A hard earned lesson from our time living in Spain is that travel with our family is a much more successful venture if it is active travel. As I said in my book, Tranquila, we are doers, not viewers. When we planned our most recent family trip (Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro and Greece), we remembered this lesson.
But just because we do doesn’t mean we all agree on what the best or most fun way of doing is. We’re traveling with young adults now, no longer young children who we could just tell, “This is what we’re doing,” so planning happens a bit more democratically. Of course democracy works when people participate—it would’ve been nice had these young adults voiced their opinion as we were planning the trip rather than when we’re in Europe, on the day of an activity. “Hiking doesn’t sound that fun.”
Our trip started in Slovenia, and we catapulted into “active” immediately. Day 1 consisted of white water rafting in the morning, canyoning in the afternoon. (What jet lag?) I don’t know what I thought canyoning was when we were planning the trip, but whatever I thought it was, it wasn’t. Nor would it fall under my definition of best or most fun.
I should’ve been tipped off to this when we were on the rafting trip. We had to wear neoprene suits, because we would be taking a swim in the water at some point to cool off. (It was June, why the need for neoprene?). The water was a beautiful greenish-blue from the mineral content of the mountain runoff that fed the river. When it came time to jump in, or not, the guide said, “The water is very fresh,” which I assumed he had meant refreshing. Upon flipping off the raft I instantly lost my breath from the frigid water and within seconds couldn’t feel my hands. When we got back on the boat, our guide said to our gasping selves, “Just wait til you go canyoning. That water is really fresh.” What the hell was their intention behind the word ‘fresh’? “Don’t worry,” our guide said, “you will wear much thicker neoprene suits when you go canyoning.” And this is where my dread of our canyoning afternoon took hold.
Sava Dolinka River, Bled, Slovenia
Did I know that canyoning entailed rappelling and ziplining and climbing to successively higher waterfalls, which we then jumped off of, into frigid (“fresh”) waters, culminating in a 11m / 33ft waterfall jump? No. Would that have been something I enthusiastically agreed to as we planned this trip? No. That was not my idea of most fun. After grasping what lay ahead of me, with the water being even “fresher” than what had just frozen my fingers off, I contemplated foregoing the canyoning. But it was day 1 of our family vacation, this was absolutely my family’s idea of fun, and so I would bite the bullet and do this so we could have this experience together as a family.
The canyoning was as physically challenging as it was mentally. The strength and agility required to climb up and over and through wet, slippery boulders and outcroppings high above the water was as daunting as staring down an 8m waterfall and being told, “You get one chance to jump. I’ll count to three and if you don’t jump, we take you down a different way.” And the water was as “fresh” as the rafting guide had promised.
The family was exhilarated at the end of the adventure; I’m not sure I personally would characterize the adventure as fun so much as completed. I was more proud at having faced the challenge and relieved upon making it to the end. Instead of walking to the van, the guide had us float down the river on our backs, with a small detour—surprise!—to do one last jump, off a bridge. I contentedly passed, confidently knowing a bridge jump couldn’t up my fun quotient at that point.
To jump or not to jump, at Slap Grmečica
The fact that the kids knew I wasn’t excited about canyoning and did it anyway totally worked in my favor the following day, when we did an activity that I had been looking forward to and they did not—hiking. Mae even said, “I totally don’t want to be doing this, but you didn’t want to go canyoning yesterday…”
The hiking adventure almost didn’t happen, several times (cue the sarcastic “Nooo!” from the kids). The first time was when the guide for our hike to Debela Peč, the easternmost 2000m + peak in the Julian Alps, picked us up at our hotel and, taking note of our sneakers as we piled into the van, pronounced, “You can’t go in those shoes.” I reassured her that we had done plenty of legit hiking in California and we always wore sneakers. “But not hiking like this,” she countered, saying it was very rocky. That was the first time I gave the kids credit for not announcing, “Looks like this isn’t going to work out.” I tried to convey to the guide that we had done just fine in sneakers in the Sierra, which could also be very rocky, and really we didn’t need hiking boots. But she said it was a safety issue and she needed to take us back to their office where we could rent proper hiking boots.
When it dawned on us, as we tried on the boots, that none of us had socks high enough, and the guide said we’d have to to stop at a sporting goods store on our way to the mountain to buy socks, no one uttered, “Doesn’t this seem like we’re forcing it?” Which would’ve been a totally valid question at that moment.
The third time was less than five minutes into a five hour hike when the sole of Mae’s boot fell off. Just fell off. The guide, myself, and Mae looked at each other in stunned silence. From the absurdity and preposterousness of it, or from the realization and shock of having no options, it was unclear. At this point it wasn’t even realistic to say, “Looks like hiking isn’t going to happen”…what was on all of our minds instead was, “What in the actual fuck??” In the end, the solution was me giving my boots to Mae, and me wearing the spare pair of trail running shoes the guide had in the van. So sneakers would have to do after all. And then up the trail we went, again.
Though each kid said several times, “I totally could’ve done this in my sneakers,” not once did they say, “This isn’t fun.” For them the hike was not ‘jumping off waterfalls’ fun, but I believe that was made up for by sheer beauty. The wild flowers in the Alpine valleys, the rocky terrain across green open faces, and then the reward of the 2000m view atop Debela Peč left them saying the words I longed to hear, “I’m so glad we did this.”
And though they were like mountain goats, not bothered by the terrain or altitude, unknowingly pushing the guide to maximum pace and leaving us to bring up the rear, I would say they did not seem to gain the same emotional energy from the adventure as I did.
Me at the end of the hike
As we had traversed one meadow, a European couple we passed commented how nice it was that we still took our holiday together as a family, when our kids were grown. “That’s not so common in Europe,” they said. Our earlier travels when the kids were young taught us we’d all be happiest doing. We had now graduated to learning how to make it fun for all, if possible, while doing. That couple had driven the point home to me that the most important thing, the most special, was that we were still doing it together.