The Joy of Family Travel

Ester Pobudkiewicz, 4B

I love family trips. We have a tradition: every winter we go to Zakopane, and every summer we travel to the south of France. Zakopane is beautiful because of the Tatras. There, you can ski and visit houses that are over 100 years old, where famous artists like Władysław Hasior used to work. Hasior’s museum surprised me with its mystical sculptures, and I was a little scared of them.

We don’t travel every weekend, so I wait a long time for these trips because they’re really special to me. We prefer traveling by car because we can easily change direction or stop to visit a small village, see old houses, a nature reserve, or go into the forest. We don’t use phones while in the car. We play guessing games, listen to music, read books, and talk to each other, so we never get bored. Long trips bring us closer because we go through adventures together. We laugh a lot and sometimes argue, but that’s what family trips are about: getting closer and sharing both happy and sad moments.

In summer, we go to the south of France. My grandma on my dad’s side has been going there for 30 years, and this trip has become a time for us to get together and create the best memories. The journey takes 2 days and we cover the distance of over 2,000 kilometres. We drive through beautiful countries, such as Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Italy. We watch the snowy Alps through the window, stop at nice places, and sleep in different hotels.

At the beginning of the trip, we always ask Dad, who is driving, how much longer we have to go, and we follow the route on the map. But then we start enjoying the moment. We usually stop overnight in Germany, often in a pretty village where we stay in a house on a cherry farm. There, we can pick tasty cherries to take with us for the rest of the trip.

In Austria, my brother always asks Dad to stop the car so we can play football on a beautiful meadow in the mountains. In Switzerland, our favorite break spot is a small playground next to a mountain river that flows between lovely wooden houses. It’s the prettiest place I’ve seen so far.

But the best part of the whole trip is when we finally arrive and see the beautiful blue Mediterranean Sea.