What is the best magic formula for your family holiday?

I can still remember the anticipation, the utter excitement my sister and I felt the night before our summer holiday, so many years ago.  

I can remember getting up “in the middle of the night” and setting off in the family’s Jeep Grand Cherokee before the sun came up. 

We always stopped for breakfast at the same McDonalds and, even now, the smell of their hotcakes triggers memories of a week spent seaside.

The feelings are strong and vivid and all of my senses come alive.

The time away was always short – Saturday ‘til Saturday – and we didn’t go too far. But it was family time together, spent on the beach by day and the boardwalk by night. It was a simple formula. To me, my parents were super-adventurous.

Today, as an American girl, married to a Dutch guy, living in Tokyo and a mother of three children, all born in Switzerland… our holidays are so different than those of my childhood.  

Since we have been together, Johan and I have lived in four different cities, in four different countries, on three different continents. 

We have almost always lived “away” from our families. This makes keeping up with them a serious challenge and planning holidays a big balancing act.

I will always remember the summer when Lulu and Friso were one year old. We travelled with those little babies to England to see Johan’s parents, to New York to see friends, to Pennsylvania to see my family and back through London, home to Zürich. 

It was upon returning home that we decided that, in the future, holidays are on our terms! No more dog & pony shows. No more running around, seeing everyone and stressing ourselves out.

It sounds selfish. And, frankly, maybe it is. But the fact is, there is no magic formula.

Since we moved to Tokyo, and even further away from our families, we’ve had to make loads of difficult choices. And, believe it or not, deciding where and how we spend our holidays has been one of them. 

It is very important to us that our children stay connected to their school, their friends and the language in Switzerland. That is our home base and likely where we will return one day. So, Zürich is definitely on the holiday game plan. 

We also want to see Asia while we are based here. We want to travel these parts, see everything, eat everything, experience all there is. It is an amazing opportunity for us all, especially for the children.

But, guess what? We have family on two other continents that miss us. We certainly begin to feel disconnected.

We have had to be consequent. We set expectations when we moved to Asia last year. We made sure we let everyone know ahead of time that we prioritised travel within Asia and back home to Switzerland once a year. Anything else would be icing on the cake. 

Was this a clear, straightforward decision to make? Hell no! I had to tell my mother and sister that we would not be coming home to America while we are based in Asia. That was not easy.

We have missed birthdays, weddings and just plain ole day to day. We are so far away. I feel it, the kids feel it, my family feels it. 

And it strikes me that while we are busy creating our family memories together, we are missing out on the live of our extended families. This is so incredibly different than how I grew up.

As parents, we are all just trying to make the lives of our little ones special and memorable. 

My parents did it right! I will never forget paying one cent to see a horse go down a slide into a swimming pool. Or seeing my dad lope onto the beach with work boots and tube socks, because he actually hated the sand, carrying a cooler of Schlitz. Or realising that we’d left Maureen at the restaurant when we all had returned back to camp!

The boring, hot and long dog days of summer seemed to go on and on and on forever. But, those seven days seemed to rush by with the speed of light. They were precious and important and are branded on my memory, easily recalled many moons later.  

I wonder what my own children’s memories will be of their holidays?  What will they remember? What is meaningful to them? Is it the experience they crave, or simply family time with no other interferences or influences? 

This year, we took our family holiday in Bali. We didn’t explore. We ate almost all of our meals at the house. We swam for hours, played Yahtzee, beat one another at cards, read books, chatted. We didn’t see family or friends. We didn’t see anything new or exciting. 

We just sat at that house, listening to the waves crash and relished in the company of each other. There were no distractions, no escape!

We spent our summer in Switzerland catching up with friends and living our best mountain life…the spring holidays hiking on a UNESCO World Heritage Trail…the winter break in snowy Hokkaido… no magic formula.

Just us, making it up as we go along.

And then very vivid emotions spark….

I feel regret. I feel sad to miss moments with my nephews. I feel guilt to miss my grandmother turn ninety. I think about sitting on my mother’s deck, staring out to the woods while my kids race around her garden like I used to years ago. I conjure up the smell of fresh cut grass and the taste of corn on the cob. I miss my sister. 

And I feel a sense of incredible luck. My children are happy and healthy. My husband shares my crazy need to explore the world. At this moment, our life enables us to do exactly that. 

Will we be able to see all of those sites we dream about? Life takes weird twists and turns each day. I have spent a lot (I mean like a lot) of time worrying about this. I would love to say that I am living in the moment and don’t look back. But that is not necessarily true. I think often about the formula and if anyone has it right?

I am grateful for each little adventure we are fortunate enough to take. I know that every day in Tokyo is a mini travel story. Just this morning I had to travel with a flat bicycle tire – exciting! 

And I feel alive! We have chosen a bit of an unconventional lifestyle for us and for our children. We wouldn’t want it any other way.

So, just like my parents years ago in a little town in Pennsylvania, I am collecting memories for the family. No magic.