For Travelers in the Gray ‘90s, It’s About Time : Trends: A poll recently disclosed that half of all adult Americans expect to vacation outside the continental United States during the next 10 years.

In the 1990s, America’s baby boomers will come of travel age--if they haven’t done so already. With careers largely made and earnings at a peak, the kids are up and running. As a result, this generation is ready to explore the world in a way that’s never been done. Some travel agents are calling their big rush the “Gray ‘90s.”

What they want, according to a recent national survey of travelers and industry experts, is travel that departs from the familiar, seeks the exotic--and comes with a money-back guarantee.

Not only will the boomers swell the ranks of leisure travelers, but half of all adult Americans expect to vacation outside the continental United States during the next 10 years, according to a Washington Post survey.

Another survey of travelers and travel experts found that about four out of five vacationers plan to make more trips in the ‘90s than they did in the past five years, and fewer than one in 12 expect to cut back on travel.

That survey also expected:

--Americans to travel farther for shorter periods, favoring weekend trips, cruises and independent tours.

--Trips to be more frequent, though not necessarily less expensive.

--Airports to be as bad as ever.

Time, not money, will shape many travel plans. More than half of the travel agents questioned in the Tour and Travel News and Ask Mr. Foster poll predicted that getaways of two to five days will be the most frequently taken trips in the early to mid-’90s, continuing a trend that began in the late ‘80s.

“Many (baby boomers) had two incomes, which means two things,” said Linda Ball, editorial director of Tour and Travel News. “They have more money to spend, and they face the challenge of trying to coordinate two schedules.”

In the poll nearly half of the leisure travelers interviewed agreed that “getting away will be even more of a necessity now” than five years ago. For some, travel literally may be just what the doctor orders.

“It’s the stress level of modern life,” Ball said. “People have more of a need for a reality break. You used to have mental-health days, today you have getaways.”

All this is good news for the travel industry. Experts predict that revenue growth will be greatest in the pricey end of the travel business.

The baby boomers, whose children are mostly grown and gone--becoming what the industry calls “untethered marrieds”--will suddenly be freed from the need to stay in budget motels near family oriented attractions. Increasingly, they are likely to choose the comfort of more luxurious accommodations, if only for the weekend.

That’s not to say that cost will be no object. According to the Tour and Travel poll, 78% of those leisure travelers interviewed said finding moderately priced accommodations was important when selecting a hotel. Still, travel agents reported that only 17% of their clients chose budget hotels and 62% stayed at moderately priced hotels.

Travelers in the ‘90s will be much more sophisticated, according to industry analysts, and far more demanding.

“Many more people have experience traveling on business and apply it to their leisure travel,” Ball said. “There’s a lot more information available. And the more information available, the smarter they get and the more demanding they get.”

This familiarity will breed contempt for familiar destinations, both in the United States and abroad, and will bring an interest in adventure trips and travel to remote destinations.

“There will be a richer mosaic of possibilities,” Ball said. “More active trips, not as passive as they were in the ‘70s. People want to go to New Zealand to walk on the Milford Track. They’re not going to Australia to look at the kangaroos, but to scuba dive on the Great Barrier Reef.”

This adventuresome spirit will even be part of those long weekend getaways, which industry observers say can pack sufficient thrills into three or four days to satisfy all but the most jaded adventurer.

In fact, Tour and Travel experts designed this prototype vacation based on responses from their survey of travel agents: “A short cruise featuring first-class accommodations and an itinerary that includes either cultural or adventure-oriented shore excursions.” The success of one-day “cruises to nowhere” out of Miami to gamble and shop in Freeport, the Bahamas, have shown that even day-trips don’t have to be dull.

In the ‘90s many first-time travelers will get their feet wet in Fiji, not Florida. The Tour and Travel poll showed that interest in independent and adventure travel is exceptionally strong among those who had never traveled extensively.

“What we see now among this group are people trying their first trip to some longstanding interest,” Ball said. “Sport-fishing in Belize, crafts in South America, travel linked to some interest in their lives. The world just seems much more accessible to people in general.”

Older Americans, too, will seek a more active, participatory kind of travel.

“Ten years ago senior citizen travel was thought of as just one thing: little old ladies with blue hair on buses, or at least that was the image,” Ball said. “Now, as life styles have changed, people have come to realize that being older doesn’t mean being passive.”

In fact, agents surveyed reported that they expect the biggest spurt in their business to come from so-called “mature travelers” between 50 and 70, a group that includes the first wave of baby boomers.

“That will be the fastest-growing segment of the population,” Ball said, “and a lot of the wealth of the country will be centered in that group.”

In the next 10 years travel agencies will become more traveler-friendly, according to industry experts.

Agents interviewed in the Tour and Travel poll predicted a proliferation of 800 numbers to help travelers through problems on the road. And there will be more money-back guarantees if paradise turns out to be something less.

“Guarantees seem to be the coming thing,” Ball said. “The guarantees often include the price of accommodations. There will be more snow-vacation packages that will guarantee snow, more sunny places that guarantee sunshine.”

Some travel experts are predicting that the days of the full-service travel agency may be coming to an end; two out of three agents surveyed by Tour and Travel News said they plan to specialize more.

Finding a good travel agent may become somewhat like finding a good doctor.

“You’ll seek more referrals from your friends,” Ball said. “Within a travel agency, you’ll find more individual agents specializing. Now you see cruise specialists.