The new year is upon us and ’tis the season of resolutions.
I’ve never been one for making New Year’s resolutions – not for the fact that I cannot stick with them but simply because I find it more enjoyable to set multiple goals for myself throughout the year. Why pledge to “change your life” every January when you can accomplish several smaller goals over the course of twelve months?
Have baby, will travel
This year, however, I’ve broken my own code to make a consciencious year-long change to my travel philosophy. In two short weeks, my daughter will reach her milestone first birthday. Already in her short life, she has logged around 30,000 air miles, two major international trips and some hellishly long hours on a plane. While my life is exponentially better for having her in it, her mere presence alone has changed the way I travel. Gone are the days of the pick up and go weekend jaunt, the sleeping in a yurt, the late dinners at a streetside stall, the overnight bus trips to reach that next sight at sunrise. Now my backpack is a suitcase and more likely to be stuffed with diapers and sippy cups than doxy pills and a well-thumbed paperback. My airline flight miles languish in their account. I phone ahead to hotels to see if cribs are available. And if the fireworks/dinner cruise/cultural show starts later than 7pm, it’s not on the to-do list for this trip.
There is, of course, an upside to this drastic change (aside from the cushier beds at night 
) Traveling with my daughter has made me slow down. It’s made me take the little moments and turn them into my raison d’etre. No longer do I travel solely with the checklist of things I’d hope to accomplish - the monuments to snap, the museums to wander through, the meals to savor. Instead, I am learning to seize the moment. And it works. A desperate attempt at a much-needed naptime led to a long stroll on a beautifully secluded beach in Ireland. A relaxing day in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Gyo-en (Park) led to new local friends with children of their own. And when crankiness forced an early lunch stop on Hawaii’s North Shore, I had the best crab sandwich I’ve ever eaten in my life.
However you choose to travel in 2012, perhaps the best resolution is to make it count.
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Written By Mandy Bartok.
I so appreciate this perspective! My kids are older now – in their teens – but how I remember that initial sense of being hampered by a baby. And yet, it is precisely that being forced to slow down that allows us to savor more of what is in a moment. An outlook I am perpetually reminding myself to embrace, when traveling and otherwise.
Mandy, I shared your post with Ginny Figlar Colon, whom I knew initially in graduate school at the University of Colorado. She, like you, is an avid traveler and now a mother of little ones. I thought you’d enjoy her blog post reflecting on travels in London, which mirror much of what you reflect on above! It’s here: http://swedishfig.typepad.com/a_fig_in_sweden/2009/04/the-nontouristy-side-of-london.html
Thanks for sharing, Wendy! I could definitely relate to Ginny’s time in London with her daughter. Traveling with children can be quite the chore but it does have its golden moments as well.