Trips That Changed US All Forever

Me, MOM, And A Thousand SEABIRDS

- LEIGH NEWMAN

Whether frictionless or fraught, mind-blowing or heartbreaking, venturing outside of your element and into the world has the tendency to inspire or, as the case may be, galvanize personal growth. Here, five world travelers share the journeys that made them who they are.

My mother is a loving, complicated woman who has a loving, complicated best friend who in this essay...we'll call Jane Bolton. Both are addicted to twinsets and travel. The only hitch in their relationship is that her best friend has unlimited resources...and my mother doesn't. Whenever they chat on the phone, something invariably comes up about the QE2 transatlantic crossing or the Paul Gauguin ship around Tahiti. Then I get a call from my mother, a few months later, saying, "Can you believe it! Jane Bolton booked the QE2! She stole my dream trip, honey! She stole my dream!" I adore them both, but I have always abstained from commentary. That is, until Jane Bolton stole my mother's Lindblad Expeditions cruise to the Galápagos Islands. Something in me broke. I was sick and tired of Mom losing.

Mom had raised me on her own. Mom had driven me to school and forgiven my teenage cigarettes and, once, FedExed an umbrella to me in college because it was raining. Whipping out my sorely abused credit card, I booked passage for us both.

The Lindblad cruise was billed as an adventure cruise. And 25 years ago, when I booked this cruise, the ship was an adventure-feeling boat, more akin to a gussied-up ferry. (The cruise line now has fancy ships with balconies and saunas.) Mom and I shared a berth, where she unloaded an alarming amount of luggage stuffed with cruise wear and I stowed my backpack stuffed with shorts and bathing suits.