3 Ways My Family Has Bonded by Traveling Together

It is incredible what a simple change of location can do.  In each new place you travel with your family, you get the opportunity to see the same people, but with a totally fresh perspective.  While traveling can be intimidating at times, it can also offer once in a life time experiences you will never forget and forge strong bonds between the people you go with.

1.) Getting lost and finding a new destination:

In the days before GPS units and smart phones, road trips meant leafing through road maps and atlases — and if you made a wrong turn, a lot of potential confusion.  When my family went on a long trip up to Maine, we became extremely lost in a seemingly totally unpopulated area late in the evening.  As the night wore on, we finally realized where we were — several hours in the wrong direction from where we had started.

This tends to be the kind of mistake that can put a damper on a road-trip; fortunately, we had a flexible schedule and chose to make the most of it.  We decided it would be better to change our plans on the fly and keep on driving through the night to Acadia National Park, which is the first place the sunrise is visible from in the country during parts of the year.  Because of a wrong turn somewhere we never quite figured out, I got to stand on the top of Cadillac Mountain with my family at dawn.  After a dreary night of driving, and more than a little bickering about whether or not to get a hotel, everything worked out.  Bundled up in kids robes to protect us against the morning nip, my family was the first in the United States to see the sunrise; and that is truly a family experience we will never forget.

2.) Exploring our family history:

Visiting your grandparents’ house is one thing.  Visiting your great-great-great-grandparents’ house is a whole different ball game.  After spending part of a summer with my parents and siblings, tracing our history and heritage, I had visited 3 different states and as many countries.  There are few things that will bond a family like seeing where your ancestors lived centuries ago and making the same journeys they made while migrating.  Although on our trip we traveled by car and plane, rather than by foot and boat like my ancestors, retracing these steps and snapshots of our own lineage was a powerful experience.  The climax of my trip was when my whole family made it to the little stone house my ancestors abandoned when they left for America during the Spanish Civil War.  Looking back so far through our family’s generations, we had the unique opportunity to view our shared history that had tied us together through countless years.

3.) Togetherness:

With each sibling in my family of six living several states away from the next, opportunities to all come together have become few and far between.  When the whole family does get together, the logistics of getting everyone to our parents’ home — and where we will sleep once we are there— seem to get more and more confusing each time.  As a result, my family has turned to travel for family reunions. From spending a week of June in Jackson Hole to camping in the Vermont mountains, every time my family goes on a vacation, we try to go somewhere totally new, where none of us have ever been before.  Through these experiences we have all seen each other at our best and worst.  To this date, I don’t think we have had a family vacation that doesn’t leave each of us with a powerful memory about everyone else on the trip.

Traveling with your family takes you to new parts of the world, and as a result, offers new opportunities and adventures.  If you want to find ways to bond with your family, the excitement, learning and discovery that come from traveling with your family can be the perfect solution.


About our guest blogger, Ryan:

Ryan has just started blogging and enjoys writing about family travel, the wilderness, punk music, and mountain biking.  When not helping families find new ways to travel and places to see, he can be found camping or riding his bike.

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