By Catherine H. Knott, Ph.D.Traveling the world with a daughter can be a wonderful way to nurture close family bonds as well as an adolescent's self-esteem and life skills. After a few shorter and more moderately priced trips, you may find yourselves ready to try a more demanding trip. Your daughter will take pride in graduating to planning a more challenging trip; going farther afield will open her eyes in new ways as well. For my family, the moment came this past year, when I discovered my college teaching semester had an earlier end to spring classes than usual. We had a longer window of time available, and we grabbed it with both hands. When the economy took its spectacular downward plunge this year, I had my doubts. I wasn’t sure we could plan a big trip. But I watched the ticket prices, and like the unexpected mango rains of West Africa, in mid-spring both the ticket prices to Europe and the value of the euro began to drop. France – Here We Come! I held my breath, and bought tickets with our tax return money. We planned a trip to France. End point Paris – the Eiffel tower she’d dreamed of. But where would we go before that? I asked her to plan most of it. Tell me what you want to do, I asked. “I want to get a tan at the Mediterranean beaches, and I want to ride a horse on the beach. I’d like to see a castle. I want to see the Mona Lisa and Notre Dame.” We went. Family issues almost prevented the trip, but her brothers insisted – she needed to go and learn that she could travel to Europe. “In four or five years, she’ll be old enough to go on her own,” my middle son, who has traveled in Africa and India, said. “Make sure you teach her she can do it.” We traveled to Arles, arriving just in time for the Festival of Arles, featuring the Gardiens – the cowboys of Southern France and their families – in a gorgeous costume parade and rodeo spectacle on the white horses of the Camargue for two brilliantly sunny days. We loved Arles, with its massive Roman architecture and Spanish flavor. Those were our only nights in a hotel. We took a bus to the Camargue, where we camped on the Mediterranean at Saintes Maries de la Mer, a tourist town with horseback riding nearby and a historic cathedral, the site of the famous gypsy pilgrimage each year at the end of May. We rode horses on the beach, and she played in the Mediterranean, though it was a bit cold for tanning. After several days and nights she was ready to move on. “But let’s find another campground with a swimming pool like this one has!” she said. European campgrounds can be a lot more luxurious than American ones. We took the train to Avignon, and set up our tent at a truly luxurious campground complete with swimming pool, food shop and café, at a fraction of the cost of a hotel. The campground was located on a large island in the middle of the Rhone. To get to Avignon each day, we took a romantic three-minute ferry ride across the river. We visited the Palais des Papes and the beautiful gardens overlooking the city. We took tea at a British bookstore so she could buy the next book in the vampire series. We took the electric miniature bus and toured the narrow cobbled streets. We spent our spare euros (of which there were few) on tiny chocolate treats from the most elegant chocolate shop we could find. We visited the market and bought souvenirs for her friends. We hiked one day in Provence and exhausted ourselves on the hot hills in springtime, and barely caught the bus back. We loved Avignon and stayed six days. Finally, we went to Paris. We found another campground on a river, just a short train ride to Paris so that we could spend the money we had left on the tourist sites, visiting them in a whirlwind of activity. We visited the markets, the pet shops, the Musee d’Orsay and, in a pouring rainstorm, the Louvre, where we spent hours in awe, and she got her photo of the Mona Lisa. My daughter, with indomitable energy, insisted on climbing all the stairs to the top of the Arc de Triomphe, the top of the Tower at Notre Dame and all three levels at the Eiffel Tower. I highly recommend them all, but most especially the Eiffel Tower. From there, one sees an expanse of Paris from every viewing point, 360 degrees of exhilarating vision of possibilities, at a totally scary height. The second most memorable moment for me was watching workmen climb out the window at the top level, hooked into the merest rock-climbing harnesses, and held up by what looked like a yard of fishing net, to paint the outside of the Eiffel Tower. The most memorable moment was waiting with my daughter until the last possible minute to take the train back to our campground on the last night, so that she could see the Eiffel Tower lit up at night. She insisted, and she was right. It was breathtaking. Learning from Experience By the end of the trip she was a master at the metro, could manage basic greetings and could buy what she needed in French. She understood the different measuring systems and how the exchange rate worked, and how to change money, buy train and bus tickets, and negotiate Charles de Gaulle better than I could. She’s ready. Even if we can’t take one more trip together (though I’m sure we will), she knows she can do it herself. She can travel to Europe, to India, even to Africa, the Amazon and Asia with friends. She has both confidence and knowledge, and even a bit of savvy about how to travel cheap. Before the young man whom the Yosemite Institute honors with their travel award died, his motto was, “Don’t just talk to me about it, do it!” Our daughters need to hear that motto, and know that, with a little planning and self-confidence, the world can be theirs. When I asked my daughter one day what her wildest dream trip would be, she said unexpectedly that she wanted, when she was 20, to travel with the Reindeer Chukchi, the nomadic reindeer-herding people in the arctic tundra of the Russian Federation. Her interest stemmed from a movie we saw together and a book she read herself. “It’s too cold for me!” I said, “You might have to do that one on your own.” “I know,” she said simply, “I’m planning on lots of warm, specialized gear, just like people use above the arctic circle in Barrow, Alaska.” But for next year, she’s setting her sights on something a lot easier. She’d like to go to India, she says, when she’s 13.
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