Air travel etiquette starts before boarding flights. Simple courtesy rules apply while waiting in the airport. An annoying offender is the obnoxious character sitting next to you yakking at full voice on the smartphone just two inches away from your ear.

Every senior traveler needs a handy smartphone to keep up with the latest. However, for the sake of everyone around you in the waiting area, when using your phone, go find a quiet corner. Then yell, squawk and scream as loud as you want.

Friends just returned from their annual Baja cruise with an all-too-familiar story. While wandering in an oceanside tourist town, they ate some delicious native food from a street cart. After returning to the ship, they spent the rest of the cruise taking urgent turns in their stateroom toilet.

Of course, even with the old stories about the Tijuana trots, not all street food throughout the world will make you sick. Also, we’re aware that cart people work hard to earn modest livings from tourist sales, and we often patronize them.

However, especially if you have a sensitive stomach, we suggest you limit purchases in an unfamiliar city. Commercially packaged food and bottled water and other safe products are your best options.

In your travels, if you want to eat while wandering or sitting in a park, find a nearby clean retail store or take-out café. Buy your food there, and chances of having bad results are greatly diminished.

Just suppose you had to choose the best travel destination for this year. Also, because you’re a seasoned citizen, you're allowed to go back in time to enjoy it absolutely free. We surveyed our readers and here are five choices, not necessarily in rank order:

Jim K, Austin TX: I'd take my golf clubs to Pebble Beach, California, and participate in a 72-hole tournament against the current PGA champs. Of course, I'd win by ten strokes, and with TV cameras rolling, officials hand me a check for a million bucks, plus a huge silver trophy full of California champagne.

You’re mature, experienced, and often have a very short fuse for delays, inefficiency, excuses, back talk and just plain discourtesy. Here are ways to take a stand to fight back with appropriate Ω߶§ words to: 

Hotel clerk: That price is outrageous. I don’t want to buy the ƒ¶§≠ place, just sleep here for a couple of hours.

Taxi driver: I didn’t say go the scenic route to get me here. You have a choice. Do you want me to pay half of the §Ωåß rip-off charge or none at all?

Rude waiter: You’ve been snide, slow and stupid. The only tip you’ll get from me is: find another ƒå®´∑ line of work.