Me and Mine: And the Whole Wide World

I started to travel with my daughter when she was all of 5. A gregarious and extremely social child, she embraced the process of back packing with me. While it may sound like quite an ordeal to many people, it was anything but. Not only have my trips been deeply meditative, but they have also greatly improved the quality of the relationship I share with my little one. This spunky girl has also found her true calling: the great outdoors! And hence, trekking through snow filled Rohtang Pass, and making our way through the cloud forests of Mahabaleshwar has become important to me too – a side of myself that the writer in me had never thought possible.

And while we are talking about the seemingly impossible, there is another thing that our trips have taught me – making connections. My daughter ends up making friends everywhere we go – irrespective of age. She starts talking with random people on buses and trains – and who is going to say no to a cute five ear with deep life altering questions, right (why does fall come right after the monsoons, anyone?) I invariably get drawn into these conversations and friendships emerge – the kind that are built on the strong foundation of roughing it out together and being part of each other’s journey.

In this way, my daughter and our trips have both managed to teach me how to embrace things that I would have resisted in my everyday life: work, relationships, and most of all – parenting! That’s right – one of my greatest life skills has come from the fact that I do not No as often as I used to.

Follow this blog to learn about our travels an our adventures – the backpacking mother and her teacher, her daughter.