Recently I took a trip with my daughter solo, just her and I. She is 6 years old now so things like feeding herself, dressing herself, and going potty by herself make a huge difference in regards to traveling with her alone vs the baby and toddler years. We took a week long Caribbean cruise including two stops in Mexico.
Prior to the trip my anxiety was at an all time high. My mom has helped me a lot the last few years and I was really scared I couldn’t do the trip alone without another adult to help. And just all the scenarios of what could go wrong were running through my head constantly prior to the trip. Not to mention my ex-husband was being very difficult about signing a consent form allowing me to travel internationally with my daughter solo. It turns out I didn’t need the form after all, but the situation still added a lot of stress to my already stressed out brain.
Good news is, the trip was amazing and we had the best time just the two of us! All my fears and worries were for naught and everything turned out fine, including eating gluten free on the boat. There were a lot of gluten free options much to my surprise which eased a lot of my worries too.
I think I am the best version of myself when I am traveling. If money were no object, I would opt to travel the world all the time, always being in a different place experiencing different things. Now reality check… that lifestyle is not possible for me, at least not right now while I am raising a young child, but maybe someday I could be a travel writer somehow!
I encourage everyone to do some sort of travel in their lifetime. It is good for the soul. Even local travel to somewhere nearby or a “stay-cation” staying in a hotel in a different part of your town or city can be refreshing. I feel like in my everyday life of work, and dinner, and after school activities, and bedtime I get in a rut of the same ‘ole routine and it seems to get me kind of down and depressed. Traveling does the opposite- I feel excited and energetic to see and try new things. It is very therapeutic for me to get out of my comfort zone and shake things up a bit.
Here’s to more traveling!
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