Hello World!

Welcome to episode 1.

We are so pleased that you have come to Lifestyle4seniors.com. Lifestyle4seniors.com was born during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. Peter and Susan’s dream was to start a  blog for seniors or anyone else interested in reading about lifestyle choices. Susan retired in June 2020. Susan challenged herself to learn how to use technology and various software platforms and apps for blogging and creating videos. Susan wanted to start a blog and create and edit videos. She was interested in learning how to story tell and share her retirement journey with other seniors. Peter is a hands-on guy that loves to tinker with his tools. He likes to creatively build all sorts of things. The pandemic hit the world and even though retirement in 2020 is far from what Peter and Susan ever imagined their retirement would be, they have embraced the lockdown by creating opportunities to start a blog and create videos. It is the perfect time to learn and explore the world of blogging and vlogging.

We decided to reflect on our past trips. We put together a collection of videos of 14 episodes of our South Africa travels. We hope you will enjoy the 14 episodes. Each video has a summary ending, giving the reader our honest summary of the day. We show you snapshots of our travels and experiences from the trip. We have researched what we have seen and learned. We also created videos of still pictures and videos that we hope will give you a feeling like you were with us. We created an introductory video showing snapshots of our 15 days journey. We hope this will pique your interest to read all the 14 episodes. Our hope is that you enjoy reading our 14 episodes as much as it has been fun for us creating and sharing our memorable trip with you: Our epic Trip of a lifetime to South Africa, Swaziland, and Zimbabwe. We hope you will enjoy our blog and videos.

Our South Africa, Swaziland & Zimbabwe VIDEO

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4-Oct-2019, Friday

This is our very first travel blog post! Come join us on an epic South African trip. We traveled just before COVID-19 hit the world! We nearly did not go on this trip as a last-minute cancellation gave us a travel experience, we will not forget. Before the trip, we were concerned with safety but throughout the trip, we felt safe as the tour guide took great care of us.

Our journey originated in Toronto from Oct 3 to 18, 2019. We visited South Africa, Swaziland, and Zimbabwe over a 15 days land tour. An adventurous group of 50 seniors traveled across two continents, from North America to Africa. We visited South Africa, Swaziland, and Zimbabwe. The total flight took 18:25 hours and the stopover was 2 hours at the new Bole International Airport in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The stopover was an eye-opener for many of us. We encountered many people of different cultures who were also in transit from many countries especially from other parts of the African continent. They wore many different traditional clothes and their interactions with each other were like what you would see in the movies. It was colorful, surreal, and quite an enjoyable experience. We were a bit disappointed because the washrooms were not working, and no proper out-of-order signage was put up. This is not something we would expect in North America. The way things operated was much different from what we were used to in North America.

Our next leg was O.R. Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg, South Africa. It was more like being at home since things seemed to be much more organised.

Welcome to South Africa.

This is a statute of Oliver Reginald Kaizana Tambo, unveiled on Oct 2017 at Johannesburg O.R. Tambo airport. Tambo was an anti apartheid activist and ANC’s first president. He served from 1967 to 1991. He died in April 1993.

We were met by our tour guide and were given guidelines on what we would expect while on our tour. We were warned not to go to ATM’s as they were not safe. We were also warned not to wander outside the hotel by ourselves. Other precautionary guidelines were also given as the surroundings could be dangerous.

We then boarded the bus to Pretoria, the administrative capital of South Africa, where we would spend the night. The bus ride was pleasant, and the roads surprisingly reminded us of roads you would encounter in a developed country. When we arrived at the Southern Sun Pretoria Hotel, we were again reminded not to venture outside as we could endanger ourselves. A small group of six of us decided to walk to a shopping centre a couple of blocks away. We figured it would be relatively safe in numbers. The hotel security once again warned us to be careful. The high unemployment was hugely the reason many people hung around looking for opportunities to rob the unsuspecting tourist. We noticed the stores all had security camera and personnel. It was surreal walking around and we quickly had to get used to this new way of life.

Our accommodation throughout the trip was mainly with 5* hotels. The sight-seeing was impressive. The people were friendly, pleasant, and welcoming. The food was tasty but different. They used different spices and the wild meat needed some getting used to. We were often served bottle water, even though water from the tap was drinkable, but not recommended.

We settled in for a good night’s sleep and the next morning, we were served a hearty breakfast before heading out on the coach headed north to Mpumalanga Province, another town known as the “Paradise Country”. We stopped at historic towns of Dullstroom and Lydenburg. We pass the famous Long Tom Pass before heading right into safari hub of the Kruger National Park area.

Summary of Our Day.

It has been a long flight from Canada to Africa. We are all so glad to arrive safely in Pretoria, South Africa. Many of us have never been to South Africa and we’re very excited to see the country.  We were not sure what to expect but we were all excited to see what was in store for us. Thank you for following along.

We are so pleased to write the 14 episodes. We are learning so much doing the blog and making/ editing the videos. We also are looking to improve on our photography and videography.