1̶0̶,̶1̶1̶,̶1̶2̶,̶1̶3̶,̶1̶4̶,̶15Years of Mother-Sons Trips in Photos

This week, The Boys and I returned from our 10th annual Mother-Sons trip.

*insert head exploding emoji here*

I started this tradition in 2012 after my youngest turned one, and I was still blogging full-time. The idea was to travel at least once a year with the boys, just them and me. I thought it would be a good way for us to bond and instill a sense of independence and intrigue about the world.

I kept a journal of the trips but lost most of them when I took down the blogs. Now, I’m kicking myself in the ass for not backing up those posts correctly, but my photo archive is fairly vast, so I dug up the photos from each trip to reshare. I’m sure I’m missing a few, but I’m happy with what I could post here.

2012 Washington DC

This is the trip that started it all. With a 1- and 6-year-old, I set out on a day trip to Washington DC. It was my test trip, and we had an absolute blast.

As you can see, we jam-packed a lot into the day, and I proved to myself it was possible to travel solo with the boys.

2013 Utah Rafting

The next trip was an epic adventure to Utah. I really wanted the 7-year-old to experience something like this at that age, so I decided we would leave the 2-year-old home.

2014 Pacific Highway Road Trip

Again, we decided what we had planned would be a little too much for a 3-year-old, so The 8-Year-Old and I decided to embark on our pacific highway adventure alone. We flew into San Fransisco, explored the coast, and seven days later flew home from L.A.

2015 Wyoming Road Trip

Finally, Little Bean could join us, and at age four, he took the adventure of a lifetime. We flew into Utah, road-tripped through Idaho, visited Yellowstone, kayaked in Grand Teton, and explored Salt Lake City.

2016 Montreal Road Trip

On our next trip, we decided to rent a car and explore the North East. We drove up to Portland, Maine, made it to the top of Mt. Washington, wandered around Montreal, camped in Up-State New York, and then stopped at a cool sculpture park on the way home.

2017 Texas Roadtrip

This was the one trip I had a hard time piecing the photos together for as I couldn’t find all the photos. That, said I think I recovered most of them. Flying into Dallas with a 5- and 11-Year-Old, we explored as much of texas as we could in a week and then flew home from Houston.

2018 Key West Road Trip

As the kids get older the trips got a little harder. We squished a Key West road trip over a long weekend after I started a traditional full-time position.

2019 Assateague/Annapolis Road Trip

Due to budget and time constraints, we had to stay a little closer to home in 2019, so I planned a Maryland road trip. We camped on the beach with horses and explored Annapolis.

2020 Delaware Camping

In the midst of a pandemic, I thought the tradition might come to an end, but thanks to some very close friends who let us crash in their camper, we were able to carve out a short camping trip in Delaware.

2021 Myrtle Beach Camping

Again, I thought the tradition would potentially end, but again, thanks to our friends were able to explore a bit of Myrtle Beach together. It was a much-needed, short little trip after a pretty intense year.

I’m proud of us for keeping up the tradition these last two years. The boys and I are already pondering what to do next year. The 10-year-old wants to try skiing. The 16-Year-Old would like to go rafting again. I want to start traveling internationally with them and have my sights on Iceland. Whatever we decide, I’m sure we will have fun. We always do.

Update 5/25/2023:

I decided to just revisit this page and add our more recent trips for archival purposes. See below…

2022 Maine Road Trip

The 2022 trip was so eventful that it took me nearly a year to document it here. I did blog about it, so you can read all about our adventure to Maine here. It ended with a catastrophic engine failure, forcing us to end it a day early. 🙁

Update: 7/16/2025

2023 Tennessee Road Trip

I’m a little late adding this one (it’s 2025!), but I’m here! Better late than never. (WYCWYC amiright?)

This road trip was really special. First, the boys decided together where we went, and second, it was the year Ry graduated from High School. I posted about it here, but I’m also going to add the photos to a gallery below for archival purposes.

2024 No Trip 🙁

I could list a bunch of excuses for why I didn’t make it happen, but I’m just going to leave it as, I didn’t make it happen.

2024 was a particularly challenging year for several reasons I won’t go into now. However, I’m pleased to say that we will continue the tradition in 2025!

Here’s a shot of the family from our Beach week, which we made happen.

2025 Iceland Hike!

This is just a small sampling of photos from our Iceland Adventure. Read about the trip here.

To see all the pictures from the group we traveled with, click here.

2026?

Who knows!