On a Family Trip Before College, Discovering Just the Right Time to Finally Do Europe

16.01.2025 - 01:55 / cntraveler.com

By the time my kids, Mila and Joe, were tweens, they’d become pretty savvy travelers. We had traveled as a family all over Mexico and Central America, to French Polynesia, and around Southeast Asia—Joe had even tagged along with me on a work trip to Egypt. But a family trip to Europe? Nope. I had been urged by a few well-traveled friends to save Europe for a time when my children would really appreciate it, when they could enthusiastically spend not just hours but consecutive days wandering museums and historical sites, when their palettes could handle sophisticated flavors, and when 10 p.m. dinners wouldn’t destroy the following day. I’m not sure why I chose to listen to this parenting advice while cavalierly ignoring all sorts of other cautionary tales and whispered warnings, especially since my kids ate everything, had been visiting museums since their toddler days, and frequently stayed up to 1 a.m. But I did, and year after year, kept punting on a family trip to Italy or Greece, countries I knew and loved and couldn’t wait to share with my kids when the time was right.

Except–and of course–the time is never right and if you wait too long, the time runs out. My wake up call came when my daughter, then 16, was studying for final exams at the end of her junior year of high school. She announced that they were the last high school exams that would really matter and that next year at this time she’d know where she’d be going to university and she guessed she would be traveling somewhere fabulous with a group of friends before packing up and moving away for college. Total gut punch. I had one summer left of guaranteed family togetherness and I knew it had to be Europe.

We decided on Italy. We only had about a week to play with and we knew we wanted to see a few places and have a few different types of experiences. The plan became: start in Naples, hit the Amalfi Coast, close it out with Rome. To be honest, it was excruciating to land the itinerary; to knowingly forgo all the other amazing Italian cities and regions, and I did have a few middle-of-the-night “What about Florence instead of Naples?” and “Is Sicily for 24 hours insane?” I had to keep reminding myself that this was a “taste of” type of trip and that my kids would, if they were lucky, revisit Italy on their own. Also, with limited days on the ground, I knew that it was crucial to keep the travel time between our three stops to two or three hours max or we’d lose entire days to schlepping. Venice could wait.

We started the week-long family trip through Italy in Naples.

Italy has no shortage of food and drink options to please all ages.

Whether traveling with kids who are six or sixteen, there is always that delicate dance between under and