Not just for the traditional holiday season, but how about leaving the parents at home and doing some exciting winter travel with your grandkids? You know you spoil those kids, so wouldn’t it be fun to be with them exclusively when no parents are around to tell you you’re spoiling them? And don’t forget to make a video or photo record of all the memorable events you’ve planned. Here are just a few ideas.

Senior Travelers: Top Ten New Year’s Resolutions

I swear on my Morocco-bound original copy of “Gulliver’s Travels” that in this brand new year, I will:

1. Visit a local department store during its big after-holidays sale, where I can find peace and quiet and be totally alone by myself.

Why not forget all the bad stuff that happened in 2008 and start out the New Year fresh with a trip to Sin City? And remember that what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, including your troubles, worries and your money. An older and more applicable motto for Sin City refers to its thousands of hotel rooms: if you have to ask, you can't afford it.

We’re retirees who live in a mountain foothills community in Southern Arizona next to the hot, dry Sonora Desert. Our home association’s Olympic-sized pool is two minutes away, a supermarket and row of restaurants are five minutes away, and a large upscale resort hotel with an 18-hole championship golf course is just ten minutes up the street.