SUNDAY, MAY 15 , 2022. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ EE F5
ily be soaking in the culture and
living like locals. Instead, they
would sit in their hotel or vacation
rental, connected to their devices,
chatting with friends. My 17-year-
old plays a game called “Gorilla
Tag” on his Oculus Rift VR head-
set, which requires a blazing-fast
Internet connection.
In fact, the first question my
teens ask me about any hotel isn’t:
Does it have a pool? How’s the
beach? What are the dining op-
tions? No, it’s always the same:
Does it have good WiFi? My kids
log on to the Internet immediately
after setting down their suitcases.
And lately, they’ve started to get
picky about the connection. Aren,
my eldest, will log in to his speed-test program to check the connec-
tion. Anything less than 10 mega-
bits per second of download gets
me dirty looks. When I tell them
that I used to feel lucky when my
hotel room had a phone, the re-
sponse is an eye-roll.
While we’re on the subject of
electronics, here’s another thing I
wish I had known: You can never
have enough chargers. The angri-
est confrontations between my
teenagers when we’re on the road
involve a charger. I’ve lost count of
the fights I’ve had to mediate be-
tween two warring siblings.
“She took my charger!” one
screams.
“No, it’s my charger,” the other
snaps.Want to take it to the next level?
Try an international trip, where
none of your chargers will work
without an adapter. A 110-to-220-
volt adapter is one of the easiest
things to lose when you’re in a
hotel. Honestly, I feel like a plug
vending machine whenever we ar-
rive somewhere. But on a recent
trip to South Africa, it reached a
crisis level. The country uses a
three-pin plug, and we had only
one. Epic fight!
Another thing people failed to
mention about traveling with
teens: You must feed them! Ado-
lescents are the human equivalent
of hummingbirds, normally con-
suming what seems to be about
twice their weight in food. But aswith sleep, travel has an unex-
plained multiplying effect on food
intake. They eat extra meals, such
as second breakfasts or early din-
ners.
I’ve seen boxes of Jordanian
Medjool dates vanish within min-
utes. Adolescents can vacuum piz-
zas off their plates with the speed
and efficiency of a competitive
eater. Teenage boys are the natural
enemy of all-you-can-eat buffets:
When the kitchen staff sees them
coming, they run for the hills. By
our second day at an all-inclusive
golf resort near Antalya, Turkey,
the servers gave my boys a ner-
vous glance when they saw them
— and I got a knowing nod.
The consequences of missing asuccess. It was so beautiful and
foreign out there on the water,
far enough from shore to feel the
pull of the ocean. For me, the
experience was entirely unique,
and to be able to share it with
family was one more opportunityto forge another bond in our
history together. I thought
about this on the boat ride back,
how the shared moments
stack up and how each time we
do something like this, it makes
me excited to plan the nextadventure.
Which is why I no longer
differentiate between traveling
with family and vacationing.
Travel is all about having new
experiences and exploring.
When you do that with relatives,you’re enhancing the family dy-
namic, deepening your shared
history and working toward a
collective future. You get to know
one another in a different way,
see each other in a different
environment. And, if you’re
lucky, these efforts will take you
somewhere new and astonishing
and will expose you to things youdon’t see in day-to-day life. A
vacation is a vacation, full stop.
Add in family, and that vacation
can become a wonderful touch-
point in a long and braided
history.Walker is a writer based in Boulder,
Colo. Find her on Twitter:
@racheljowalker.tion in Cape Cod Bay wanted to
come check us out.
They came like a fireworks
finale on the Fourth of July.
Humpbacks, fins, minkes. Some
were enormous, others smaller.
Barnacles covered the bodies of
some, and as they breached the
water’s surface and arced across
the clear sky, the whales’ strength
and otherworldliness were exhil-
arating to behold. They held
their beautiful tails up and
slapped them down. We gaped as
a ring of bubbles appeared on the
water, and the naturalist ex-
plained bubble netting, which
happens when a group of whales
blows a wall of bubbles while
collectively hunting for fish. The
bubbles corral the prey and force
them to the surface, where
they’re snapped up by the
whales.
For some of the time, I listened
to her and took notes. I learned
the difference between baleen
and toothed whales. Instead of
teeth, the former have baleen
plates that trap shrimplike krill,
plankton and small fish while
expelling seawater from the
whales’ mouths. But then I shut
my notebook and marveled at
nature’s show. The whales were
abundant and astonishing in
their beauty. There were so many
of them. None of us had ever
witnessed nature in such a living,
breathing spectacle before.
Hours passed, and by the time
the captain turned the boat back
toward Plymouth Harbor, my
earlier worries were gone. Of
course the trip was worth it. But
even if we hadn’t been treated to
such a show, I suspect the excur-
sion would still have been a
WHALES FROM F4
Multigenerational fun rises to the surface o n Cape Cod Bay whale-watching tour
If You Go
WHERE TO EAT
Cabby Shack
30 Town Wharf, Plymouth, Mass.
508-746- 5354
cabbyshack.com
Waterfront seafood restaurant
with extensive outdoor seating
and renowned lobster rolls and
clam chowder. Open daily 11 a.m.
to 1 a.m. Entrees from $14.
Martini’s Bar & Grill
50 Court St., Plymouth
774-773-9 782
martinisbarandgrill.com
A Plymouth staple, Martini’s offers
seafood, steak and pasta, as well
as a children’s menu. The
restaurant sources seasonal and
local ingredients. Entrees from
$11.WHAT TO DO
Captain John Boats whale
watching
10 Town Wharf, Plymouth
508-746- 2643
captjohn.com
Four-hour, naturalist-guided whale-
watching tours include routesfrom Plymouth to Cape Cod Bay
and Stellwagen Bank, a marine
sanctuary and primary feeding
ground for migrating whales.
Tours from about $70 per person
ages 13 and up and $50 ages 4
to 12.
Plimoth Patuxet Museums
137 Warren Ave., Plymouth
508-746- 1622
plimoth.org
This complex of living history
museums, which has indoor and
outdoor elements, teaches visitors
about the European settlement of
Plymouth Colony and the history
of the native Wampanoag people.
The organization also offers
separate tours of a Mayflower II
reproduction tall ship. Open daily
9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; museum open
through the Sunday following
Thanksgiving. Combined Plimoth
Patuxet and Mayflower ticket for
museum and ship tour from
$39.95 per adult, $36 per senior
62 and up and $24.95 per child
5 to 12.INFORMATION
seeplymouth.comISTOCK
The view across the bay from historical Plymouth Harbor in Massachusetts, where seafood
dining, living history museums and whale-watching expeditions are readily available.BY CHRISTOPHER ELLIOTTNo one warned me about trav-
eling with teenagers, but I wish
they had.
Someone should have tipped
me off to the erratic sleep patterns
that can foil even the most expert-
ly planned trip. Or to the insatia-
ble appetite for an unlimited high-
speed wireless connection. At
least they could have said some-
thing about the food.
Instead, I learned everything I
know about traveling with teen-
agers the hard way. I’ve been on
the road with mine for the better
part of five years. We’re digital
nomads — a single dad and three
teens, ages 15, 17 and 19.
I love traveling with my kids.
They’re inquisitive, spontaneous
and have a dry sense of humor
that makes them ideal traveling
companions. I’ve discovered so
much about travel and myself by
being on the road with them.
But now, with my eldest son just
days away from exiting his teens —
he turns 20 this month — I’m in a
unique position to issue that
warning I never received, and
maybe a few words of solidarity, to
fellow parents of teens. My lessons
learned about traveling with ado-
lescents might even save your next
vacation.
I wish I had known that making
a schedule is pointless when
you’re traveling with teens.
They’ll probably just snooze
through that walking tour of
Rome. The American Academy of
Sleep Medicine says teens ages
13 to 18 need between eight and
10 hours of rest per night. Most
don’t get it, but did you know that
a vacation is an opportunity for
teenagers to catch up on sleep?
And they have a lot of catching up
to do.
If you’re flying somewhere,
that’s where it gets interesting. Jet
lag disrupts your body’s clock,
causing sleeplessness, fatigue and
mood changes. And if you think
it’s bad for you, wait until you see
what it does to your teens. My
daughter’s preferred waking
hours on my last trip to Hawaii
were 3 p.m. to 4 a.m. local time,
give or take. We lived in the Aloha
State for three months, and these
never changed.
Come to think of it, I wish I had
known that you can’t really plan a
trip for teenagers. It’s more like
you suggest an itinerary but give
them veto power. For example,
that cute Vrbo rental in Pringle
Bay, South Africa, would have
been so relaxing in March. But not
for my middle child; he needed
access to the food markets and
shopping at V&A Waterfront, so
we chose to be closer to Cape
Town. My kids have given the
thumbs-down to cities and even
entire countries. Go ahead, call
me a pushover. But I like to think
of myself as pragmatic. If your
kids aren’t happy, you’ll never
hear the end of it.
What are your teens doing dur-
ing waking hours while you trav-
el? I wish someone had let me
know that they wouldn’t necessar-
meal can be painful. The crew
turns belligerent. And when I sug-
gest that they’ve declared war on
one another because they skipped
breakfast, they often train their
rhetorical guns on me: “No, Dad,
maybe the problem is you!”
Okay then.
Missing a meal is not an option
when you travel with teens. I wish
I had known that.
You’re probably wondering
how one guy could travel with
three teenagers full time for as
long as I have. What about school?
After we became digital nomads,
the boys finished high school on-
line with the help of a tutor, then
tested into community college.
They graduated from the Univer-
sity of Arizona last year and are
pursuing master’s degrees. But
the wandering lifestyle isn’t for
everyone. Their sister bailed out,
returning to live with her mother
last summer. She just finished her
ninth-grade year in a regular high
school.
So does my advice about travel-
ing with teens apply only to boys?
To find out, I called fellow travel
writer Doug Lansky, the Stock-
holm-based father of three adoles-
cent girls. He confirmed that all of
the things I wrote about also apply
to girls, especially the part about
WiFi. His daughters ask the same
question my boys do about wire-
less connections, although they
don’t run speed tests when they
get to the hotel.
Lansky says one of the greatest
gifts a parent could have is no
WiFi. The ship on his recent Galá-
pagos Islands cruise had no Inter-
net connection, which gave him
some quality time with his daugh-
ters. The girls knew before their
vacation that it would be Internet-
free, so they had time to prepare.
That allowed the family to con-
nect in a meaningful way, with
long conversations over meals
and during tours. Lansky says the
cruise line won’t be installing
hotspots anytime soon.
“For me,” he says, “having no
WiFi is a selling point.”
The only difference between
teenage boys and girls, he adds, is
prep time. Lansky has learned to
add an extra hour every morning
to the schedule to allow his daugh-
ters to get ready for the day. Teen-
age boys need the same amount of
time, I assured him. Sure, my sons
can shower and shave in five min-
utes like they’re in boot camp. But
they’ll spend the other 55 minutes
sleeping, so it all evens out.
If you’re thinking of taking your
teenagers somewhere, my advice
is: Do it. Sure, traveling with
young adults can test your pa-
tience, but it’s one of the most
rewarding things you can do as a
parent. The trips you take with
them as teenagers will influence
them as adults, shaping them into
curious and compassionate citi-
zens of the world.
But I can’t take the credit for
any of that. I believe that is the gift
of travel.Elliott is the Tr avel section’s Navigator
columnist.Got teens on this trip? Prep the food — and the WiFi.CHRISTOPHER ELLIOTT FOR THE WASHINGTON POSTCHRISTOPHER ELLIOTT FOR THE WASHINGTON POST EKIN ÖZGÜN
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: The writer’s teen sons, Iden Elliott, center, and Aren Elliott, prepare for a tour in Khayelitsha, South
Africa; from left, A ren, Christopher and Iden at the Library of Celsus in Turkey; Iden takes a photo of the monoliths by Richard Serra
near Broog, Qatar. Before all of the family travel, the writer says, “I wish I had known that you can’t really plan a trip for teenagers.”