Boomeropia

There’s a new site targeting Baby Boomers and travel: Boomeropia. Here's a little piece in USA Today about it.

In the original edition of my book, published in 2005 (it’s also in the updated paperback) I spend a few pages imagining the perfect travel web site for Boomers. Boomeropia isn’t it – but it does have a few of the ingredients I’d suggested. It’s definitely a smorgasbord of vacation ideas. That’s good.

The name Boomeropia is abominable. In my book I warn against calling Boomers Boomers and naming anything “Boomer-whatever”. But they’ll find out soon enough. When I see “Boomeropia” I think of those neologism contests, mostly blends. Boomeropia sounds to me like a blend of boomer and myopia - a term boomer-bashers (a neoligism! as is 'baby boomers') might come up with:

Boomeropia: A psychological disorder prevalent in Baby Boomers who have convinced themselves that they are the only generation of any importance. In advanced stages of the disease, patients believe that there is only one generation - Baby Boomers. All other generations are merely cohorts and wannabes. Also known as “The Me Generation”.)

Perhaps they were trying to blend “Boomer” and “Utopia” - but that domain (Boomertopia) was taken. Who knows.

For the record: This blog and my book are B2B, not B2C. I use the term “Baby Boomers” because it’s a common sociological and business/marketing term.

At the moment, Boomeropia is simply a vacation aggregator – a collection of descriptions and links to other sites. Clicking around, I found some interesting ones – including a handful of top-notch suggestions in their excellent section for grandparents/grandchildren (a big market). The handicap section (again, not really the appropriate or smart term to use) is sparse - and if they'd done their research it would've included the top blog in the world on this subject: Rolling Rains. Although Dr. Rains is anything but handicapped. I'd have trouble keeping up with him. (Actually, I don't think I could. He'd leave me out of breath in hotel rooms to recover - as he again headed out the door to do things I'd never do.)

There’s also a meager but pretty good for beginners travel tips section (where they use another word you don’t want to use: Seniors) and a simple bulletin board.

Site Design: Nobody paid any attention at all to colors and color contrasts, wishy-washy type over pictures, fonts and size, etc. – and the headache-inducing effects these have on older eyes. Too bad. However, Boomeropia is clean, a breeze to navigate, and the simple hierarchy is refreshing.

All in all, it's not a bad site to zip through if you're planning a vacation. You'll probably pick up a few ideas and tips.