The 18th Birthday Trip

Love me a good trip. I love exploring places I haven’t been before, seeing things for the first time, taking in the sights, the foods, the culture.  I think there are so many unusual and exciting places; I would love to visit as many as I can. I try, as much as possible, to absorb a little bit of each destination, so that it expands my senses and awakens me to things outside of my everyday life. Taking trips, whether exotic or ordinary, helps to enrich my soul by taking me away from routine responsibilities. There is a big, beautiful world out there! Let’s go see it!

One compelling aspect of the trip for me, is the planning stage. I really enjoy researching and putting together the details for a trip. With so much information at our disposal, it can sometimes be overwhelming. But, I like to sift out the standard internet overviews and recommendations, and dig down to find lesser known suggestions that speak to our interests. I like to plan and customize our trips in ways that other people might not. I promise I’ll tell you about some of our family trips, but for now I want to talk about a different kind of trip planning. The 18^th Birthday Trip.

I came up with a great idea, (if I say so myself) that as each of our kids turned 18, we gifted them a trip. The 18^th Birthday Trip would be a 3 night stay in a city of their choice with one adult family member at a convenient time. The key point about the trip was that the kid would choose the city and choose the activities that he or she wanted to do. As a planner, I would help make reservations and iron out details. But, the kid would be in charge of figuring out how to spend the time and what he or she really wanted to do. While our kids had enjoyed family vacations to a number of different places, I wanted each of them to have an opportunity to take responsibility and plan a trip designed just for him/herself.

I was very happy to be the adult who accompanied all three of my daughters. My husband Rob went with our son on his trip to New York City. I don’t have details to share about the boys’ trip, because I wasn’t there. But, I do have details to share about the other birthday trips. So, settle in while I pull out the slide projector to show you vacation pictures. No, I won’t make you sit through that. I’ll just tell you a few things. Because each daughter planned her own trip, each trip was uniquely different. We did activities that I never would have thought of doing. Each girl molded her trip into something which fit her personality and spoke to her interests in ways that I couldn’t have envisioned. I helped pull the trip together by handling many of the specifics, but I only functioned as a travel secretary, putting their plans into place. As an avid planner, it wasn't easy to bite my tongue when I felt like a must-see attraction was not included in the itinerary. But, as per the guidelines that I set up, I did bite my tongue and let the birthday girl make the decisions.

• 

• 

• 

Daughter #1 and I went to New York City one summer. Highlights of that trip were visiting the Museum of Natural History, hiking through Central Park, snagging discount tickets for Phantom of the Opera on Broadway, visiting the Empire State Building at midnight to listen to a saxophone concert, taking a wild speedboat ride around New York Harbor, watching gravity-defying Cirque de Solei, and exploring curated art galleries in Chelsea. We had so much fun navigating the city, which she did much better than I. It was an enormously successful trip!

• 

• 

• 

Daughter #2 and I went to Chicago one summer. We had a ball shopping on Michigan Ave., taking a guided gangster tour around the city, visiting improv night at a comedy club (even though the comedy was sadly unfunny, almost to the point of being painful), taking a luncheon cruise on Lake Michigan, getting massages at a swanky spa, viewing the city from a skyscraper observation tower, watching fireworks at Navy Pier, exploring The Bean, and laughing until our tummies hurt at The Blue Man Group performance. We had so much fun exploring everything in the city—it was awesome!

• 

• 

• 

Daughter #3 and I went to New York City during December so she could experience the Christmas vibe. It was incredibly festive as we visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the MoMA, strolled through outdoor Christmas markets, visited Rockefeller Center for the Christmas tree and a journey up to the Top of The Rock observation tower, attended the show Waitress on Broadway, watched the Rockettes Christmas Spectacular at Radio City Music Hall (best holiday production I have ever seen anywhere!), walked up and down 5^th Ave. to see the brilliantly decorated Christmas windows, thrift shopped at East Village, and drank the best hot chocolate I have ever had in my life. We were thrilled over and over, despite the wretchedly freezing temperatures (17deg F) and the huge masses of humanity.

I know what you’re thinking…sounds like lots of $$$. But, believe me when I say, it really wasn’t that bad. For several years along the way, I put money in the trip fund every month to help pay for upcoming trips. On each trip, we made the most of wheeling and dealing, by using credit card points for free hotel nights, shopping for deals on flights, searching coupons and Groupons, and taking advantage of all promotional credits and special deals. We are quite the penny-pinchers, and our kids are accustomed to settling for the bare minimum at times. Several activities that they suggested were deemed too expensive, so we skipped them. We made sure that total expenses stayed within our guidelines even as we allowed them to reach for the stars. All this to say, that based on our normal family behavior, the 18^th Birthday Trip was each kid’s first experience in which we splurged on that one kid and them alone.

I tell you this to recommend a family tradition. If you are a parent of younger kids, or a grandparent, or a cool aunt, or some other family member, I think the 18^th Birthday Trip is an excellent idea! When kids are about to step out into the world, perhaps moving away from the family home, they will be faced with many decisions for the first time in their lives. I wanted to give our kids a chance to take the lead on vacation, making decisions that were fun and memorable. When we started the 18th Birthday Trip tradition, we introduced an opportunity for them to take stock of their interests and craft an experience that they would always remember. How many times has someone offered to pay for you to do whatever you wanted wherever you wanted? Wouldn’t you love that? We, of course, put some restrictions on where we could reasonably go for what amounted to a long weekend trip. And we set some financial restrictions. As I see it, the beauty of the 18^th Birthday Trip is that you can set up whatever guidelines you want, as long as you let the birthday kid design the trip of their dreams. I so strongly believe in the concept of giving the kid the opportunity and responsibility of planning what he or she wants to do to celebrate and launch a new chapter of his or her life!

Before you know it, those kids, preteens, and teenagers will be growing up and going off on their own journeys. For us, the 18^th Birthday Trip was the perfect transition for 4 kids to start making their own decisions and cultivating their own interests. Lucky me to get to go along for the ride!