蜜月计划

Chinese retirees are turning hard-won time into journeys once confined to maps and documentaries_我的网站

一 |     我们时常会在中国的社交媒体上看到导游强迫游客消费的新闻，万万没想到的是，在中国游客最喜爱的出国游目的地之一、法律严明的旅游城市新加坡，也发生了这样的事……前段时间，一组由20多名中国游客组成的旅游团表示，由于他们拒绝购买旅游巴士司机出售的纪念品，被抛弃在新加坡路边。    Editor's Note:
With China's population of seniors over 60 surpassing 300 million, ensuring a happy and fulfilling life for all seniors has become a pressing issue for both families and the nation. How can the new generation of seniors in China break away from traditional norms and embrace a different lifestyle, supported by AI technology, multiculturalism and an elder-friendly society? 
The series "Old Age, New Trends" explores emerging trends in the silver economy, creative social norms among senior citizens and innovative eldercare services. It examines the opportunities and challenges presented by an aging society, highlighting the diverse lifestyles of seniors and the booming eldercare industry in China. Beneath these new trends lies a reflection of Chinese modernization, which aims to provide more secure systems and dignified lives for its senior population.

    Chinese elderly tourists pose for a photo during a trip to Antarctica. Photo: Courtesy of Zhang XinyuanThe camera moves across ice and water of Greenland before settling on a group of travelers speaking Putonghua. Many are retired. They have come a long way from China to a place that, for much of their working lives, belonged more to maps and documentaries than to any realistic travel plan.
Polar journeys require money, good health and patience for long flights and itineraries that may change with the weather. Yet on ships bound for Antarctica, and tours reaching into the Arctic, retired teachers, doctors, researchers and business managers are becoming easier to find. 
After decades scheduled around work and family, they now possess something that was once just as scarce as money: uninterrupted time.
By the end of 2025, China had 323.38 million people aged 60 or above, accounting for 23 percent of its population, according to the Xinhua News Agency. Their incomes, health and family circumstances vary enormously, and polar travelers remain a small, relatively affluent group. Still, their choices bring one change into sharp focus: For some among this new generation of retirees, growing older no longer means simply drawing the boundaries of life inward. It may also be a chance to return to journeys postponed for decades.
Behind every such journey lies a practical calculation: Is the body ready? Is the expense manageable? Can family responsibilities be set aside long enough? The answers are reshaping both travel products and ideas about life after work. At the farthest reaches of the map, some Chinese retirees are asking a new question: With their careers behind them and years still ahead, where do they want to go next?
No longer waiting
In early 2025, 63-year-old He Man stood on a snow-covered slope at Port Charcot in Antarctica and looked back toward the sea. 
The Silver Endeavour, the ship that had brought her there, had shrunk to a white speck against the blue water. Penguins wandered nearby. "Standing there, I suddenly realized how small I was - and how small my problems were," she told the Global Times.
It was a journey He Man had postponed for most of her adult life. Before retiring, she was a deputy chief physician at the dental center of Shenzhen People's Hospital in Shenzhen, South China's Guangdong Province. During her 38-year medical career, most days she got up at 6 am, arrived at the hospital around 7 and began seeing patients at 8. On busy days, patients queued up outside her consulting room and she could barely stop for a drink of water.
During the last 20 years of her career, she had no more than 15 days of annual leave each year. Once time was set aside for caring for elderly relatives and looking after her child, what remained was enough only for short trips. She had visited several countries in Europe and North America, but Antarctica remained beyond reach.
"Antarctica had always been a dream, but I never really dared to imagine going," she said. The possibility became real only after friends from university made the journey in 2023 and 2024 and encouraged her to follow. By then, she had retired at 60. More important than anything else, she said, was that her time was finally her own.
In October 2024, she booked a place on an expedition ship carrying about 200 passengers. She went with her husband, a neighboring couple and another couple with whom they often traveled, forming a group of six. 
The early-booking cruise fare exceeded 150,000 yuan ($22,250) per person. She and her husband later paid another 40,000 yuan each to upgrade their flights to business class.
"On a journey this long, at our age, we should treat ourselves well," she said. The flights between China and South America alone took more than 30 hours. The entire journey eventually lasted 41 days, combining an 11-day Antarctic cruise with visits to Argentina, Brazil, Peru and Chile. "Since we had flown so far, we wanted to see it all in one go."
The journey began with a lesson in polar uncertainty. To catch a period of calmer weather across the Drake Passage, the ship moved its scheduled departure from noon to 6 am. 
The couple reached the port in Chile before dawn after barely sleeping, only to learn that replenishment and repairs had taken longer than expected. The weather window closed, and the captain diverted through the Beagle Channel while waiting two days for conditions to improve.
The retired doctor did not regard the delay as time lost. Marine biologists, ornithologists, geologists and polar historians delivered lectures on board throughout the day, while passengers watched the fjords outside. "There were many older people on the ship. We had time, and nobody was really in a hurry," she said.
When she finally stepped onto the Antarctic snow, she said she was so overwhelmed that she wanted to cry. The trip did not remove the pressures waiting for her at home, but it changed the scale on which she viewed them. 
"When I feel stressed or upset now, I think of Antarctica," she said. "Life is only so long. Don't hold yourself too tightly. Let go when you should."
    Scenery of Antarctica Photo: Courtesy of Zhang XinyuanBeyond one journey
According to He Man, people aged 60 or above accounted for more than half of the passengers on board, while Chinese travelers also made up more than half. After returning home, some of the travelers from Shenzhen created a WeChat group, while others had already begun discussing their next destination.
Travel agencies specializing in expedition cruises have noticed the same pattern. Zhang Xinyuan, founder and CEO of Newayer Cruises, told the Global Times that the company entered the Antarctic market in 2008 and sent its first group the following year. It has since served approximately 6,000 travelers on trips to the Arctic and Antarctica. 
Among its customers, more than 65 percent are aged over 50, with those between 55 and 65 forming the largest group.
The makeup of that group has changed. Before 2020, Zhang said, most of the agency's polar customers were private business owners, senior executives and their family members. In recent years, the professional backgrounds of its customers have become more varied, with retired teachers, doctors, researchers and managers from public institutions increasingly represented. Retired women traveling alone have also become more visible.
Their journeys do not necessarily end after one polar voyage. Zhang once regarded Antarctica as a once-in-a-lifetime destination, but found that some customers continued on to the Arctic, the Galapagos Islands or wildlife reserves in Africa. 
She cited a recently retired couple who booked trips to both Antarctica and the Arctic. While still aboard the Arctic cruise, they asked to reserve places on a southern Africa itinerary planned for the following year.
Industry data suggest that this is a growing, though still expensive, segment of the travel market. During the 2024-25 Antarctic season, Chinese nationals accounted for 10 percent of passengers traveling with operators belonging to the International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators, or IAATO, the second-largest share after the US. 
In the 2025-26 season, IAATO operators recorded 85,195 visitors who landed in Antarctica and another 27,217 cruise-only passengers. The association said China had seen the greatest post-pandemic increase among the main sources of Antarctic travelers. 
Data released by Tongcheng Travel offer a closer view of the high-end market. From January to September 2025, travelers aged between 50 and 70 accounted for more than 70 percent of users booking outbound luxury cruises on the platform. Among customers purchasing polar cruise products priced above 100,000 yuan, more than 90 percent were classified by the company as silver travelers.
As the customer base changes, the product is changing with it. Zhang said the longest flights, rather than the cruise itself, often present the greatest physical challenge. On board, travelers can decide whether to join shore landings, hikes or Zodiac cruises according to their physical fitness and health condition. 
At Newayer Cruises, travelers aged between 75 and 80 are generally asked to provide medical documentation and travel with a family member. Its group products include emergency medical and evacuation insurance, while tour leaders accompany passengers from departure.
The agency has also added Chinese-language services and meals familiar to Chinese passengers, while leaving more space in itineraries rather than packing each day with activities. Flexibility is needed for reasons beyond the traveler's own health. 
    A ship sails among icebergs in Antarctica. Photo: VCGThe Arctic can wait
Polar travel occupies the expensive outer edge of a much broader change in how older Chinese people spend their time. By the end of 2025, China had 323.38 million people aged 60 or above, accounting for 23 percent of the population. Those aged 65 or above numbered 223.65 million, or 15.9 percent. 
The National Bureau of Statistics noted that people aged between 60 and 64 made up a relatively large part of the older population, and that many were still healthy and participated in social activities. 
Travel is becoming one outlet for this age group. Data cited by the National Development and Reform Commission show that older travelers account for more than 20 percent of China's total tourist numbers. 
Du Peng, dean of the School of Population and Health and director of the Institute of Gerontology at Renmin University of China, noted in a CCTV interview that more than 20 million people would enter old age each year over the following decade. Compared with earlier generations, he said, many would be better educated, assess their own health more positively and use the internet with greater ease. 
Policy is beginning to respond to this more varied picture of old age. A State Council document on developing the silver economy calls for replacing rigid age restrictions on travel with assessments based more closely on health, while expanding travel insurance and strengthening consumer protection. 
Still, the retirees boarding polar ships should not be treated as a portrait of all 323 million older Chinese people. They are a relatively small group able to meet three demanding conditions at once: sufficient savings, good health and control over their time.
Therefore, what these polar travelers demonstrate is not that every retirement should become an expensive adventure. Rather, they show that later life is becoming less uniform: rest and care remain essential, but for some people, retirement may also contain study, creative work, new friendships and journeys once postponed by jobs and family obligations.
Back in Shenzhen, He Man now divides her Xiaohongshu (RedNote) posts between dental-health advice and notes from her travels. Antarctica has been crossed off the list, but the list itself continues to grow. 
She is considering a trip to see the animal migration in Africa and another to watch the aurora in Iceland. The Arctic is lower down on her list.
The Arctic can wait. This time, the delay is hers to decide.

。在一段时长1分49秒的视频中，可以看到一群中国游客正在与一名巴士司机争吵。他们还站在路边，身边放着自己的行李。在视频里，疑似旅行团成员的抖音网友“Wei Da Piao Liang”讲述了事情的经过。该网友表示，他们还遭到了巴士司机的侮辱和咒骂，司机卸下他们的行李后开车离开，留下他们一车人在路边。据本地媒体报道，事件于2024年8月16日中午12点左右发生在跑马埔路（Race Course Road）一带。当时这群游客正在参观寺庙，这是他们为期10天的东南亚国家之旅的一部分，行程中包括新加坡、马来西亚和泰国。

二 | 这次旅行是由一家中国旅行社安排的。该网友还在视频中表示，他们这个旅行团刚开始只有15个人。

三 | 抵达新加坡后，他们的旅行团与另一个旅行团合并了，人数达到了20多人。

司机在车上卖纪念品

    网友表示，午餐前，旅游大巴司机在车上售卖纪念品，但旅行团的反响并不如他预期。之后，旅行团下车去吃午餐。当一名女游客想要回到车上取高血压药物时，司机拒绝让她上车，还说中国人不愿意花钱。视频截图 司机最后还是打开了车门，但却撞到了一名游客。旅行团成员对此感到非常愤怒，但司机拒绝道歉。他卸下了所有游客的行李，然后开车离开了。

旅游团滞留四小时

    整车人被困在路边。“我们想报警，但导游威胁我们。

四 | ”一名游客说道。另一位网友在视频下评论说，她知道旅行团会出售纪念品，但不会强迫他们购买，对于这个旅行团的遭遇她表示不满。事发现场旁一名37岁的餐厅老板表示，旅行团是在他的餐厅用餐的。

五 | 他的餐厅的部分生意就来自这样的旅游团，那天，他的员工听到了餐馆外面的一阵骚动。尽管不知道发生争执的原因，餐厅的工作人员还是向游客提供了饮料和茶点，以安抚他们，防止他们打扰其他就餐者。

六 | 他说，在滞留了4小时后，旅游团乘坐另一辆来接他们的巴士离开了。示意图 一名70岁的司机在8月20日驾驶旅游巴士前往事发的同一地区，他在接受本地媒体采访时认出视频中的司机是自己的同事。这位司机表示，旅游巴士司机确实会尝试出售每件价值几新元的纪念品，但绝不会强迫游客购买。他补充说，旅游巴士司机谋生很困难，他们没有小费，而且还必须搬运沉重的行李。

新加坡旅游局正在调查此事

    新加坡旅游局发言人表示，目前正在与所有相关方联系，对这起事件进行彻底调查。发言人说：“作为新加坡旅行社的监管机构，我们强调所有持牌人都必须履行职责。”图源：STB 发言人补充说，新加坡旅游局不会容忍任何不尊重游客或将游客置于危险之中的行为，并会毫不犹豫地对不良行为采取行动。“新加坡游客的安全和健康至关重要，我们致力于维护新加坡作为所有游客的安全与热门目的地的声誉。”

游客已返回中国

    中国驻新加坡大使馆证实，大使馆于8月16日中午12点49分接到一名中国赴新加坡旅游团成员的举报。了解情况后，大使馆敦促游客寻求紧急医疗救助，并提醒他们依法享有的权利。大使馆还向他们提供了本地警方的联系电话和旅游热线。示意图在联系该团的导游和当地旅游联络人员后，另一辆车被派去接回中国游客。事发第二天，该旅行团就按原计划前往马来西亚，并于8月19日返回中国。在新加坡发生这样的事情，也是活久见了。后续将会如何处理？让我们拭目以待吧。

七 |

Current article:http://vpyiro.zhouangnaoguangsundianzhenmou.cfd/news/20260826_6799877.html

Published on:00:00:00