Here we are……… family travel and worldschooling days have now evolved into a new style of travel—-the empty-nester couple travel.
It basically will be a second honeymoon! Designing trips for our family of five forked off into our college kids taking trips with their friends, rugby team, etc. There were trips for dad and friends and mom and friends. Now, something new has evolved—–couples trips again! We are planning trips for two again and it’s exciting.
What used to be villas and rental vans for a family of five has trimmed down to one hotel room or BnB’s and easier transportation modes; public transportation, etc. Tickets for excursions don’t necessarily need to be pre-booked now and copious amounts of notes for preparation and studying ahead of time also don’t need to be created. We are going to wing alot of this!
We absolutely LOVED traveling with our three sons. Where some people do not tread this precarious path…..we pursued it for management purposes, mostly but to also get the most out of our trip investment. People wanted that information, the tips, the ideas and the itineraries and resources. Hence, the blog happened and “domino-ed” into other media outlets. But now that our sons are all tucked away in college and grad school, we find there is more time for us to get up and GO (spontaneously….kind of)! No more overwhelming emails coming through fast and furiously dictating our schedules. No more curfews to monitor. There are still things to work around and consider, like parents weekend at college, (dad’s weekend, mom’s weekend), etc. They are all good things to work around! The nest is never totally empty if you ask me. Even with all the latter, we want to get back to the kind of travel we did as newlyweds. Hopping on ferry boats and choosing B and B’s by reading signs in the port and following the little old lady to her pension (bed and breakfast) is how we did it in 1990 and that’s how we plan to do it again this fall in 2019.
I remember being on one island and deciding that day which other island we might ferry over to in Greece. No itinerary. We’d befriend a shop owner and then meet his girlfriend the next night, go out for drinks and then look up his friend the captain of a boat who drove us out the volcanic hot springs of Santorini. I remember nude beaches and moped rides. I remember card games in the square with fresh-squeezed portokalatha (orange juice). I remember death-defying motorcycle rides with three of us on one seat zipping through the busy streets of Athens, wondering if we’d survive it and make it to one full month of marriage, despite the danger.
Even now on domestic trips or just on nights out in our hometown, we find ourselves dining at the bars of restaurants and not messing with long waits or reservations. If we didn’t absolutely cherish the decades we had our three sons in tow, we wouldn’t be finding this all so fun and free now. We’d be lamenting how it all went by in the blink of an eye. But it didn’t. We were in the moment with our sons and with many of their friends also almost always in tow. MANY is the operative word. 🙂 We enjoyed the concept of togetherness in the best of ways. Quantity time was the mantra over “quality time.” And now, it’s a new frontier to get back to the concept of the two of us.
The phone rings. It’s our college aged son. While we’re in Kansas City, he is nearby and wants to join us at the restaurant. Whoosh! Away goes the blah, blah, blah about our new empty nester paradigm and freedom and we excitedly save the barstool next to us. Yay! This son is joining us. He shares a bottle of wine with us, infuses the environment with his energy, and makes us feel both young and old at the same time. We’re his parents with wisdom and also his fellow adult with humor. Tonight and every night we will enjoy our kids and always be concerned and alert about them. That empty nester trip is around every corner. And on that trip….it will be only us, no van rentals, no pre-bought excursion tickets, some tropical wildlife, a famous landmark, exotic markets…and a bottle of wine for two.
© Gina Michalopulos Kingsley
For ideas on economical travel itineraries, contact me! Adults can travel like adventurous college kids if you connect the dots the right way! Contact greekmuse@cox.net