"It was magic. The whole thing was magic," she says, adding that she didn't feel the horrible post-trip letdown that many people experience after they return home. "I just wanted to go back."
Sometimes it's not the location but the chance to show it to someone you love that makes a vacation dream material. Dale Mills of Guelph, Ont., plans to introduce his 12-year-old son, Tristan, to his own travel passion, the Arctic. The two have already been to the "Dinosaur Capital of the World," Drumheller, Alta., and have seen the history-making biodiversity of the Galapagos Islands. But while Mills has been north of 60 almost a dozen times, he's still excited about sharing it with his son.
"We've gone on a few dream trips together, but I want him to experience the Canadian North," he says.
Amanda Pressner, author of the forthcoming book The Lost Girls, discovered the importance of travelling with people you love after ditching swishy media jobs in New York and roaming the world with two girlfriends, planning only one country ahead for the whole year they were gone.
"I didn't expect these two women would change from being just the girlfriends I hung out with in New York to being something else. It's a war-buddy sort of bond. You know you have these two people for the rest of your life," she says.
IT'S ALL SO GREAT
I'm happy to share Club Med with my children too. My five-year-old son is doing yoga with his fellow "geckos" at the Mini Club Med day camp across the way. My daughter, Nadia, has just ordered a Shirley Temple. She's a one-year-old beauty who was diagnosed last year with hydrocephalus - too much fluid around the brain. I didn't start giving my son soda until just a few months ago, but the way I'm feeling today, I figure it's okay if she wants to live a little.
The resort is gorgeous. After my night of sweats and aches, I finally, weakly, venture out onto the grounds to explore. If I was in a better mindset, I would drink in the regal palm trees dotting the grounds, the ocean beyond, the thatched roofs, the mango tree laden with fruit beside the pool and the ethereal music piped in around the property. Sunbathers lounge around the pool and on the beach on king-sized, covered daybeds with coral throw pillows.
But I feel so guilty sitting in the middle of this beauty while all hell breaks loose back home. So after a couple of days we go online in our room and pay $2,000 for plane tickets to take us home.
"You came back," my mother says when she sees me walk into her hospital room the morning after our flight home. "They told me you were coming back."
I smile at her, trying to erase any visible shock at seeing her so weak, her face an expressionless mask created by the cocktail of painkillers pumped into her body.
"I'd rather see you than some stupid sunset," I say, leaning down to hug her. The words sound utterly inane next to the sorrow mixed with gratitude welling inside me. "I'd rather see you any day."
We hold hands for a long time. I stroke her hair. Apply lipstick to her mouth. I have made it home for the only two days she is lucid enough to speak the words she needs to say, hear the words I have to tell her.
Six days after my return, surrounded by photos of her own dream trip to Scotland, she dies. Her final, solo journey to a place she has always dreamed she would go. And the only place I cannot follow.
