Family travel can influence personal growth, cultural identity and relationships across different stages of life. In this personal account, four Backroads trips over 14 years demonstrate how travel fostered wonder, strengthened family connections, deepened cultural roots and provided new perspectives through meaningful experiences with people and places.
I took my first Backroads trip when I was 10 years old. This summer, at 24, I completed my fourth.
Looking back, I see how those four trips were so much more than a weeklong vacation. They reflect four very different chapters of my life. As a kid, I was incredibly lucky to be raised in a family that valued travel as the best way to experience and learn about the world. As I grew older, traveling with Backroads became a way to reconnect with my family’s heritage, spend intentional time with my parents and, most recently, they reminded me that the stories I remember most rarely come from landmarks.
Wonder
My first Backroads trip took my family camping through the Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon and Zion National Parks. At 10 years old, I wasn’t thinking about expertly planned itineraries or the value of traveling with local leaders. I was thinking about sleeping in a tent, hiking through enormous canyons and spotting wildlife.
I barely remember the logistics. I couldn’t tell you which hike came first or where we slept each night. What I remember is the feeling of realizing the world was far bigger than the one I knew at home.
That trip planted a seed. Years later, it helped shape my decision to study environmental science in college and, eventually, brought me back to Backroads.
Roots
Thirteen years later, my family traveled together again, this time in Croatia. My dad’s side of the family is Croatian, but none of us had ever been there together.
One afternoon, our guides stopped at a small church along the trail. Inside, waiting for us, was a spread of traditional Croatian food prepared by our local guide’s family. In the middle of the table sat homemade burek, my family’s favorite Croatian dish.
It wasn’t advertised. It wasn’t on the itinerary. It was simply an unexpected act of generosity.
That experience stayed with me because it represented something I would come to appreciate about traveling with Backroads. The landscapes are incredible, but it’s often the people and the small, unexpected moments of connection that leave the deepest impression. For my family, this Backroads trip enabled us to reconnect with and feel welcomed into Croatian culture in ways that felt genuine and personal.
Connection
My next trip came just after college graduation. It was only my mom and me, hiking through Cinque Terre and Tuscany.
The other travelers included two more parents with children around my age. Long days on the trail turned into lingering dinners, easy conversations and plenty of laughter. By the end of the week, strangers had become friends.
This trip made me realize that family travel evolves with time. As a kid, vacations are planned for you. As an adult, choosing to travel with your parents becomes something entirely different. It’s an intentional decision to spend meaningful time together before life inevitably becomes busier and more complicated. Traveling with Backroads has become one of the ways my mom and I continue strengthening our bond, creating new memories as we explore new parts of the world.
Some of my favorite memories from that week weren’t from the hikes at all. They came after the trails ended: lingering over dinner, laughing with people who had been strangers just a few days earlier and watching our small group settle into an easy rhythm together.
Perspective
This summer, my mom and I traveled together again, this time to Peru. I was the youngest person in the group by a wide margin. Most of our fellow travelers were older couples or lifelong friends, and at first I wondered how we’d fit in.
It didn’t take long for that feeling to disappear.
Over the course of the week, we traded stories over dinner, celebrated reaching Machu Picchu together and learned from one another’s different perspectives.
One afternoon, we visited the Quechua village of Hullioc, where local artisans demonstrated traditional weaving techniques before inviting us to dance with the village’s children. It wasn’t something you could understand from a guidebook. It was something you had to experience.
Looking back, I realize how much these trips have mirrored my own life. At 10, my parents introduced me to the joy of exploring new places. Fourteen years later, my mom and I were still traveling together, now as two adults continuing to learn alongside each other.
The destinations have changed. So has my perspective.
What hasn’t changed is the feeling I get from returning home: grateful for the places I’ve seen, the people I’ve met and the memories that somehow become more meaningful with time.
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