When people consider an exciting, travel-filled life, one of the things we don’t often think about is the effect that travel will have on those we love.

I have many clients who routinely travel for work-whether it’s constant touring, brief media appearances, movie & TV shoots, or even vacations to get away for awhile, traveling, though it can be exciting, can have severe repercussions on our families and friends.

Usually, when I write a post on something like this, I’m traveling myself, or have just returned home after some trip. This time, however, I’m on the other end of it. My mother is traveling.

At first glance, that doesn’t sound like a big deal. But my mother doesn’t do things like take trips to San Francisco or Cincinnati. She’s an avid birder (bird watcher) and travels the world along the migratory paths and impossible to access nesting places of rare birds. This means that, not only, does she travel a lot, she tends to travel to inaccessible places, spending days (and/or nights) in the wilderness. For her, it’s very, very exciting. For me, I just worry about her and miss her. Over the years, she’s been to South Africa, Jordan, Egypt, Japan, Taiwan, India, the Amazon, and a number of other places. Right now, she’s in Madagascar, and she’s been away for almost a month. Now, when I say “away,” what that means on my end is that I’ve gotten one brief email from her in the last three weeks and don’t expect to hear from her again until she’s arrived home in a few days. Some people are fine with that. Unfortunately for my mother and I, I’m not.

Over the years, I’ve devised a number of methods to keep my emotions in check while she’s away-I try to keep as busy as possible, see friends, and try to forget she’s away-especially when she’s gone to some inaccessible place where her instructions to me are something like, “We’re supposed to be getting off the river on any one of these three days-we won’t be reachable at all, but don’t worry until day 5 if you don’t hear from me.” But the usual scenario is that we just won’t be in contact until she’s home.

Now, I know my case is a little extreme. Most of my clients who travel are able to communicate regularly with their families (and especially their children) But I bring this up because parents and spouses, in their enthusiasm for the trips that they’re taking, sometimes don’t notice the effect it’s having on those they love. Whenever possible, it’s SO important that, when traveling or planning to travel, we keep the communication lines open to find out if there is a family member who may need a little more attention or communication from us when we’re away, and for us to be compassionate and sympathetic to the stress THEY may be under while we’re on the road.

I’ve had clients complain that they’ve got enough to worry about while they’re traveling to have time to deal with a child or spouse who isn’t coping well with the separation, but what I try to remind them is that a bit more communication and need-meeting planning around taking trips is actually an investment in those relationships as a whole. Think of it this way-an extra email to a child who desperately misses you may go far in mitigating resentment and hurt feelings when you get home, so that coming home will ALSO be an exciting and fun experience for you.

Tags: amazon, birding, Children, email, exotic locations, media appearances, on location, Relationships, touring, Travel, traveling

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 26th, 2009 at 8:19 pm and is filed under Balance, Children, Family, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.