“被中国军方拦住，把我们吓了个半死。”比尔?马尔-约翰逊(Bill Marr-Johnson)大笑道，“我们正好碰上对方军演——坦克轰鸣着穿梭翻飞，野战炮蓄势待发。中国军方扣了我们三个小时，让我们很紧张，因为不知对方会如何处置。”
“Being stopped by the Chinese army was fairly hair-raising,” says Bill Marr-Johnson with a chuckle. “We had come across a military manoeuvre — tanks rumbling up and down, field guns dug in. They kept us for three hours. We were on edge because we had no idea how they were going to treat us.”
我们当时正在进行为时三周的西藏游，兼住着酒店与长途货运司机的露宿点（水泥地宿舍中放着铁架子床）。“这些长途司机的留宿地还凑合，”他说，“唯一问题就是茅厕，它们总是臭气熏天。”他最近的旅程还包括了去越南、阿塞拜疆、阿布哈兹（Abkhazia，准自治国，位于俄罗斯与格鲁吉亚之间）、中国的塔克拉玛干沙漠(Taklamakan Desert)以及很多中亚国家。
That was on a three-week trip through Tibet, staying at a mix of hotels and truckers’ stops with metal beds in concrete-floored dormitories. “They were fine,” he says, “the only problem was the long-drop toilets, which are never cleaned.” His other recent expeditions have included visits to Vietnam, Azerbaijan, Abkhazia (the would-be autonomous state between Russia and Georgia), China’s Taklamakan Desert, and many of the ‘Stans.
这些旅游目的地与游记是间隔年（高中毕业后至上大学前学业间断的一年）学生旅游归来后最津津乐道的事，但马尔-约翰逊并非即将步入大学之门的人，他已是72岁高龄。
They are the sort of destinations and travellers’ tales any returning gap year student would be delighted to have under their belt, but Mr Marr-Johnson is not on his way up to university. He is 72.
这位来自伦敦西南克拉珀姆(Clapham)的退休特许测量师的下一个旅游目的地是大洋洲的巴布亚新几内亚(Papua New Guinea)，届时他将乘船深入部落腹地探险旅游；接下来他还计划游历耶路撒冷、阿曼以及北高加索地区几个国家。“我的信条是：能做的时候赶快做。”他喜形于色道。
For his next trip, the retired chartered surveyor from Clapham, south west London, will visit Papua New Guinea, travelling by boat into the tribal hinterlands. After that, Jerusalem, Oman and a traverse of the north Caucasus are on his list. “The moral is: do it while you can,” he says with evident glee.
虽然马尔-约翰逊的旅行癖超乎想象，但他与其说是个游行者，倒不如说他契合了旅游业界公认的一种主流。
And though his wanderlust is clearly prodigious, Mr Marr-Johnson is less of an outlier than part of what the travel industry is recognising as a key trend.
过去，退休旅游就是乘游船、打高尔夫、周末文化游以及冬日沙滩沐浴阳光游，但近几年出境游与探险游需求则是呈井喷势发展。
Where once travel in retirement meant cruises, golf, cultural weekend trips and winter sun beach breaks, recent years have seen a surge in demand for exotic and adventurous travel.
“过去五至七年，我们亲眼目睹了这一现象。”Wild Frontiers旅行社创始人强尼?贝尔比(Jonny Bealby)说，马尔-约翰逊经常与其结伴旅游。
“We have really noticed it in the last five to seven years,” says Jonny Bealby, the founder of tour operator Wild Frontiers, with whom Mr Marr-Johnson has often travelled.
“到旅游展会，大家看到的都是同年龄段的人。婴儿潮出生的一代人看到自己的间隔年的孩子游玩回来上大学去了，自己会想：唉，我们以前没有机会外出游玩。除非是闯荡世界的嬉皮士一族（寥寥无几）；要知道上世纪70年代的生活紧紧巴巴，大家都在讨生活，靠工作养家糊口。如今有些积蓄了，还清了房贷，孩子们也已长大成人，自己有不菲的养老金，于是想要去到处走走。”
“If you go to the travel shows you see the same demographic. The baby boomers have seen their kids come back from gap years and adventures and they are thinking, hang on, we never had a chance to do that. Unless you were on the hippy trail — and that was a tiny minority — life in the 1970s was quite serious, you had to get on and get a career going. Now they have made their money, paid off the mortgage, the kids have left home, they have got decent pensions, and they want to spend it on experiences.”
英国国家统计局(UK Office for National Statistics)的数据表明：2014-16年间， 65岁以上国民出境游飚升了13.7%。英国旅行社协会(Association of British Travel Agents)的独立调查表明：截止2017年8月的一年时间里，65岁以上国民出游大幅飚升；相比其它年龄段国民，他们更愿意选择出境游。
Figures from the UK Office for National Statistics show the number of British over-65s travelling overseas leapt by 13.7 per cent from 2014 to 2016. A separate survey from the Association of British Travel Agents suggests that, after a significant increase in the 12 months to August 2017, over-65s are now more likely to take foreign holidays than any other age group.
但出境游最多的却是选择探险旅游。
But it is at the more adventurous end of the travel industry that the effect is being most keenly felt.
去年，贝尔比带了个旅游团爬过了吉尔吉斯海拔4100米高的一座山口，其中一个已届74岁高龄，“他走得可一点都不慢”。
Last year, Mr Bealby led a walking group across a 4,100m pass in Kyrgyzstan, including one group member who was 74, “and he was far from the slowest, not by a long chalk”.