We’ve found that travel clubs can provide a more enjoyable and interesting trip than tours or cruises. In a travel club you stay with people from the area. Although initially that sounds like an awkward and uncomfortably intimate situation, we’ve found it doesn’t turn out that way. People who volunteer as hosts, in general turn out to have separate areas for their guests. And above all, they are eager travelers themselves and are thus attuned to the needs and preferences of travelers like you. 

The clubs we belong to are Friendship Force , Affordable Travel Club, and Evergreen Travel Club.  Two others we’ve heard about but haven’t tried are Servas, one of the biggest and oldest, and Hospitality Club. A search of the Web will turn up dozens more. Try them out.

[Suggestions welcomed.]