If you are planning to travel with children and parents this holiday season, may the grace of whatever god you believe in descend upon you swiftly. May you never get tired, frustrated, or feel on the verge of psychosis when your 80-something mother questions your every decision moments after you make them, or when your child loses that wildly expensive souvenir hours after you finally agree to buy it.
But let's be real: being on vacation with one of my parents and The child requires many coping mechanisms that are not obvious before delving deeply into the experience. As a sandwich generation adult responsible for your multi-generational vacation, you must be part tour director, part therapist, and part life coach for everyone who counts on you for the vacation of a lifetime.
I know this because earlier this year I spent three weeks in Austria, Switzerland and southern Bavaria with my 81-year-old mother and my elementary-aged daughter. This was a vacation we will all remember, always. It was that good. But it wasn't easy.
And it required a lot of prep work and patience. Here are my top 10 lessons learned, for anyone planning to travel soon or someday with a child and an elderly parent.
No. 1: Think of yourself as an expedition leader and master every logistical detail.
For my daughter's sake, I never left our hotel or Airbnb without a full water bottle and a hard-boiled egg or two from the breakfast buffet. Or a couple of oranges or another fruit that doesn't get crushed at the bottom of a backpack. Nothing is fun during the holidays if your child is “hungry.”
The calculation for a father is different. Because my mom wasn't interested in managing more than her own aches and pains, she knew she had to be in charge of every move every day, from getting places to negotiating purchases to finding places to eat to monitoring the heat and everyone's daily moods and energy levels.
No. 2: Create an itinerary that fits the needs and personalities of your parents and your children.
You probably know your parents' tolerance for everything from how much they want to do to how often they need to eat or rest to how much time they need to get up and out the door each day. Some activities that your child has his or her heart set on are not realistic for an older parent.
In Switzerland, for example, my daughter really wanted to go tubing at the top of the Jungfraujoch, a huge glacier 10,000 feet above sea level near Interlaken. So she and I walked and played in the snow for an hour while my mom had coffee at a Glacier restaurant.
Similar to how marathoners handle a race, multigenerational family vacations tend to have fast parts and slower parts, depending on how exhausting (or rejuvenating) the previous day was. Monitor energy levels (or exhaustion) of parents and children at the end of the day. They are a good indication of how ambitious you should be the next day.
For example, after a long day of train travel, from Vienna to Interlaken or from Interlaken to Bavaria, I made sure the next day was free of any big excursions or events. To recharge personal batteries, everyone needs to drink their coffee, or play in a playground, or feel the sun on their face, and spend time without scheduling.
#3: Give your parents and child an idea of what to expect and ask their opinion.
What works for children often works for older parents: explain clearly well in advance what they should expect from the daily vacation experience.
The great thing about traveling with parents is that, unlike young children, they often have informed and realistic opinions about what they want and don't want from the experience in general and on a day-to-day basis. Ask them: What do you want from this vacation?
For my daughter, who was excited to see Neuschwanstein Castle in Bavaria (the one said to have inspired the Disneyworld facsimile), the key piece of advanced information I gave her was that we would spend three to four hours on our feet with a tour guide.
That helped her have the patience to listen a lot and continuously.
No. 4: Adjust on the fly
As the quote attributed to Mike Tyson goes: Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the nose. On vacation, the impact will be figurative: you miss a train, you're too tired to visit that must-see exhibit or natural wonder, or you don't like your hotel or resort as much as you thought.
Be willing to adjust your plans based on what will make your parents and child happy, and be willing to change when necessary.
When the June heat in Vienna became too much for my mom, we agreed to stop walking through an ornate Habsburg garden and go to lunch somewhere with air conditioning.
While my mother drank her postprandial local beer, my son and I went for a leisurely walk in a nearby park. The definition of a win-win vacation.
#5: Identify your aging parents' individual 'kryptonite': for example, heat, distance, foreign languages, or large crowds
For my mom, extreme heat is a major barrier to her ability and desire to venture out of an air-conditioned hotel room. If the temperature is cool, my mom will walk until the hellhounds stop her, no matter how much pain she feels; she considers taking a short taxi ride a moral failure. But if the temperature rises above, say, 75, it wilts within minutes.
So I checked the weather forecasts and planned strategically.
#6: Calibrate daily walking distances and stairs to match your kids' and parents' tolerances
Think realistically about exactly how long you will walk, how many stairs you will climb, and – especially important for older parents! —down stairs.
Every day I carried a small, lightweight camping stool in my backpack, in case my mom needed to sit without a bench in sight. We only used it once… for my daughter, during the four-hour tour of the Bavarian castle. (My mom refused to sit down, saying she might not be able to get up again.)
Pro tip: If you travel by train, beware of the unexpected challenge of many, many stairs at stations. There may also be stairs to go up and down on a medieval castle tour, where people behind you may become impatient with the slow pace of an older person. Consider whether you should put your parents and child at the back of your travel group during long climbs and descents of stairs.
No. 7: Inevitable and diffuse intergenerational frictions and frustrations
At some point in your journey, mom, dad or kid will be as sick of you as you are of them. Maybe more. It's usually the little things that, repeated daily, push family members traveling together to the point of needing to let off steam.
Plan regular “vapor valve” times when you allow your loved ones to express whatever is on their minds. (Who knows, maybe it's pure gratitude… but it's probably a complaint you're pretty familiar with.) It's like couples therapy sessions, except the “couple” is a father and son on vacation together. Allow them to speak their truth and accept it with a mature “Thank you for letting me know.”
On our trip, my mom and I made each other howl with laughter doing imitations of each other. She made fun of me haranguing her for carrying her own luggage off trains, and I made fun of her for routinely asking if we were on the right train.
We did this with half a liter of beer, which didn't hurt.
My daughter added her hilarious imitations of me being too bossy or short-tempered, and her grandmother's habit of asking us if we were on the right train and sitting in the right seats.
No. 8: Expect to burn out with all the daily planning and guidance.
You're going to do the work of two people, taking care of your parents and your child during the holidays, as well as yourself. It is a physical and emotional burden every hour that you must control and manage.
Anticipate the tour leader's stress and work your way out of it regularly. Maybe it's a free night you spend alone while mom or dad stays in the room with your child, watching cat videos on the iPad. Maybe it's sleeping in for once and having a morning coffee alone.
As they say on airplanes, put on your own oxygen mask before helping others with theirs.
No. 9: Don't expect every day to be exciting or feel like a postcard.
Every day of your multigenerational vacation probably won't be as rejuvenating as you hoped. As I told my mother and daughter before our trip: some days will be the best days of my life; other days not so much. Expect to feel the small disappointments along with the surprising pleasures.
No. 10: Offer encouragement regularly (and especially on difficult days)
Whether directed at a child or an octogenarian parent, some clever words of support from you: “You're doing a great job,” “You're so strong for your age!” or my favorite from psy-ops: “God, I think Am complaining more than anyone you are” – will help them overcome a bad streak.
During the first days in Vienna, for example, I praised my daughter for holding my mother's hand while crossing streets or walking on tram tracks. He never missed another opportunity to care for his grandmother.
Likewise, when my mom's hip started hurting after walking two miles, I made a conscious decision to announce, quite loudly on the street, “You're doing great, Mom!” She didn't say anything, but I knew she heard me. And he returned to the hotel.
Think of someone else's words of encouragement that would make you feel great (for example, “You're doing an amazing job organizing this trip for your mom!”) and do it for them.
And never forget: you are creating great memories for you and your loved ones.
