Grandparents would be proud of family’s travels abroad

My family didn’t take annual vacations to the beach when I was a kid ― in fact, I can probably count the number of times we went to the beach on one hand, outside of church youth group trips or my mom’s work conferences. We just weren’t beach people. Granted, we would have had to endure a long, eight-hour drive to the nearest coast.

I can also count the number of times we went to Disney World ― twice. Granted, traveling to Orlando was an extremely expensive trip, especially for a single mom with two girls.

Instead, our family sometimes went camping, often in my grandparent’s RV. Either that or we took a couple of out-of-state road trips to visit family in Minnesota or attend a family reunion in Illinois and South Dakota. A few times we flew to California, to visit more relatives.

But my passion for travel came through pictures ― from trips we didn’t even go on.

My grandfather was an agronomist (another word for “soil scientist”) who traveled extensively in the Middle East and Asia. He taught the world about best soil practices to ensure the best outcomes for farmers. As a kid, I didn’t really know what all that meant, except that my grandfather had friends and visitors from all over the world and he would bring back gifts whenever he came back from his trips.

Later, after his retirement, my grandfather and my grandmother would spend weeks every year traveling. Sometimes they camped in their RV, but more often than not, they’d take at least one or two international trips each year. And every time after they’d return, we’d go to their house to hear about their trip. We’d be given souvenirs they bought while abroad and then we would all gather in their living room to watch a slide show of pictures from their travels.

During those slide shows I caught the first glimmers of my passion for travel. I can still hear the hum of the slide projector and the “click-click” of the slide deck. I saw images of glaciers in Alaska, the mountains of Austria, the fjords of Norway and the peaks of Machu Picchu, all in the lighted projection of my grandfather’s pop-up projector screen.

All I knew is that I wanted to go to those places, too. A passion for travel was born.

I had never been to another country until I was 14, when I went to spend six weeks in Norway with a pen pal/distant cousin. But that experience forever changed my perspective of the world and my place in it.

I knew, from that experience, that not everyone lived the way I did and that I wanted to see more of the world. I knew travel was important. Between ages 14 and 24, I visited 14 countries outside the U.S., including five trips to Europe, one to Central America and one to the Caribbean.

While “real life,” parenthood and a full-time career make travel more difficult, my husband and I both have put a priority on travel for our family. Our kids have all been to Europe (more than once, for the oldest two) and when it comes to family vacations, we tend to prefer National Parks or trips abroad.

I want my kids to grow up appreciating a global point of view, and to learn the lesson that I learned myself as a teen: that you sometimes learn more about yourself and who you are from when you experience more of the world around you.

And so, when my daughter approached me last year about her school going on a spring break trip to Japan, I knew I could only have one answer ― yes. Or technically, two: “Yes and can I go, too?”

In all my travels, I’ve never been to Asia. Sadly, I’ve never even thought about going to Asia, outside of watching my grandparent’s slideshows from China and Thailand all those years ago. But in a short couple of weeks, I’ll be in Japan with my teenage daughter, reinforcing a passion for travel which I hope is something that will be passed down from generation to generation.

And I can only think of my grandparents. I know they’d be proud.

Lydia Seabol Avant writes The Mom Stop for The Tuscaloosa News. Reach her at [email protected].

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