Myself and my 2 sisters at the farm in Ohio
Travelling as a family when I was younger is drastically different to what I know of travel now. We never travelled outside of North America. Every summer we drove to the family farm in Ohio (from Toronto) and we would sometimes go to Canadian cities like Montreal or Vancouver if my Dad had business there. Lastly, my parents like to golf so they would find cheap flights to Orlando or Sarasota during our cold Canadian winters.
Farmhouse, Ohio – USA
Our trips often consisted of myself and my two older sisters fighting. We would see a museum or two, eat at fancy restaurants and stay in swanky hotels – where we would swim and ride the elevator up and down all day . These trips seemed far more stressful, even though everything was far more organized. Not to mention that 90% of the time we went on vacation it rained. I think my family is cursed.
Orlando, Florida
In many ways travel has changed for me:
- I drink a lot more beer than I did when I was 12
- I move slowly. Stress is low
- I no longer have to be forced to take an afternoon nap
- Swimming pools? I’m lucky if I get hot water in the shower!
- There are no girls fighting me over who gets to press the elevator button or pulling my hair
- Street food is a perfectly acceptable meal
- No one buys me stuff when I’m in a tourist store and say “I like this lots”
- I rarely go to museums
- Culture shock in Asia is different than culture shock at Disney Land (or should I say ‘culture ROCK’ in D-Land? Hur, hur)
Alas, there are still similarities:
- I have to share a room with people that annoy me
- If I pout, and ask politely, I can usually get a window seat on a plane
- My discman may have morphed into an ipod, but I still listen to music the whole time
- I have to tell my parents where I am
- I forget to pack things
- I loose much of the things I remembered to pack
- Everything is so different than it is at home
5 Comments
I traveled a lot with my parents when I was younger.
We used to go camping about twice or sometimes three times a year.
Never outside of Europe though.
In the summer we always went to France for three weeks. A different part of the country each year.
In spring or autumn we also used to go to France for one week.
We made visits to villages, museums, lakes, beaches, etc. Always quite cultural.
Then when my sister and I were older, we decided we’d seen enough of France and wanted to go someplace else. So we went to Denmark one year in the summer, to Switzerland the year after and the last time I traveled with my parents we went to the Czech Repubic.
Sometimes we’d do citytrips in the weekends, to Paris, Berlin or London for example.
I used to love traveling with my parents, I especially loved camping 🙂
I’m glad my parents liked to travel, cause it taught me a lot about other cultures and countries and I think it’s the reason I still love to travel, although I now want to see more outside of Europe.
oh man! that sounds so much more exciting than watching my parents play golf! haha
All the road trips we ever took was to visit family only. We would all pack into a Suburban with 5 kids and head down to South Padre Island. While we were able to go to the beach, they always had the intention of being with fam.
I cannot tell you how many times I’ve listened to the entire collection of Chicago or the Beatles Anthology.
haha I was all about my U2 – The Joshua Tree… and the Phantom of the Opera
I can’t believe I just admitted that about The Phantom CD