48 Flights

Today, Mother's Day 2012 I find myself alone for the first time on Mother's Day, beginning a site visit in gorgeous Charlevoix, Quebec and with a few minutes to reflect on how lukcy I am to live my life always returning to the safe "love bubble" (my daughter's term) of my family. While I am alone today, this past week we had the opportunity to travel again as a family, and my children at 12 and 13 counted all the flights they had ever been on.

Statistics to date

• 48 flight segments
• 1 cruise ship
• 1 major train trip
• 5 countries, numerous provinces and states
• 3 walled cities
• 1 Great wall
• 2 major oceans from various vantage points
• numerous hotels from "family" style to condos, b & b to 5 star luxury as well as many friend's homes (our favorite)
• 2 awesome theme parks
• numerous historic sites from Versailles to Tulum, Xian to Washington DC and many more in between

Travel today is as accessible as it is ever likely to be, given the numerous methods available, the speed and global opportunities, and what we will look back on in 50 years as the amount of fuel available to travel with at a relatively low cost. As a meeting / event professional it is my work that has led us to many of these places, and while the challenges have been many, the rewards and frienships even greater.

We are so fortunate to be able to offer our children the opportunity to see the world and to learn from its cultures and history and look forward to sharing even more of it with them. Whenever I return from a working journey tired... exhausted... exhilarated, I only need to reflect on how fortunate we are to be able to have collaborators and friends around the world that we can share life, work and fun with to be able to get up and do it all over again.  Thank you to all of you who have shared this with us.