The Page Travel Bug

 

My father had the travel bug, and he passed it down to his children and grandchildren. Or to most of his grandchildren, anyway. My son, John, was a disappointment.

After John left home, he took very few trips, and all of them were within the U.S. So I was pleasantly surprised in 2023 when he decided to go to Greece with my brother Gordon and my niece and nephew.

But let me go back and explain where the bug came from.

It started with my father, Oliver Page. Before Daddy was married, he traveled to the Middle East and taught at a private school in Amman, Jordan. He returned on sabbatical when he was a family man, and we lived there when I was six and seven (with my birthday occurring in the middle of the eight-month trip). When we reached England, and on our way back home, we worked our way across Europe seeing the sites until we reached (and after we left) Amman. While living there, we took advantage of weekends and holidays to travel around the area by foot (hitchhiking) or bus.

We had been back in the states for three years when Daddy decided to take another sabbatical with his family, this time to Edinburgh, Scotland. We sightsaw through England on our way there and in Europe during our spring break.

Other years, we traveled around the continental United States or to Mexico or Canada. Daddy got a month of vacation each year, and he made the most of it.

Daddy and Mama continued traveling after my brothers and I left home, but I wasn’t usually with them.

Roland didn’t travel much while growing up, but I soon infected him with the travel bug, too. While Caroline and John were young, we took international vacations to Germany, Mexico, Great Britain (England and Scotland), Canada, and the Middle East (Jordan, Egypt, and Israel), as well as traveling around the continental U.S. The photo at the top of this page is from our 1998 trip to the Middle East with my mother, my brothers, and my niece and nephew. (Daddy was 88 and too infirm to go with us.) Roland isn’t in the photo because someone had to take it.

During our time as empty nesters, Roland and I have continued to travel extensively. At first we traveled mostly in the U.S. (often to states where Roland had never been, but also to Alaska and Hawaii where I hadn’t been either), but we have done 14 international trips since the children left home, with two more booked and others under consideration.

Caroline and Pete are also experienced international travelers, but, as I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I despaired of John.

Then he went to Greece. Still, that could have been a one and done.

Fortunately, it wasn’t. John and Christina just returned from a delayed honeymoon trip to Italy. (Delayed only in the sense that they were married in September.) I don’t know if she urged him into it or if he was as interested in going as she was.

In any event, I hope that my entire family now has the travel bug.