The Independent 28 January 2007

Sex and travel, it appears, are top of the agenda. An online survey published last October asked 1,500 people over 65 whether they had regrets. The results were surprising. Rather than dreaming back to a lost golden era, it found that many older people envy the lifestyles of the young. Seventy per cent wished they had had more sex, 57 per cent would have liked to have travelled more, and 45 per cent wished they had quit their jobs and changed profession.

Known, unflatteringly, to the travel industry as the "denture venturers" or the "Saga louts", there are an estimated 200,000 pre-retirement "gappers" in the UK. They spend around £5,000 per trip, totalling an impressive £1bn per year.