As soon as my daughter Ailigh could read, we gave her a job at every airport: get us to the gate. It was our way of teaching her to find her way—and believe she could. Now, whenever we travel, she’s the one working out backseat solutions to unexpected challenges. The ferry is sold out—what are our options? Mom forgot to extend our Airbnb for the last night in Rome? “We can sleep at the airport,” she suggested. (Her dad and I appreciated her resiliency but opted for beds and a shower.)
We’ve always been an on-the-go family, from day trips to extended camping road trips. But when Ailigh landed at a school with a two-week spring break, we realized we couldn’t afford not to prioritize international travel. If not now, when?
Looking back, I see how each of our adventures reshaped the way we think, plan, spend, and dream—rewiring not just how we travel, but how we live.
Rome: our family travel training wheels
Our first big trip was on the tail end of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2022. I found great flights to Rome at a price we could afford. Italy still had many restrictions in place to keep people safe, so we decided it would be less stressful to spend our entire vacation in one place.
Two major lessons we took away from that trip: traveling during periods of uncertainty means no crowds, good prices and plenty of access without advance planning. For instance, the Vatican Museum typically caps attendance at 35,000 people per day; it was capped at 7,000 while we were there. There were times we enjoyed galleries entirely alone. Second: We are lingerers who talk to the third-generation gelato maker and then return each day for a scoop. Staying longer in one place is our speed.
No vacation time is wasted packing, schlepping and traveling between destinations, leaving space for everyone to recharge and discover something unexpected. For us, that included an after-dark photo safari for my husband David; flea market finds at a sprawling Sunday market for Ailigh; and the aperitivo hour—an Aperol spritz, snacks and people-watching on Piazza di Santa Maria—for me.
Every memory from that first trip to Rome is preserved like a photo taken during the golden hour—glowing, timeless, full of promise. When we start to doubt whether we can pull off the next adventure, those photos remind us why we must.
Peru: traveling in times of unrest
My mom died unexpectedly just after the new year. By the time we’d traveled, made arrangements and held her service, spring break was suddenly upon us— and we hadn’t planned a thing. I was settling into the idea of staying home—until I looked back at our Rome photos and felt an urgency. These spring breaks are valuable time for us as a family, and I didn’t want to let this one go.
That’s how I found myself considering an invitation to Peru, a month after Machu Picchu reopened following nationwide protests that had shut the country down. The Cusco-Sacred Valley-Machu Picchu corridor remained nearly empty of travelers, in part because the U.S. State Department hadn’t updated its Level 3 Travel Advisory since Dec. 22, 2022.
Another lesson surfaced: You have to dig beyond the headlines because sometimes advisories are outdated or apply only to specific regions. As a precaution, I registered our travel plans with the U.S. State Department’s Smart Traveler Enrollment Program, packed light and bought travel insurance that included “political or security evacuation.” In the end, none of it was needed.
Few people had returned to visit Peru, and we had Machu Picchu nearly to ourselves. When we reached the iconic ridge where explorer Hiram Bingham stood in 1911, the site was obscured by clouds. Our guide, Joseph, gave us a history lesson in the rain until the wind swept the clouds away, revealing the ancient Inca city in the sky. The light shifted from moment to moment, as though compressing multiple visits into one.
We didn’t rush back to Cusco. We stayed another night to reflect on it. David and I relaxed in the hotel’s Andean Sauna, a eucalyptus hut heated with river stones. When we returned to our room, Ailigh was soaking outdoors in the private warm pool surrounded by the Peruvian cloud forest, drinking hot chocolate and streaming her favorite movie. No theme park could match a magical experience like this.
One evening in Cusco, Ailigh asked if she could linger longer on her own after dinner. We said “no;” she was only 13. Watching her confidence grow as a stranger in a strange land is one of the most rewarding aspects of traveling as a family.
The future we didn’t see coming
Since saying “yes” to Peru, we’ve taken two more big family trips. In Scotland, we connected with relatives and navigated the challenge of driving on the left side of the road. Most recently, our return to Rome took us deeper into the Eternal City, exploring quieter corners that made the city feel like our own.
Travel has also begun to take a solo shape. Ailigh spent three weeks in Rwanda with a global studies program through her school. I turned a four-day conference in Istanbul into three weeks of travel across Türkiye. David reunited with an old friend in Europe and checked a few long-held dreams off his list, including a backstage pass at the Paris Opera House.
Now, at age 15, Ailigh is ready to fly the nest—earlier than I expected. She doesn’t even have her driver’s license. But next fall, she’ll spend a semester in Italy. In her application essay, she wrote, “Going to Italy for a semester is a sample for the rest of my life—a hint at the exploration that will happen, and the people I will meet and the impact they will have on my life.”
It’s not lost on her dad or me that these months away will shape how she imagines her future. It’s already shifted how we see our own.
As Ailigh prepares for her semester in Italy, David and I are sketching out a trial version of our own—maybe a few months living somewhere new, a preview of what retirement in another country could feel like.
How do we pay for all of this? That’s another essay. But each trip rewires our priorities a little more, guiding conscious financial decisions and intentional trade-offs. Travel isn’t a reward for how we live. It’s how we choose to live.And soon, Ailigh will be finding her gate again—only this time, in a country of her own choosing, without us beside her. That was always the hope, wasn’t it? That all of these shared miles would one day become her compass.
Photo courtesy of Megan Padilla
