother, who is deaf in one ear and cannot hear well in the other.The two look back on old photos and recall memories of their trips so they can properly detail their experience for the website.
Traveling can be daunting at any age, but especially in the digital era. Seniors shouldn't be discouraged, says Lisa Sievers of Dallas.
Lisa Sievers
In each trip recap, Sievers details their experience from start to finish. In those posts, she adds tips, notes and facts about the area and its culture. In a section titled “Yes You Can!” there are tips and guidance from preplanning to must-haves on a flight. One of these is about internet safety.
The internet safety page advises booking with companies directly, checking for secure payment pages, confirming bookings and avoiding social media posts to prevent scams and safety risks. Sievers says she once overpaid for a hotel so she wants to ensure that other seniors do not suffer the same fate when planning a trip. She understands the internet can be confusing to navigate for some.
“So even I, a big veteran of using online travel, got fooled by that,” Sievers says. “The internet's a very important tool that you just have to be careful with.”
Better Late Than Stuck at Home
In a different section labeled “Resources,” there are four pages with references and other resources. One of these contains a page for those with special needs and provides links to travel groups that cater to them.The undertaking is not making any money at the moment, but Sievers hopes to pick up some advertising in the future and maybe offer classes. She does promise she will never lock the current content behind a paywall. Sievers advertises the website on Facebook and Instagram and has plans to do so on Pinterest as well.
The Sievers hope others will have great traveling experiences and memories just like they have, such as a moment they shared in Spain. On a 2015 trip to Valencia, Sievers spotted a group of nude bicyclists whom, she later discovered, rode this way because the bicycle lane was not protected.
In an effort to get her mother’s attention directed to the bicyclists without drawing attention to herself, Sievers tapped her mother with her elbow. However, her mother ignored it each time as it usually is an indicator that a vehicle is heading in their direction on the road.
“I finally give her a fairly good tap and she stops and turns, looks at me, and goes ‘What? I’m off the road’ and I finally just rudely pointed and then she finally saw them and I was just dying laughing,” Sievers says.
Sievers advises overcoming common travel peeves by starting small, such as by planning an overnight trip. She emphasizes the value of solo travel or traveling with a buddy and recommends small group tours for seniors to ease into travel.
“Get out of your comfort zone and do something that is not something that you would normally do, That will start you down the road of looking for bigger and different trips,” Sievers says.
