12 things I learned on our family’s first international trip
Plus, a truly HELPFUL self-help book
We are just back from Barcelona. Was traveling to this vibrant, beautiful, fun city awe-inspiring? Yes. Was traveling internationally with two kids (ages 6 and 9) easy? No.
I spent a lot of time planning this trip, from applying to a house swap community, to finding a host family and exchanging dozens of emails with them, to reading articles and guides and asking friends for tips, to plotting all tips on an extremely comprehensive google map. (BTW if you’re planning a trip, this podcast ep is a must listen! I published a lot of how-to guides like this when I worked as a travel editor, so trust me when I say they absolutely nailed it.)
I wanted to get the kids excited, too. I bought them their own guidebook and storybook; I printed out little interactive coloring booklets on Gaudi and the Picasso museum; I visited my favorite Japanese stationery store and made them their own custom travel journal binders with blank pages for drawing and lined pages for writing.
The kids are old enough now that we don’t need to lug a bunch of gear — no stroller, no diapers, no wipes (could’ve used the wipes actually), no bulky carseats (just these little guys). And, they’re even old enough to be in charge of their own stuff! Each of us had one backpack and one carry-on rolling bag. We were set!
We rented a car to visit the beach one day, but otherwise we stayed put in Barcelona for eight days in order to really get to know it. I wrote up a loose itinerary that left plenty of time for last-minute plans and afternoon siestas.
So why did this trip feel so hard? That’s what I was asking myself about halfway through. It was time to use my gratitude training. Not only did I need to remind myself to fully bask in the amazing moments (of which there were many), but I wanted to find some kind of greater meaning in the more challenging stretches, too. So halfway through the trip, I started jotting down this list.
Things I Learned on Our Family’s First International Trip
Establishing a ritual is comforting. I got this idea from a Samantha Brown reel (worth a follow!) in which she touts the benefits of doing the same thing every day. On a trip, I often get caught up in ticking things off and seeing everything I can. But I absolutely loved the ritual of walking up the block to a local cafe where the family order was: 2 Americanos, 2 freshly squeezed cups of OJ (omg the OJ in Spain! Next level!), 2 big slices of Spanish tortilla, 2 muffins.
The mood of a book affects your mood, so choose a vacation book wisely. The first half of the trip I was reading Vladimir, which I absolutely loved and would highly recommend, but the mood was urgent, anxious, suspenseful. I started noticing that that mood bled into my day. Writers and Lovers, which I read over the second half of the trip, wasn’t all sunshine, but the mood wasn’t as dour, so mine wasn’t either. I finished the book at the Barcelona airport, joyful tears streaming down my face. Have you seen these book flow charts? I would love to see more about MOOD. When I am reading, will I be smiling or laughing or pensive?
Journaling helps keep us away from the phone. Charlie didn’t touch the journal I made him (maybe next time?) but Henry diligently wrote and drew in his. I took my own journal (haven’t kept a travel journal since college!), and wrote in it every day or two during our afternoon rest time at home. It kept me away from my phone and allowed me to process the trip as it was happening. This was a great activity for Henry in down time, too.
Keep goals small (for the day and for the trip) and expect bumps. Kids, man. I’ll quote my friend Amber here and say, it’s not a vacation, it’s a relocation. Because even though we didn’t need to carry the gear that we used to, there is still emotional baggage. This trip is their first time out of the country, their first time surrounded by a language other than their own. To their little bodies and brains, new is scary. So my little one wasn’t psyched about leaving our house or walking for more than ten minutes at a time, and my older one felt anxious about crowds and smokers … aka Europe! I’m thinking of this trip as a baseline for them, and a data point for me. Next time I might mix in more time at the beach or countryside. I am also reminding myself how fast kids’ phases come and go; they will likely be in an entirely different head space the next time around.
Travel is discomfort, and discomfort is growth. I want to clarify my travel goals for myself. I would like us to be a family who travels beyond the beach and the resort and explores new places. My goal isn’t purely relaxation, finding the easiest trip possible. My goal is to take the kids out of their routine and shake up their worlds. My goal is to forge new neural pathways for them, and for me. So are those goals being met? Absolutely. Resorts and all-inclusives take the problems out of travel and that is comfortable… but you lose those growth benefits. (Though hmmm maybe we deserve a super easy resort vacation next time?)
Celebrate the wines. This was a typo in my notes app. Celebrate the wins—and sometimes the win is a nice glass of wine (or cava). I barely drink anymore and wine keeps me up at night, but this typo remains funny to me.
Travel is rapid-fire problem solving. Okay, quick story. We used our host family’s washing machine and promptly broke it. It felt so stressful. How did we break this? Should we try to fix it? While my husband, Jake, worked on that, I took all of our dirty clothes to a laundromat down the block and realized, laundromats are actually awesome, and I shouldn’t be intimidated to use one on our next trip. The laundry was clean and dry in way less time than it would have taken us at home. I did struggle to understand the instructions at first, but a lovely woman helped me out, which gave me all those weak-tie good feelings I wrote about in the Neighbor chapter of my book. While the clothes were drying I went to a cafe and had some lovely time to myself to write in my journal. And then, Jake called me to say he’d fixed the machine! It’s here that Jake wants me to add that the lesson is really that he can fix anything.
Put yourself in the way of beauty. I’m taking this phrase from Cheryl Strayed, or from her mother, Bobbi, specifically. That notion is why, after a day that was sort of a bust (Park Guell tickets sold out, La Boqueria too crowded and loud and smoky for Henry), I insisted on squeezing in a visit to Battlo, despite Charlie crying out, “I feel like everything we do is about Gaudi!!” But everyone loved it, and the hour we spent there really turned the day around.
Put something in kids’ hands at a museum. Charlie ended up loving Battlo in large part because of the audio guide they provided—a phone where you type in a number and it tells you a little story, room by room. Henry absolutely loved the Picasso Museum and the Miro Foundation in large part because I let him take my pictures with my phone as we walked around. He took this one!
Public transportation is awesome. It’s a break from walking and from the heat. The kids get to sit and play their little clapping hand games that they keep trying to teach me but that I will never comprehend. We waited a couple days to try out the subway; next time we need to not be intimidated and jump right on that.
It’s good for the ego to be a rookie. The travel editor in me cringes when I make a rookie mistake, like trekking up to Park Guell only to see that they’ve run out of tickets for the day, or showing up to a seaside town to find out all the lunch reservations had been booked for weeks. But it’s a good reminder when we travel to a new town, we are rookies! It’s okay to make mistakes!
Writing thank you notes is a great way to end the trip. In this new house swap community I’ve joined, it’s customary to write a thank you note to the host family. (Love that, obviously.) Each of us wrote our own on our last day at the house, and it was a lovely way to reflect on what we loved about the space and the city. Charlie insisted on taping his note (a simple list of things in the house he loved) onto the stairs for the family to find.
BONUS GRATITUDE STORY
We connected through O’Hare on our way home, and that final two-hour flight could have been a nightmare, but it ended up being lovely thanks to the crew. The pilot, Glen, was retiring after 30+ years, and this was his final flight. Trust me when I say, these Chicago flight attendants could not have been more jazzed about this. They cheered him onto the flight with pom poms. They announced his retirement once we were seated, and told us to watch out for the Fire Department’s salute to Glen. Sure enough: The trucks sprayed our plane with hoses from two sides once we left the gate. (Apparently that’s a retirement tradition!) The attendants passed around a card for us to sign, and they gave out chocolates as we disembarked, with Glen standing there looking happy and a bit sheepish from all the attention. The whole thing was incredibly adorable and heartwarming.
BOOK REC
Even though I wrote a somewhat self-help-y book, the genre is not generally my style, but I absolutely loved Life Starts Now. I met the author, Chanel, at our shared workspace, and have followed her uplifting presence on social ever since. She’s a career coach, and the book basically takes you through your own coaching session–but with plenty of anecdotes and LOL moments. I blurbed her book, and I meant what I said, that her “insights are sharp; her writing is gorgeous. A truly thought-provoking, life-altering read!”
