The Joys of Traveling with Your Adult Kids

It can be difficult keeping up with our teenagers, but once your kids leave home and begin college or work, it can be even more difficult to spend quality time with them. You know– a time where you can talk or enjoy fun experiences with them. Getting away from work and school and traveling together is a great way to do this. And there so many joys of traveling with your adult kids!

As our kids get older, scheduling family trips can be tricky. Work schedules vary and vacation plans for young 20-somethings may be non-existent. But vacations with our grown children can be important re-bonding times, sharing experiences away from the cares of everyday life. Our trip to Guatemala was such a time for us. Time to re-connect. We discussed it in advance and everyone made it a priority, getting time off of work well in advance.

Whether experiencing a different culture or exploring ruins or volcanoes, these times of making memories with our grown kids can be a fun and important time of re-bonding as a family–reconnecting even while living separate lives.

Being adults–your kids will want to go off and explore on their own sometimes. During this time you can take a nap! haha.

Bringing our phones let us all keep up with friends at home and share the about the trip with them. We were glad that many of the coffee shops and some of the restaurants in tourist areas had wifi available. That way we could also keep up with each other with Facebook Messenger calling or Skype if we set up times to call ahead of time.

Sharing new experiences, like drinking from coconuts fresh off the tree, brings us closer together.

Because the kids were all older, we had time to relax ourselves. No tagging along making sure they were dressed or safe or had eaten their lunch. Well, most of the time. haha Here is my husband relaxing in a hammock on the black sand beach of the Pacific Ocean.

If you’re empty nesting yourself, I hope this inspires you to plan a trip with your family. In fact this has inspired me to plan one again with ours! It doesn’t have to be to another country. It could be an inexpensive camping trip or a trip to a resort in your own state. We had such a good time together. It wasn’t that we did anything super spectacular, but we spent a LOT of time together. We talked. We shared experiences together–just the five of us. I’m so glad that we made the time to travel with our adult kids.