I traveled a lot as a child. The love for travel was instilled in me by my mother. At a young age, ten, twelve, mostly every other year I would fly to Germany either alone or with a sister (I have three sisters) for the summer. My mother is German, and that gave me the opportunity to visit her family and immerse myself in a different culture for the summer. I remember a lot of miming, pointing and giggling as I got comfortable with the German in each visit. I grew up in an international household, but German was not spoken frequently at home. My father is Nicaraguan and my mother is German. In our home it was a combination of English and Spanish that was spoken. I was born in Nicaragua and my family moved to the US when I was six years old. I remember learning English... I remember not being able to understand the difference between "share" and "chair". I can giggle about that now, but I mostly feel compassion. I feel accountable to others that are not native English speakers, I'm sympathetic and I remember. Even after mastering English I still find references that I don't understand, because I didn't grow up in a household with English as the primary language. Then when I flip back to Spanish, I find the same challenge there! Oh boy. Throwing German in the mix didn't make it harder, it was fine, I had done this before...and it made it easier to do it again.
Building Perspective
Traveling as a teenager gave me perspective. It taught me that there were bigger issues than the trendy wardrobe in style. It taught me how to handle conflict, how to deal in being uncomfortable and how to handle a new situation. I remember vivid conversations where girls were mocking me over wearing the "wrong" shoes in middle school and looking at them confused, thinking to myself, could their whole worlds really revolve around the importance of shoes? I look back now and realize that I was able to think that way because I had perspective. I was able to see the world differently, because I "had" seen the world differently. If you don't step away from your day-to-day norm, you can't see things differently! It was a revelation! Now as a mother I want to give this gift of perspective found through travel to my children.
So again, where did the idea start?
It started small. I love to travel, I always have. We did the normal visit to grandparents and family trips. Those were great, but they got repetitive quickly. Even with my family spread throughout, I was still hungry for more. When my boys were 9 and 7, we decided it was time for a family of four vacation, implying my husband, my two boys and myself. We wanted something grand, we needed something outdoors, and we wanted to do something that the four of us had never done before. National Parks it was. We wanted to visit a collection of National Parks. We headed out west, with a family vacation leave of three weeks. Read more about our "Our trip out west, USA" here. With this trip under our belt, we had the travel bug! I started counting how many US states we had visited and realized we could do all 50! So we started chipping away one trip at a time. It's not fair to just drive through a state and count it, so we started establishing rules to what counted as a "true visit". Read more about our "Traveling all 50 US States" here. It took the kids a little bit to get into the checklist of visiting states, but I hear pride when they share our stories with their friends. After the initial visiting all 50 US States bug, I started planning more trip... My mother takes her grandchildren one by one on amazing vacations. She gifts them a summer of travel, of learning a new language (German or Spanish). She gifts them the most rewarding gift. I'm so proud of her and aspire to do this for my grandchildren one day. I really enjoyed planning her trip and was determined to spend a summer like this with my kids too! Read more about these "Amazing Grandma summer's here".
Okay, okay, now the reason and action
Wanting it for myself, wanting the travel for myself with my kids, with my husband, for our family is when the itch started. Watching my kids grow up without enough perspective, with screens and the impact it was having on them is when I realized I couldn't wait much longer. Then my 12 year old surpassed me in height, his voice got deeper and I watched years flash before my eyes. I realized this was the summer to make it happen... Time to save money, get a plan, plant the seeds and get this idea rolling.
Why Travel?
- As noted above, it builds perspective.
- It gets you out of your comfort zone.
- It makes us compassionate.
- It's so much fun!
- It doesn't need to be expensive.