‘I’m 95 and still travelling – it keeps me fit, healthy and mentally sharp’

She’s been left without luggage in Amsterdam, navigated sky-high insurance quotes and even eaten alligator in Florida – Evelyn Hall has seen and done it all.

The seasoned 95-year-old, whose life is defined by a love of travel, has spent seven decades exploring the world, from Newquay to New Orleans. And she certainly doesn’t intend to stop now.

“It keeps me young,” she explains, and considering she remains fit, healthy and living completely unaided in her own home, she may have a point. “Sun, in particular, is the best tonic to my ailments. It is better than any tablets or medicine that I have ever been prescribed. I have chronic arthritis, but after a good dose of sunshine, all the aches and pains seem to disappear.”

Perhaps even more crucially, she also credits travel, and “taking a genuine interest in everything around me” on her trips, with keeping her mind and memory sharp. “Getting talking to people from all walks of life, making new friends, staying in touch with Christmas cards for years afterwards, making shared connections with people you otherwise would never have met – it’s all excellent for keeping your brain active.”

The sense of freedom and exhilaration of stepping beyond her comfort zone has also consistently boosted her self confidence, she says – and even improved her eating habits, thanks to the Mediterranean diet she adopted after travelling in Europe. She now eats mostly fresh fruit, vegetables and fish, with two squares of dark chocolate after her evening meals (“I don’t usually eat dessert, but I have never seen so many marvellous creations as at the buffets on cruise ships, so I take my opportunity to let loose there,” she admits).

But most importantly, it was travel that allowed her to survive the passing of her husband, Eric, 10 years ago. They had been married for 62 years and were devoted travel companions, which is part of the reason Evelyn vowed to continue her adventures after his death, travelling solo across Europe, and on various cruises with her daughter and son-in-law.

“Without these trips, she would not be here,” her daughter explains. “We would have lost her after Eric’s death had she not used her other lifelong love to withstand the grief.”

So where did this love of travel come from? It began, perhaps conversely, as a faraway dream when she was growing up as the youngest of nine children in a two-bed terraced house in Teesside. Summer holidays were simply day trips to nearby Redcar and Saltburn, and during the war, the only flying she was familiar with was spotting friend or foe overhead.

Her first holiday in England was a night on the North East coast, staying with an elderly relative. Yet, 85 years on, she still clearly remembers the excitement of packing a case, filling it with belongings that would “see somewhere new for the first time”.

It was shortly after her wedding to Eric, when she was 24, that she went on her first proper holiday – their week-long honeymoon to Blackpool. It was, she says, a magical experience, and one that instilled in them a shared love of discovering new places together.

But it wasn’t until her mid-30s, when Evelyn and Eric finally found themselves with a cushion of disposable income, that she first ventured overseas, on a trip to Jersey to celebrate their daughter finishing school.

While Evelyn fondly remembers the coaching it took to get the rest of the family onto a plane for the first time, once onboard, they never looked back. It was an irreversible springboard into the next stage of their adventures.

“We just got the bug and there was no turning back after that,” she recalls.

Birthdays and anniversaries soon became punctuated with foreign holidays, including several coach trips across America, weaving from the bright lights of Las Vegas to the Grand Canyon on one occasion, and battling a Christmas snow storm in New York in the mid-1990s on another. They even returned to Jersey many years later to celebrate their granddaughter’s exam results. The most memorable trip of all, though, was celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary in Ibiza – the culmination of a half-century of shared experiences.

“Travel was the zest of my and Eric’s married life,” says Evelyn. “We had such a great time exploring the world together.”

And despite the frequency of their trips, Evelyn never took travel for granted. “My humble start, sharing a bed with my three sisters, certainly meant that any hotel bed felt like a great luxury,” she says fondly. She was also meticulous about recording her memories, taking her trusty leather-bound diary, as well as a 35mm-film camera, on all their trips. The photos are now proudly displayed throughout her County Durham bungalow.

Of course, travel in her mid-90s isn’t without complications. Nevertheless, Evelyn remains unfazed by the extortionate insurance quotes she now receives: “the price of cover for a recent holiday to Greece was more than double the price of the hotel I’d booked – but I would rather eat bread and jam the other 355 days of the year than forgo my time in the sun”, and makes a point of still flying frequently (passing the time with cups of tea and a good book, and always wearing her compression socks). She even chose a home just 15 minutes from the nearest airport.

But what does her family make of Evelyn spending chunks of their would-be inheritance on her globe-trotting escapades?

They don’t mind a bit – because she often takes them along, too. “Travel is the reason that we can still spend quality time with Nana at such an advanced age,” says her granddaughter, in whom Evelyn has instilled a similar love of exploring the world.

“For me, travel has always been more about the company than anything else. And I would rather spend my money and treat my family to holidays so I can see them enjoying it, rather than give it to Rachel Thieves,” Evelyn adds, matter-of-factly.

People often speak of travels in grand terms, yet for Evelyn, the planning, excitement and discovery has always been – and remains – simply a way of life. She’s already gearing up for her next overseas excursion (and dose of sunshine), in Majorca.

“Aside from Eric, travel has been the great love of my life,” she says. “I wouldn’t be who I am today without it. Now, it’s those memories, and looking forward to the next adventure, that sustains me and keeps me ticking over.”

[Source: Daily Telegraph]