Travel with your grandparents

What travelling with grandparents actually means?

I was looking for inspiration through my travel albums for my weekly post. Booom!!! I had several pictures of my grandpa beaming ear to ear at different locations all over India. He is 90+ and we as a family have travelled to countless places -Kashmir, Amritsar, Mahabaleshwar, Yercaud, Kolkata, Hampi to name a few.

You may wonder, what is so special about travelling with grandparents?

The answer is very simple - memories and lessons for life. Sure, we have to care about their medications, providing them with timely meals and are responsible for their comfort with the least amount of physical strain. What comes along is the experience of doing so, things learnt on the way and of course the happiness when you see them smile.

I have travelled across the world but to date, nothing compares to the joy of eating idlis with tomato chutney prepared by my grandma for our travel on the Rajdhani Express from Mumbai and Delhi. Nothing beats the content I saw in my grandpa's eyes when my sister held his hand through the rocky patches in Hampi to fulfil his desire to visit the yantrodharaka hanuman temple. I am grateful to my parents for leading by example, for taking the effort to include my grandparents on the family trips. Now that I would like to believe that I gained the maturity to understand life from these experiences, I am glad to have these wonderful memories to reflect upon.

Sure travelling with friends/partners/solo trips is cool - do it all I say. But do not miss out on making travel memories with grannies and grandpas. Someday down the road, scrolling through your travel albums, you will experience a warm glow in your heart and that's when you realize what it all meant.

Share your travel memories with your grandparents - would love to read them all.