The Family Tradition That Started With One Trip

There are some places in this world that will always be home to you.

Places that become part of who you are. Places that quietly shape your childhood, your dreams, your relationships, and eventually the person you become.

Over the years, my husband and I have moved across the country for his career, from Austin, Texas, to Washington, D.C., and now South Florida. We’ve built wonderful lives everywhere we’ve lived, but California will always be home for both of us.

Long before my children were born, I already knew one thing. One day, I wanted to bring them back.

I dreamed about long summer afternoons at Leadbetter Beach in Santa Barbara, sailing beneath the Golden Gate Bridge with my family, and slow walks down Ocean Avenue in Carmel-by-the-Sea, wandering through the little shops and cozy cafés with two little hands tucked safely into mine.

I imagined watching my children laugh as the wind filled the sails on the San Francisco Bay. I pictured afternoons in Santa Barbara where my best friend’s children and mine would run together on the beach before wandering through the avocado orchards that always made me feel like I’d stepped into another world.

I wasn’t dreaming about a vacation.

I was dreaming about introducing my children to the places that introduced me to myself.

California isn’t simply somewhere we like to visit.

It’s where my husband and I grew up.

It’s where my parents spent nearly forty-five years building our family. It’s where I learned to love the outdoors, where I started my first business, where I spent my twenties living just five minutes from my sister in Santa Barbara, where lifelong friendships were formed, and where so much of the story that made me began.

We’re raising our kids to know the world. I photograph them the way these moments actually feel, little backs running ahead, a profile in golden light, hands full of sand. The feeling stays. Their privacy does too.

For years, I carried this quiet dream of watching my South Florida-born children experience the California that had shaped every chapter of our own lives. I wanted them to understand why Carmel makes me immediately slow down. Why Santa Barbara still feels like home and where my husband and I got married. Why driving across the Golden Gate Bridge never gets old, no matter how many times I’ve crossed it.

Traveling with young children isn’t always the easiest choice. There are long flights, overpacked suitcases, missed naps, and days that rarely go exactly as planned.

But I’ve learned something.

The memories that ask the most of us often become the ones that give us the most in return.

I’ve always believed that life should be full of, “I can’t believe I did it,” instead of, “I wish I did.” Taking young children across the country may not always be the simplest decision, but missing the opportunity to watch them discover the places that mean the most to me is a risk I’m simply not willing to take.

Some seasons of life don’t stay open forever. Children grow. Parents grow older. Friendships spread across the country. Time has a quiet way of reminding us that “someday” isn’t guaranteed.

Now it's our tradition. Every summer, we take them back. It takes planning. It takes effort. It costs real time and real money. We make room for it anyway, because some things are worth building your year around to make memories to last a lifetime.

So if there’s a place that has shaped your story, I hope you take your children there. Let them see it through their own eyes. Let them fall in love with it in their own way. Because one day, they’ll understand that you weren’t simply taking them on a trip. You were taking them home.

💌

Jenn from The Mom Society™

Every trip we take runs on the same handful of things. I put them all in one place: my road trip essentials, tested by our own kids in our own backseat. You can also shop my travel favorites and the kids' travel list anytime.

And coming soon: our complete California road trip guide, every stop, stay, and beach from this trip, all in one place on the website.