Adventurous Travels With a Daughter
By Catherine H. Knott, Ph.D.
Today I met a fascinating young woman who works in environmental education in Alaska. She has worked all over the Western states, and progressed through several levels of training to acquire a coveted position at the Yosemite Institute, before coming to Alaska. The institute brings young people with a mission for environmental education together with children and teenagers looking for direction in their lives. Through the institute's educational programs, the young people demonstrate the strength of their commitment to healthy lives in a healthy environment through their own example. With a unique program for its staff, the institute funds the dreams of these young people to travel how and where they choose, in pursuit of deep personal growth, in honor of a young man who lost his life on the brink of adulthood. This young woman and a friend had chosen to spend six weeks kayaking the length of Alaska's Inside Passage, although they had barely known how to kayak before. They learned new skills and new strengths, both physical and mental, saw the realization of a dream, and returned to tell stories of their inspiration to others.
As parents, we do not have to wait until our children are grown, and perhaps pursuing a career in environmental education, to offer them the same opportunity. With even the most limited financial means, we can create adventurous possibilities to encourage their dreams and allow them to stretch their wings to the furthest limits of their spirits and bodies. We can travel with them when they are young, acting as supportive guides, and we can learn to let them go alone when they are older. If we have trained them well and given them the tools they will need - the maps and compass to discover their goals and the direction they must go to achieve those goals - they will find places we never dreamed possible. Daughters especially need these adventurous travels, both with their parents and later alone, to dispel the social myths that they must depend on others to do the most adventurous and difficult things for them. Building girls' sense of confidence and opening wide the windows of what is possible to them is more crucial than any class at school or any traditional mark of achievement.
How to Do It
Dream the Possibilities With Your Daughter. Give yourselves time, over quiet meals at a café away from home or at a picnic in the park just for the two of you, with notebooks, colored pens, maps, and ideas, to sketch out the biggest dreams you both have. It isn't necessary to limit the dreams to conform to the budget at the beginning, just to set free the mind. "I'd like to go to France, and climb the Eiffel Tower," my daughter started. But once she began and I encouraged her, the list grew, with huge travel projects that would require several years to earn the funding, as well as smaller, more manageable travel plans and adventures that we might accomplish within the coming year. Let her hear your dreams as well, but make it clear that hers will take priority for now; this is your gift to her.
Make a Commitment. Make a promise to make it happen - at least one adventure a year. Then, realistically look at the budget you have available and consider whether you could put in something extra for such a special occasion. Maybe it is time to hold that garage sale or sell the antique chairs in the attic or take the extra work over the holidays. When you have established the parameters of the budget and stretched it creatively, work together with your daughter to make a short list of possible trips. You may be happily surprised how willing she is to scale back the size of the adventure for a time - because you have let her know that the big adventures are out there for her, and you support her adventurous spirit. For most girls, that is all they need to know.
Schedule a Date. Find a time when you can take a few days away from work and the rest of the family. It is not impossible. Neighbors and relatives can help. You can stay up late a few nights preparing ahead of time. With enough advance warning, even if it has to be six months, most people can take scheduled leave time or convince bosses or co-workers to allow them few days for a vacation event with a daughter. Make sure to set a backup date, in case someone gets sick. But do not plan on re-scheduling. Remember, this is important to your daughter's future. Your commitment and support is crucial.
Help Her Plan Her Adventure. Half the fun of an adventure is in the planning. She will need some help with supplies from you - maps, travel options, accommodation ideas that fit the budget - but try to leave as many things up to her as possible. She will gain immeasurably from having some control and authority in determining her own adventure. Consult frequently, but stay in the background.
Make It Real. Call the place where you will be staying in advance and request that they send brochures. Better yet, encourage your daughter to take this step. If you are camping, air out the tent and sleeping bags or shop for new ones together. Check gear well in advance and help her to make lists of everything that will be needed. Plan menus and stops, scanning the map together for places of interest along the way.
Stay Low-Key but Enthusiastic. It can be tempting to step in and smooth the way with your greater experience traveling or to react with irritation to her sudden changes of plan when she announces them to you at the end of a long, hard day of work. But your attitude must be soothing and supportive, forgiving of sudden changes, and flexible in all ways, because this is not your dream trip - it is hers. The first adventure a girl plans and achieves, with or without the support of her parents, may be both the most exciting and the most anxious. She needs success every step of the way. Success, however, does not necessarily mean achievement in the normal sense of the word - sightseeing, seeing something on a perfect day, recording it for others - but instead, it means having, directing, and achieving an adventure. And adventures must have room for experiences sometimes outside your plan. Once she has created one successful adventure, she will be ready to create another, and another, and another.
Get Ready and Go. When the time comes, do your best to be cheerful, upbeat, and enthusiastic, even if her moods vary and you wonder what you have gotten yourself into. She may be testing your patience now to see if she can really trust you on a trip alone with her, away from home. Or she may have a last-minute case of nerves and look to you for reassurance. In either case, your job is to remain rock steady and help your daughter get the trip off to a good start.
Examples of Real Trips
- At age 13, I flew alone to my aunt and uncle's summer place in Maine for two weeks. I had to change planes, then airports, and then transfer to a bus. Despite several adventures and misadventures along the way (such as falling asleep on the bus and missing my stop by an hour), after that trip I never doubted my ability to go anywhere I wanted.
- After much discussion with my niece, my sister helped her to plan a bike trip for the two of them in Michigan for several days. It became a rite of passage, as much for my sister as for my niece, as my sister prepared to let her daughter go off to a wilderness camp away from home for the first time. The trip served as a maturing experience, a bonding experience for the two of them, and training for the longer bike trip my niece would be taking in Northern Michigan that summer.
- My daughter and I planned a trip to Denali National Park in Alaska. We had made trips to other parks in other states, but now that we live a day's drive from Denali, we wanted to spend a whole week there. By camping (the best way to see the park anyway) and cooking our own meals, we were able to spend a week there, including three days in the back country, for under $200 including bus fares and visitor and park fees. I suggested Denali, but let her plan the trip within the park. The first day she set out on a 6-mile hike in the rain, with me in tow. By the time we had sunny, warm weather in the middle of the trip, she was swimming in the icy waters of the Teklanika River, making plaster casts of grizzly tracks in the sand, and insisting on sleeping in the tent at night.
- An unplanned series of events resulted in an opportunity to drive a car back from Maine to Alaska. We had just 10 days to do it and we took the chance, driving through Canada, Jasper National Park, and the scenic Alaska-Canada highway through the rugged Yukon. I drove and my daughter rode shotgun and kept us both entertained. One of the more memorable moments came when we saw a tiny baby bear next to the road and slowed nearly to a stop. "Keep driving, Mom" my daughter whispered as the mother bear suddenly stood up tall out of the grass a few feet away from us. We would have liked more time to drive this route, at least two weeks perhaps. But by taking the opportunity when it came our way, we were able to have many small adventures within the trip, including camping every night in scenery from Lake Superior to the Matanuska Glacier. After we agreed to take the drive, I let my daughter choose as many of the stops as possible. She read maps and navigated. By the end of the trip, she knew how to convert kilometers to miles and liters to gallons, and she appreciated the size of a continent that is hers to explore.
- Now we are in the midst of planning our next trip. We couldn't bring ourselves to waste two return tickets from the east coast that had to be used by spring. "What east coast city do you most want to see?" I asked her. "It has to be one where we have friends we can stay with," I added, listing them quickly for her. "Washington D.C." she replied promptly. And so we will go to Washington D.C. for a week. She is choosing some of the places to visit and I am choosing others. Besides the usual sightseeing spots, she wants to talk to her representative and senator and visit different parts of the city. She wants to understand the politics and cultures of the world she is growing up into - between us, I am sure it will be a great trip.
