Age of adventure for retirees

Yang Bei (right) and her family spent about four months touring the world in a recreational vehicle in 2014. [Photo provided to China Daily]

The elderly couple from Sichuan's provincial capital, Chengdu, has in recent years visited the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region's Guilin in southern China, northeastern China's Changbai Mountains and Qinghai Lake in western China.

"Our children are away at work," the 76-year-old explains.

"We have our pension and time. So why not travel and enjoy ourselves?"

The couple is also hunting for a clean and leisurely place to spend the rest of their lives.

Somewhere good for their health.

So far, Jin is leaning toward Guangxi's Bama.

More elderly Chinese are traveling amid a growing economy and improved living standards, coupled with lots of free time.

A recent China National Committee on Aging survey says senior citizens have become a tourism-market force.

They account for more than 20 percent of the country's tourists, it says.

The number of Chinese older than 60 reached 220 million by the end of 2015, accounting for 16.1 percent of the population, the National Bureau of Statistics' data show.

The figure is expected to reach roughly 400 million by 2050.

Elderly Chinese show robust wanderlust.