What If Your First Trip Quietly Built You? // 183

Your travel style didn’t start when you booked your first grown-up trip. It started the first time you learned what “new” feels like. We’re digging into the idea of a travel origin story and how childhood experiences can shape your adult relationship with road trips, adventure travel, and even solo travel confidence.

I share one of the most defining trips of my life: a four-to-five-week RV road trip at age nine, crammed in with a family of six and rolling from Pennsylvania through the Midwest and out to the West. It’s part awe and part chaos, with U.S. national parks like the Badlands, Arches in Utah, and the Grand Canyon leaving a permanent mark. Alongside the beauty are the moments that test you, including my first tornado on the horizon and a string of RV problems that turn into stories you never forget.

We also talk about why the same exact trip can create totally different outcomes. One person feels inspired and hungry for nature and novelty. Another feels repelled and avoids that style of travel forever. The point isn’t to judge your past. It’s to use it. If you’re a midlife traveler trying to figure out what fits now, or a woman planning solo travel and wanting more courage, this conversation helps you connect your memories to a travel plan that actually matches your personality and season.

If this sparks something, share it with a friend who needs a nudge, then subscribe and leave a review so more women can find the confidence to take the trip they’ve been holding back on.

Coaching Invitation
If you’re feeling drawn toward solo travel but unsure where to begin, this is something I support women with through 1:1 coaching. Together we can explore what kind of travel experience fits your season of life and create a thoughtful plan that reflects the woman you are becoming.

https://cherylbeckesch.com/workwithme/

Transcript

The RV Trip That Started It

A First Tornado On The Horizon

Breakdowns And RV Chaos Stories

How Early Trips Shape You

Choose Travel That Fits You

SPEAKER_00 0:01

What is your first memory of a travel experience? Was it as a child? Or did you not travel until teenage or adult years? I'd like to share my origin story because I believe some of these origin stories of our lives can determine what kind of traveler we end up being later in life based on maybe the seeds that were planted as a child, the experiences we had, how much we were exposed to travel or not. And was it a good or bad experience? Because maybe you had a bad experience on a road trip. So therefore you don't like road trips. Or maybe you had this glorious, very memorable experience. And so it's created how you like to travel now as you are in your midlife and up era of life. So my origin story starts back when I was age nine, and I was reminded of this as I was looking through some old photo albums, and that our family we had probably traveled before that. I have small recollections of going to, for example, Virginia Beach. I think we did get to Disney World before that. I was probably a little younger, visiting family. Maybe we went to some amusement parks nearby. But this particular trip, in my mind, was so epic in that it has carved so many memories in my life that I strongly believe that experience, and there were good and bad things about that experience, really created who I how I like to travel now. And so when I was nine, my family, and there are six of us, got an RV and traveled. Now we were living in Pennsylvania at the time. So we got an RV and we were traveling throughout the Midwest, the West, and even hit some southwest areas of the country in an RV. Six of us crammed into not one of those long, fancy ones. I feel like it might have only been 30 feet. I'm not sure. It was small in comparison to what I see on the road these days. But there was, I think we were gone four to five weeks. Based on where we made all our stops, we had to be gone at least four weeks. And through this time with my family, there were fun times, there were scary times. So this particular trip, we did hit a lot of the national parks, which I think I've mentioned. I think that's why I have this love for our national parks here in the U.S. And any national park, because I've been to several international national parks as well, and just love that. And I love the fact that I think what also this whole trip set the seed for me for adventure. The whole trip was a clearly an adventure. And so I'm going to share a couple of the really funny, rememberable stories, and I'm going to actually share this with my siblings because we all have some really fun memories and some funny memories and some not so funny memories. And so some things I clearly remember is on this trip, believe it or not, I saw my first tornado. And now that I live in Texas, that's no big deal. But back then, at age nine, I was petrified. And we were in flatlands, probably Iowa would be my guess, somewhere where it's just totally flat. And you could actually see it on the horizon. You can see it across the fields. And my father pulled over, and there was like nothing on this exit. He pulled over on an exit, happened to drive by this guy, older gentleman, tiny little house. I don't know if it was part of the railroad, you know, one of those little houses they have. He's sitting outside on his porch. And we did have a CB radio, but he, the guy on the porch had a he had the channel, I guess, was more for weather. And so my dad had actually asked him, which way is it headed? Because we're going the opposite way. And I remember hiding out in the bathroom of the RV, just scared of that whole prospect. Because I had what you see in movies is probably the closest I've gotten to anything I know about tornadoes and their destruction. So that's one memory. Other memories, of course, seeing all these amazing national parks. Because coming from Pennsylvania, we have some great lush green hilly areas, but we don't have any national parks in Pennsylvania. And so seeing these magnificent places, such as the Badlands and the arches in Utah and the Grand Canyon, we saw so many great things in our travels. And that's just to name a few of the national parks we hit. And some other memories are kind of catastrophic memories, meaning we had some major issues with the RV. For example, we are you're out in the Midwest and there's some hills, there's lots of hills, windy hills, when you're going through some of those national parks. And at one of those moments, the brakes in the RV decided to fail. And my father, being such a skilled driver, I mean, it again, another petrifying, scary moment. He really carefully got us down to the bottom of the hill. And I mean, you could smell the brakes burning the whole time. And we have, of course, had to put it in the shop. And then the time that our back window somehow got crashed in, and again, we had to board it up. And the other time I again winding down a road, someone had forgotten to latch the kitchen. The refrigerator has a latch so that it doesn't fly open. Now I'm sure nowadays they have some more advanced, better refrigerators, but this one needed to be latched to stay shut. Well, someone had forgotten to un to latch it, and we're on the road and we're winding around. And sure enough, the refrigerator door flies open and out pour the eggs. The eggs come crashing down onto my pillow, which happened to be on the floor by the refrigerator. Well, obviously, we had to find a laundry mat. I don't even know if I wanted to sleep on that pillow after that, but I was a little bit in tears, blaming my brother, of course, because that's what I did, because he was younger. And but the memories, and then I don't know, we laugh. I remember my mother's laugh so much during this time. And her when you're cramped up with six people, there's going to be some smells, right? And so there was some gassy smells at one point, so bad one time that my sister stuck her head out the window, and we're driving along, and she loses her hat, and we're laughing. My mom's laughing so hard, of course, because she's the one that made the smell. And so we had to stop and go back and get my sister's hat that flew out the window. And there are countless more memories being close to my family and having that opportunity. I think to me, it was just this whole idea of an adventure, somewhere new, something different every single day. And when I travel now, I do travel that way. I feel like I look at things like an adventure. Every day is different. I love getting out in nature like we did in the national parks. And I feel like, in addition to we all have our own personalities, and we all are created differently. God created us all very uniquely, and I know God created me that way because although all of us went on that trip, my two older sisters would never dream of traveling that way ever again because they're created very differently than myself. And for me, that trip really planted the seed that has really over the years has blossomed and even more so now, of course, now that I have more of that opportunity and that time to do adventure road trip type things. My sisters are now the opposite. So, as I said in the beginning, sometimes our experiences, our early childhood travel experiences, can do one or two things. It can repel us from maybe what we experienced. Maybe we had such an awful experience that we never want to travel that way. Or we had such a great time and memories that has solidified and built who we are into how we want to travel now. And maybe as a child, maybe you didn't travel at all. And so for you, travel is you're maybe more tentative in your travel. And so you maybe getting going somewhere close is a challenge in itself. Like just going to a new place, even though you're in a your same city, going to a new place and doing something different, it feels uncomfortable to you, and that's okay. And maybe that's all your travels will be. But it is something new, it is something different that we want. I want to see women get out and do because there's so much transformation that can happen when we do this. We see things differently when we do that. Maybe as a child you were taken to the beach all the time, and either now you always go to the beach because you love the beach, or maybe you don't like the beach now because that was just too much, or that your parents traveled a lot or exposed you to a lot of education or art type of things, and maybe that's how it's you've developed that in yourself, that you appreciate that, and now when you travel, you make sure you do those kind of things. So our early memories and our early experiences in travel, I believe, do set the foundation whether it repels us or whether it uh it blossoms into something even more. So think about what your earliest uh travel memory is. Was it a good one? And do you have good memories, bad memories? Was is it something you continue to do now? Do you feel that suits your personality? And maybe it doesn't, because a lot of times as children, our parents are planning these trips. Our parents who have probably different personalities than you as a child even had. And so they might base their travels more on what they like or what's suited for them, versus what you, of course, as a child you wouldn't quite know yet, maybe. But your personality might lend to something differently, and that's okay too. But think back on that and what is that memory? And even go one step further. I don't know, do you have pictures from that? Pull them up, see what your memories are. And if you went with another family member, I love to talk to my siblings about our trips and things that we've done as a family because we all remember things differently, or they remember a different detail than I did. Not that the trip was different, but we recalled just different details or nuances. And so think about that. And is it suitable? Is that something that you do like doing? And maybe that's something you want to get back to even. Maybe you've lost that and you want to reclaim that. And maybe you have become someone completely different, and that's perfectly fine too. But what does that look like? What does your personality now look like? And what type of travel lends itself that's suitable for that personality for yourself? I think it's important that when we travel solo, especially, that we are not trying to check off a box or fulfill someone else's plan for us, but that we're doing it what fits it for ourselves, our life, our season, our personality, and go with it. And that's what I'm here for to help you get that courage and that boldness to get there and go for that trip that you've been holding back on. I think recalling some of our childhood and our fond memories, our dislikes even, is very beneficial in creating what is it that fits for us right now.