travel therapy

views of Barcelona from Park Güell, 2018

Note: I used the word therapy in the title but I do not mean to imply that travel will take care of mental health issues, which is the purview of mental health professionals.

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Having sent both of our offspring off to college and briefly experienced an empty nest*, I feel somewhat qualified to share some advice with parents about how to mark the occasion when their own nest empties out. This is a time of transition and can be deeply emotional, as parents who have devoted two decades of their lives to raising children might find themselves wondering what’s next.

(* Both of mine have been living at home since graduation while they save money and figure out their next steps.)

When my secondborn started freshman year in college, I was happy for my child, really, I was. But I was also struggling a bit, not only because my “baby” was a college freshman, but also because I was approaching my 50th birthday. I spent a lot of time reflecting on a half-century lived on this planet, the last 20 years of which had been in service to two humans who then had the audacity to grow up and go off to college. The women in my family tend to live into their 90s, so it was important to me to figure out what I wanted the next several decades to look like.

As it happened, my husband had his own major birthday a couple of weeks after the younger chick flew off. We had been talking about our respective five-decade milestones and decided that the best place to celebrate would be in another country.

So we flew off to Barcelona to celebrate all the things: my husband’s birthday, successfully getting our offspring to level up, and our first child-free trip in 20 years.

This was the perfect remedy for us. And it is what I always suggest to other parents.

First off, the trip gave us something to look forward to after moving our secondborn into their dorm. After the chaos of getting our kid packed and moved, the house felt slightly deflated, like a balloon three days after a birthday party.

Planning and packing for a vacation gave us something wonderful to focus on. An adventure of our own. A way to kick off this next chapter in our lives.

We also spent a lot of time looking ahead and talking about what we wanted from this new chapter in our lives. I even managed to surprise my husband with a new idea.

We had an absolutely terrific vacation, spending more than a week in Barcelona exploring the city and enjoying having no itinerary. After that, we flew to London for several days, where we ended up finding the perfect souvenir.

So now, when a friend and I are talking about their impending empty nest, I ask them how they are feeling about that and if they are planning to do something to celebrate this milestone. And I always recommend travel.