Travel Opportunities

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Comment by Lynda Smith on April 16, 2009 at 4:14pm

Discovered this article today. Does anyone know of similar operations in South Africa. If not why not see it as an opportunity to collaborate with others and start this in your area. Great opportunity for you Melvin.


Having Fun, Glad You Are Here for the Ride
Travel Club Gets Retirees Together on the Road to Almost Anywher

By William Wan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 16, 2009

When George Walls retired from the federal government, he bought a few motor coach buses and started taking large groups on trips for extra income. After a few years, he noticed how few of his passengers were African American retirees like himself.

Many of the retirees he knew rarely ventured beyond their neighborhoods.

That changed a decade ago when Walls, 69, of Fort Washington got together with a few friends and created the Elite Tours Travel Club. Today, the club has about 1,700 members, mostly African American retirees, and offers 50 low-cost trips a year, which range from a $39 day tour of the District to a three-week, cross-country journey for just under $2,000.

The group offers a sense of youthful adventure, independence and companionship to men and women who might otherwise whittle away their days, puttering around the house, often alone.

Walls said the idea came to him to help fill a void he saw among his peers.
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"A voice said to me, 'Why can't that happen?' " he recalled. "It's a shame they're missing out on so many things out there for people to do and see."

The average age for members is about 60, and the eldest is an active 94-year-old woman who still occasionally travels. At least two couples have met and married through the club. Others have started dating and might be headed to the altar soon.

Club members have traveled together to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, to watch the induction of their beloved Redskin Darrell Green. They've attended soul group concerts throughout the East Coast and gone backstage to meet the stars. They've driven across the country to see the sun-drenched Grand Canyon.

In these tough economic times, the club even provides financial seminars. One member, a financial adviser, volunteers to teach fellow members how to conserve money and protect their retirement nest eggs.

"Most people in our club are on a fixed income, so any way we can help them save money is a plus," Walls said.

Walls is president of the club and also runs the motor coach business that supplies most of the transportation for the group. He got his start in travel planning after retiring from the Interstate Commerce Commission in 1992. At first, he was planning trips to raise money for disadvantaged kids in D.C. foster homes. When those trips ran into problems with their bus service, he bought a few motor coaches and started running the buses himself.

Today, his motor coaches are chartered by a variety of clients, including the D.C., Montgomery County and Prince George's County schools for field trips. He runs the company with his office manager, Bobbie Anderson, and six drivers. It's profitable work, but Walls runs the travel club separately and keeps it just profitable enough to ensure that it remains self-sustaining.

The club is open to anyone, and new members pay a one-time $35 fee to join, as long as they take at least two trips a year with the group. The trips vary in distance and cost, such as a $39 African American heritage tour of the District or a 20-day excursion to Los Angeles for $1,949.

The members are mostly women, although Walls has been recruiting more men.

"Part of it, it's sad to say, is because the women tend to outlive us," he said. "Another is that women are just more apt to get out and go. But a lot of the wives are getting their husbands to join."

Among the most memorable trips so far, members said, was one to Westbury, N.Y., last month to hear the Stylistics, one of the best-known Philadelphia soul groups from the 1970s.

Club member Charlene Harris, 56, of Waldorf, president of the Stylistics' fan club, arranged for all of the members to go backstage to take pictures with the band. The next morning, lead singer Harold "Eban" Brown, a longtime musician who joined the Stylistics in 2000, ate breakfast with the members and was awarded honorary membership in the club.

"Eban was so blown away by that," Harris said. "It was such an awesome thing."

Harris said she first heard about the travel group last year when she sat next to one of the members at a soul concert in Westbury. She was so impressed that she signed up for the next trip to see Patti LaBelle.

"They play games on the bus, talk about everything and listen to jazz and classic soul music," Harris said. "The next thing you know, you're at the destination."

The group's biggest blowout trip so far was its first cross-country tour, in 2007, which dipped south to Atlanta and Memphis, hit the Grand Canyon and returned via Kansas City and Louisville. A second cross-country tour, planned for this summer, sold out in three weeks, and a third, for 2010, is already two-thirds full.

But Walls said he dreams of an even longer trip to Africa, which he has never visited.

"It would mean so much to a lot of us, seeing the place we come from and the heritage there," he said. "We got to build up to it. Maybe someday."