When friends headed for a vacation in New Zealand, they had a two-fold purpose. One was to see the country but the other was to visit a daughter who had been living there for three years. The plan was to travel around the country with their daughter and one of their sons, who came along for the family togetherness of it.
What made the trip unusual was that the parents had nothing to do with the planning of the trip once they landed in New Zealand. They let their grown kids do it. "This was a country where my daughter was living for three years. So I wanted to see it through her eyes," says the mom. "She knew what she wanted to see. My son is a naturalist so he knew what he wanted to see. We let them plan it." They followed their kids' itinerary and sat out hikes or climbs when they felt uncomfortable doing them. "I wasn't going to climb a glacier," says the mom, who waited at the foot of the climb while her children made it to the top. And that was OK with her. They saw many of the natural wonders of New Zealand. When they got to a stupendous waterfall, the kids climbed a trail to the top of it; the parents waited below. When there was a chance to swim with dolphins, the kids got into wet suits; the parents didn't.
But that doesn't mean they didn't love the trip--and the uniqueness of traveling the way 20-somethings travel. "If we were leading it," she says, "we would have had a culture clash--we would have just gone to see sights."
Although there were uncomfortable moments, the trade offs made up for it. They stayed in hostels--the kids in dorm rooms; the parents in a private room ("bare bones but clean"). They had to make the beds and bring their own food. Not the way they usually travel, but the hostels were an entree to meeting a lot of young people who were backpacking their way around the world.
They found it easy to give up the control over planning since they had done this once before--letting a son who was living in Israel be their guide on a two-week trip. "He planned everything," says the mom. The main difference between the trips? "He got us nicer accommodations."
