
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, January 22, 1995                   TAG: 9502010001
SECTION: TRAVEL                    PAGE: D8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: CHRISTOPHER REYNOLDS LOS ANGELES TIMES
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Long

WHAT'S AN ELDERHOSTEL? RETIRING MINDS WANT TO KNOW

Elderhostel is an organization that lures retirees out of their comfortable homes and into far-flung dormitories for weeklong meditations on subjects from physics, to poetry to architecture. It began as a collaboration between a visionary hippie and a university administrator, and grew into a nonprofit group that has grabbed a massive market away from the highly competitive travel industry. It is, frequently, what older people talk about when younger people aren't paying attention.

But now the elders are getting younger, and their travels are getting bolder.

Born in New Hampshire and based in Boston, Elderhostel has now been running educational travel programs for 20 years. The group, which began with 220 ``hostelers'' in the summer of 1975, served about 285,000 last year, allowing them a chance to travel cheaply, educate themselves liberally and wander the planet in one- to three-week journeys, eating cafeteria food, lodging at a network of 1,900 collegiate dorms, cultural institutions and other facilities. The group operates in 50 states and more than 40 nations.

``I have square-danced with a telephone lineman, scooped ice cream with a retired farmer, listened to opera with a college administrator, and photographed a Hohokum burial site with a retired nuclear physicist,'' writes Mildred Hyman, author of ``Elderhostels: The Students' Choice,'' a volume by an independent author that evaluates various Elderhostel programs.

So far, most of the program's participants have been age 60 and above, following an arbitrary limit set in the organization's earliest days. But beginning with the release of a new domestic program catalog Feb. 24, the group will reduce its minimum age to 55. (In other words, baby boomers,

on July 26, 1998 - 31/2 years from now - Mick Jagger will become eligible for Elderhostel studies.)

This isn't exactly a revolution, since the program has long allowed Elderhostel ``students'' to bring along spouses of any age and companions as young as 50. But it is a sign of the ongoing evolution at Elderhostel. With its growth rate stabilized at around 10 percent after a staggering boom in its first five years, the organization's leaders are facing up to the changing tastes of a new generation.

``People are retiring earlier,'' says Elderhostel Marketing Director Karyn Franzen, and the organization is evolving to ``address those changing retirement patterns.''

Demographers agree that the average retirement age has been falling for several decades. Figures compiled by the National Institute on Aging show that in 1950, 46 percent of men age 65 and older were still working. By 1989, that number had fallen to 17 percent.

Listening to the new retirees, the group's leaders hear calls for more physically demanding programs and more luxurious accommodations, which they are attempting to reconcile with the program's central mission of education and its affordable price structure.

For those interested in getting physical, there are Elderhostel collaborations with Outward Bound in Colorado. There is a weeklong camping trip on the Hualapai Indian Reservation along the Grand Canyon (``shower facilities available midweek,'' says the catalog); or a Colorado River trip that includes a two-day, one-night rafting and camping journey that covers 64 miles of the river, including some white water; or an 11-day, 80-mile wilderness canoe camping trip on Maine's Allagash Waterway, near which Elderhostelers will have the opportunity to dig their own latrines.

(Concerned by health risks inherent in the proliferation of such programming, the organization recently imposed a yearlong moratorium on new adventure-oriented courses. That ban has eased since the hiring last spring of a veteran adventure tour administrator, Rob Rubendal, who oversees safety guidelines and assesses physical risks.)

Meanwhile, those interested in finding the more comfortable fringes of the ``plain and simple'' Elderhostel lodging prescription may be intrigued by the indoor swimming pool and exercise facilities of Prude Guest Ranch in the Davis Mountains of Texas, or the historic four-story row house that has been rehabilitated for Elderhostel use (including elevators and private baths) at the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

What lies behind these changes? Perhaps a generation gap. Many Elderhostel officials have noted that younger hostelers, who remember less of the Great Depression, tend to be less frugal and more interested in fancier accommodations - ``and I think we're going to feel that even more strongly when the baby boomers start hitting us,'' Franzen adds.

The organization is also pushing its new Service Program, which links participants with charities such as Habitat for Humanity and Global Volunteers. Enrollment in the program had advanced from 500 in 1992 to 2,000 last year, but Elderhostel leaders say they were expecting more sign-ups than that and are uncertain about the effort's future. (Since the mid-1980s, Elderhostel has also offered the Intergenerational Program, which unites hostelers and their grandchildren.)

The average Elderhostel program in the United States lasts six or seven days and includes five days of instruction (usually broken down into three classes that meet for 90 minutes each day; no homework or exams), five or six nights of lodging (two to a room, bathrooms shared) and 15 or 18 no-frills meals.

by CNB