Moming taking gap year with daughter

Parent Cafe
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<p>JHS…my brother did that with his wife and children (though not in a sailboat) when they were about ages 8 and 10 (I forget the exact ages now) for a year. Had a great experience. </p>

<p>Weenie…I agree that it need not mean in lieu of independence for the original person in the thread if that daughter also goes out on her own. It just may mean an experience they want to have together. </p>

<p>My D has traveled on her own. Over the holiday break, we all went out to dinner (my immediate family was only all together for six days) and my younger one said we should all mention a highlight of the past year. With all the travels my older one had this past year, and she had a lot, I was touched that as a highlight she mentioned the three days we spent with her when we visited her in Italy (she was abroad). </p>

<p>BHG…my D doesn’t truly aspire to the silver screen (not that she wouldn’t consider it ever), but her field is truly musical theater and live performance on stage.</p>

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<p>I’m jealous! It’s wonderful that they have the opportunity to do this. Since the daughter went to boarding school, they probably didn’t get as much time together as they would have liked. What a way to make up for it!</p>

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<p>Kirmum, I’m in the jealous camp for sure. D already said that next year for Christmas, instead of doing our usual rush/spend/decorate/cook/stress tradition, she wants to book a hotel room somewhere on a very desolate beach for just the two of us(wonder where she thinks we’ll find one) and just pack bathing suits, and tons of books - all the great books we both want to read and cannot fit in - and just swim, read, eat and sleep. No telephones, no internet, no PDA, no forwarding addresses, no communication with anyone else. </p>

<p>Trouble is, we can probably only spare two to three weeks, no way to do an entire year.</p>

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<p>My 19-year-old S would rather hit himself 50 times in the head with a hammer. My 17-year-old D, on the other hand, might like it. I think I would like it because D is very easy to get along with, but H would have a problem with me being gone for so long, so he’d have to come, too. That would take away the Thelma and Louise aspect of it, for sure. ;)</p>

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<p>This pair more reminds me of the Gilmour Girls. Mom and daughter both georgous and funny.</p>

<p>As a new boarding school parent (youngest of 4 started in Sept) I must add it is a myth you spend much less time with your kids. When I count up breaks, she is home more than 5 months a year. We’ve had great quality time with no practices, homework, etc.</p>

<p>Come on folks. Didn’t mean to start a thread debating whether teens like us. I’ll admit my oldest son also would sooner shoot himself than travel with me. I swore if I posted here I’d get her tons of great ideas from all you smart, well travelled folks!</p>

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<p>“Any thoughts?”</p>

<p>Will they take me, too?</p>

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<p>That’s funny.This thread is starting to read like a D.H.Lawrence novel. I can’t get visions of The Titanic out of my mind!</p>

<p>Of course I could see my family going around the world when the kids were a little younger. It would be like National Lampoon’s Vacation.</p>

<p>Actually, my youngest who is in a private college mentioned something about going abroad in his junior year. Something to think about. But I’m thinking more to send my oldest and youngest to go back packing in Scotland, walk the highland, Hadrian’s Wall, that sort of thing . I don’t know about study abroad but maybe go there and stay somewhere for a while. A friend of my daughter went to Rome Italy to study, the cutest girl, and didn’t even pick up an Italian boyfriend. Gosh. Italy losing men for sure!</p>

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<p>Students in the UW-Seattle honors program have the opportunity to apply for an around the world travel scholarship. We read several blogs on the UW honors website. These are definitely off the beaten path adventures, but maybe your friends would get some ideas from them.</p>

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<p>

Don’t forget Amboise! Just a half an hour’s train ride from Tours. Last summer I studied there for a month at the Eurocentres language school. My mom accompanied me there from the States, then spent a day (would have been a couple days, except her flight was canceled… grrr) with her best friend from college, who lives in Wales; then she flew off home and left me to my own devices. It was a lot of fun being with her, too–hanging out in Paris, recovering from jet lag and watching French TV in our TINY hotel room whose bathroom door didn’t close all the way (only place we could afford–but just down the street from the Eiffel Tower!), driving for 8 hours (we took it slow, visited Giverny, ate nectarines…) to get from Paris to Amboise, using only the artsy-fartsy maps in a guidebook which focused more on vineyards than on roads… I’m proud to say that I excelled as a navigator. We only got lost once. :smiley: </p>

<p>After my studies were over, I flew to England, spend a couple days with the aforementioned friend of my mom’s in Wales, then went up to Edinburgh with her to take in five days of the Festival Fringe. :D:D:D:D My friends were performing there with my high school’s drama group, who’d been invited to perform. It was pretty danged awesome. I spent the last day in Edinburgh alone, then flew to London/Gatwick–alone–and then flew out to Vancouver, BC… alone. Two days after the English airplane terrorism scare. And it was totally okay, except I had to buy reading material in the terminal. (To look on the bright side, I wouldn’t have read Mansfield Park or Frankenstein otherwise.) I was 17 at the time. (Well… I’m still 17… :D)</p>

<p>I would love to spend a year traveling the world with my mom. I am taking a gap year before enrolling at Stanford U, during which I will travel the world (well… Europe and South America are in my plans; I wouldn’t dare go it alone on a continent I’d never been to before), but I’ll be alone. At least, I won’t be with my parents. (I don’t plan on going with friends, but who knows what might happen.) We really, really couldn’t possibly afford to lose my mom’s income for a year. Plus, we don’t have the money to finance two of us traveling the world–Mom is a high school Spanish teacher, and hers is the only income. I barely know how I’m going to pay for me traveling the world; last summer I paid for my travels with money my parents and I had saved expressly for study abroad. Now I have enough to get over there, and I will work in Europe for a stipend which I’ll try valiantly to save, but… O_O (Of course, my grandpa has money and would help me out if I was in a pinch.)</p>

<p>I do plan to spend half of my gap year in Ecuador, where my family will have just moved–so I will be with my family part of the time. But that’s hardly traveling: I’ll just be living there and volunteering, and my family and my second home will be in the area. </p>

<p>As I write this, I get the feeling that I am very special. :)</p>

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<p>latetoschool–
Have you seen “Christmas with the Kranks”? Sounds like what you are proposing! Except for the part where the daughter comes home suddenly and they DON’T go away for Xmas.</p>

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<p>kirmum…if I was travelling the world with another woman I adored ( I don’t have duaghters and my mother and I also have about a two week travel-abroad tolerance factor)</p>

<p>If I wanted to do a few cooking classes…</p>

<p>I would surely stop in Singapore for a week. Possibly even taking classes at The Cookery Magic. <a href=“http://www.cookerymagic.com/class_types.html[/url]”>http://www.cookerymagic.com/class_types.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>I might also stop at Red Mountain in Utah to hike and soak up the Red Rock country with dozens of otehr mothers and daughters and sisters and friends. <a href=“http://www.redmountainspa.com/[/url]”>http://www.redmountainspa.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;