I've always considered travel to be an important part of my life. We live in an interesting world and I dream of seeing a lot of it. During my twenties, planning my next trip was a driving goal in my life.
Studying abroad in Scotland during college gave me the travel bug, and I continued to take trips back to Europe in my early twenties. I traveled with any friend I could convince to go with me. We stayed in pensions with bathrooms down the halls and generally roughed it a bit until one of us broke down and charged a good meal or two.
Once my now husband and I started dating, we began to travel together. We took great trips, to the national and state parks of Utah, to Quebec and Montreal and the countryside in between. We upgraded a bit from my single travel days, but still tried to stay in little out of the way bed and breakfasts for the most part. Our honeymoon was to Italy, exploring off season and haunted-seeming Venice, driving around Tuscany and Umbria, staying at a working farmhouse, exploring medieval winding streets.
Then we decided to have a baby. And one of my main fears was the loss of travel freedom. I hadn't even checked a bag my entire adult life - I prided myself on traveling with a carry-on duffel bag filled with interchangeable black clothes and not much else. It seemed clear that I would never get on a plane again once we had a baby. I'd seen babies on planes and they were not a pretty site. Stressed out parents and crying baby in a middle row, surrounded by mysteriously overstuffed carry-ons spilling out into other people's space. Of course what I didn't know then was that those were the noticeable babies - the others were cuddled in their Baby Bjorns being cooed at by proud parents and grateful row mates.
Life goes on and love of travel or not, we knew it was time and were mostly ready for parenthood. We took one more trip before trying, one more trip during trying (why not try to conceive in Hawaii?) and one more while I was pregnant. That last vacation stemmed from a very helpful article stating that the second trimester was your last chance to travel properly without children.
And then we had our baby. Turns out travel was the last thing on my mind once our baby joined our life. I was too awed, busy and exhausted. And I learned how everything really does change once you are a parent. Priorities completely shifted. The world seemed a lot smaller suddenly, with the most important thing in it cuddled in my arms.
Of course time passed, life settled down, and it turned out leaving a baby, or two, with doting grandparents in order to take a grown-up vacation here or there was just fine. And for family vacation fun, loading up the car and driving to beautiful and nearby Fire Island couldn't be beat.
And then, before we knew it, our boys seemed ready for trips involving plane rides themselves. We've started easy - Disney World. It's the antithesis to everything I used to consider important in a vacation - it's big, touristy and the complete opposite of undiscovered, but it's loads of fun for the kids and for us. It's easy to plan, easy to get to, and an all around safe choice. We're all happy when we're there - happy enough to have gone three years in a row.
Though now it seems like there will be adventurous travel again in our future. The boys already have some good ideas themselves - the little one wants to see pandas in China, both want to see a rain forest and the Arctic. And seeing the world with my boys, even if we have to check our bags, actually sounds really good.
