I don’t take for granted that my Baby Boomer mom still has her health, a sense of humor, and a retiree’s wide-open schedule for trip-taking. For my job at Garden & Gun, I travel frequently, and any time I can blend a work assignment with a mom-and-daughter adventure, I try to make it happen. Here are a few specific tricks that have made our jet-setting time together more about bonding than butting heads.
Give one another pop culture homework assignments.
It was my mom who read Harry Potter for the first time in her sixties and then planned a girls’ trip to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Orlando. So we’re no strangers to book-and-movie-led journeys. During a jaunt to Ireland a couple years ago, we watched The Quiet Man starring John Wayne and then tried to find the filming locations near Ashford Castle. Most recently, before our springtime trip to Switzerland, we both re-read Heidi, and then on our train rides through the Swiss countryside, we pointed out fields of goats and Alpine views that reminded us of Heidi’s mountain hideaway. Now that we’re back to our respective homes, my mom says that since we stayed in the shade of Eiger Mountain, I have to watch the 1975 Clint Eastwood spy thriller The Eiger Sanction.
Go out of the way—and skip the loyalty programs—to find a direct flight.
I never again want to spend a night in an airport La Quinta—or try to nap in a rocking chair at Charlotte Douglas—because of missed connections. And there’s no way I’m subjecting my short-legged mom to sprinting from one terminal to another. She lives in Central Florida, and by searching the routes from all the airports near her, we’ve found easy-peasy direct flights, even if it means looking beyond my regular airlines (and skipping on status and mileage multipliers). Orlando to Dublin on Aer Lingus was a nonstop joy; Miami to Zurich on Swiss was luxurious and chocolate-filled.
One of our best-ever discoveries is a route on Breeze: The same plane that leaves from Orlando stops in Charleston (where last summer I booked the seat next to where my mom was already sitting) and continues on to Newburgh, New York, not far from where my mom’s brother, my Uncle Joe, lives. It was like the airport version of kids hopping on the school bus.
Share suitcases.
Did I mention these tips are slightly unhinged? But hear me out. We make a luggage plan a week or so ahead, which might involve my mom digging a useful suitcase out of storage (I haven’t yet invested in the nice kind like my parents have). Then we meet up and repack together, combining our clothes into fewer checked bags and carry-ons that we can both easily manage. For our ten-day getaway overseas we winnowed down to a carry-on backpack apiece, one small, checked roller bag for her, and one larger roller for all my stuff plus her shoes and toiletries. And we always tuck in a duffle bag to check souvenirs on the trip home.
…and songs.
Of all the conversations travel might bring on, the topic of music just feels lighter and less fraught than, say, rehashing old family dynamics. While organizing our bags to move between hotels in Switzerland, my mom asked me what music I was listening to as a teenager back when I had taken a school trip to Europe. “I think I was trying to be cooler then, listening to Radiohead,” I said, “but I know I still liked Britney Spears, too.” Then I pulled up a Spotify playlist of the top hits of 1975, the year my mom had traveled to Switzerland as a teenager. ABBA, Earth, Wind & Fire, Bee Gees, the Doobie Brothers, and that funky intro to “Dream Weaver” by Gary Wright—they all took her right back.
Make new rituals that can become inside jokes.
We high-five after every victory, no matter how minor. Pulled up the right boarding passes on our phones without making the line wait? High five. Got on the boat going the correct direction? High five. Near Dublin, a bus driver told us redheads he thought we were Irish until he heard our accents. Double high five.
Scribble in one tiny notebook.
I am a devoted user of these wee Silvine pocket notebooks, red beauties made in the United Kingdom, and I always have one stashed in a coat pocket or purse. I broke out a fresh one for our Switzerland trip, and as my mom read brochures and magazines in the hotel, she jotted down places she wanted to see. We both sketched in it while waiting for lunch. I also handed people the notebook to write down their own favorite places, language barrier begone. Little did we know that when our new friend Fabio took my pen and scribbled down Brockenhaus Brünig, it was a treasure map to the best secondhand shop we’ve visited in years, sitting right alongside a train station on the route we were planning to travel a few days later.
Laugh at how the roles have changed, but fall into old rhythms, too.
“Our train leaves in fifteen minutes, let’s be ready,” I said, and then asked, “One last bathroom break? Need something to eat before we board?” My mom leaned her head back and laughed. “Talk about role reversal!” And then she agreed that yes, we should get a few more snacks.
But it doesn’t matter that I’m married and have a mortgage now—I’ll always be my mom’s last baby. Near the end of our Swiss trip, I confessed that I was feeling homesick. I missed my garden where the Peggy Martin rose was in peak bloom, my husband, my own bed. This unearthed my mom’s deepest mom-self. “It’s okay to feel both happy and sad,” she said, and then her favorite mom-medicine: “Maybe it would feel good to lay down for a little bit!” A short walk away, and as if she had conjured it herself, we found a wide park bench shaped like a chaise lounge overlooking Lake Lucerne. In full public view, her guarding me like I was an overtired toddler at the beach, I had myself a nice little naptime.
CJ Lotz Diego is a Garden & Gun deputy editor. A staffer since 2013, she wrote G&G’s bestselling Bless Your Heart trivia game, edits the Due South travel section, and covers gardens, books, and art. Originally from Eureka, Missouri, she graduated from Indiana University and now lives in Charleston, South Carolina, where she tends a downtown pocket garden with her florist husband, Max.
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