I finally let go of my travel dreams enough to help my son realize his own | Canada Voices

When my two children were little, we went to Mexico, my husband’s native Switzerland, my home country of Argentina – places we adults wanted to explore, and the kids simply tagged along. They were compliant, adaptable, happy to be carried through our adventures. But somewhere around age 10, my son developed his own identity, his own opinions (gasp!) and made one thing crystal clear: “I don’t really like to travel.” It broke my heart.

My daughter had caught the travel bug early. By 13, she was drawn to European capitals with their quaint cafes, shopping districts and a few ancient cathedrals and museums sprinkled in. She was a natural wanderer. But my son? The Barri Gòtic’s maze of cobblestone streets in Barcelona produced yawns. At the Louvre, while his sister paused to take photos of centuries-old paintings, he dragged his feet through gallery after gallery. At one point turning to me and loudly asking, “Can we just go back to the hotel now?” Even a spring break trip to Churchill, Man., to see belugas and polar bears produced the enthusiasm of a dental appointment. I felt crushed.

Still, I kept pushing. I proposed one last big family trip before my daughter leaves for college this fall. We came up with options: Yukon for the Northern Lights or temples and pharaohs along the Nile. The rest of the family voted for Egypt. Predictably, my son suggested we stay home.

I begged him to reconsider, or rather, bribed him with the promise of screen time. Eventually, he agreed. It came as no surprise he was reluctant, but what I didn’t foresee was that Egypt would be the destination that clicked.

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The first hint came at the Grand Egyptian Museum in Cairo. The impressive institution had opened just months before our arrival, and walking into the largest archeological museum in the world felt like stepping into history as it was still being written. My son, who usually speed-walks through museums, stopped. He read the information cards. He stood in front of artifact after artifact, taking his time, occasionally calling us over to share something he’d learned. My husband and I exchanged glances but we kept our mouths shut, afraid that acknowledging it would somehow break the spell.

We were exploring the region on a river cruise with Uniworld and one of our next stops was the Temple of Karnak in Luxor. Standing beneath those massive sandstone columns, something shifted. Our Egyptologist guide explained how 80,000 labourers built this place more than 1,300 years ago. I caught my son leaning forward, actually listening. He was still puzzling through what he’d learned as we boarded our ship, the S.S. Sphinx, for lunch and a game of Uno on the pool deck, a simple ritual he looked forward to every day.

At the Valley of the Kings, we stood in the burial chamber where Tutankhamun’s mummified body still rests and I caught my son’s fully captivated expression. “He’s much smaller than I imagined,” he said, reminding me that he’d studied ancient Egypt in ninth grade. Suddenly, he was explaining things to us, pointing out hieroglyphics, asking our guide interesting questions about burial practices and the Book of the Dead. When we were out of earshot of the kids, my husband grabbed my arm. “I can hardly believe it,” he whispered. Our excitement had nothing to do with the ancient temples or the mummified pharaoh we’d just seen. It was about watching our son discover that maybe, just maybe, there might be something to this travel thing after all.

A visit to the Kom Ombo Temple, dedicated to both a crocodile god and a falcon god, sparked a debate between my teens about ancient Egyptian religion that lasted through our felucca ride down the Nile. As we sailed in the traditional wooden boat, sipping tea at sunset, I realized what had been wrong all along.

I’d been dragging him through my version of travel. The Mona Lisa, La Sagrada Familia, a road trip to the Algarve – these were all experiences filtered through my lens of what makes travel interesting. But my son isn’t wired like that. Wandering around a city with no real purpose or itinerary? That ain’t it, as the kids like to say. He needed a hook, something concrete that would connect to what he was curious about at that moment.

The ancient city of Aswan drove this home. At the Unfinished Obelisk, we climbed around the massive stone, examining the flaw that caused Queen Hatshepsut to abandon it 3,500 years ago. After the ruins, we went sandboarding down desert dunes, an optional ship excursion that was a much-needed break from antiquity. Watching our kids laugh as they tumbled down the sand, I realized this mix of intellectual engagement and pure adventure was exactly what he needed.

By the time we reached the Pyramids of Giza, we’d spent days connecting the dots between pharaohs and dynasties. Standing before the last surviving Wonder of the Ancient World wasn’t just another photo op: It was the climax of a story we’d been following all week.

The river-cruise itinerary helped more than I’d anticipated, too. Early morning excursions followed by free afternoons gave my son the space to process what he’d seen without feeling overwhelmed.

Our Egypt trip taught me that not all kids will love travel the way you do, but they might love their version of it. My daughter thrives on aesthetic experiences: beautiful spaces, café culture, the rhythm of city life. My son needs a narrative he can follow, historical context he can connect to what he’s learned, physical places he can touch and explore.

I’m glad I let go of my own travel dreams long enough to figure out what might ignite our children’s. Egypt at 15 worked for my son in a way Paris at 11 never could. Not because Egypt is inherently better, but because it aligned with who he is as a learner, as an explorer, at this moment in his life.

Maybe your reluctant traveller doesn’t hate travel either. Maybe they’re just waiting for you to help them find their version of it.

The writer was a guest of Uniworld Cruises. It did not review or approve the story before publication.