How I Travel With My 102-Year-Old Mom, and Why We Won’t Stop

We aren’t letting diminishing mobility steal her joy or mine. Over the years, we’ve built a simple system that makes travel workable

a grown woman and her mother, in a motorized wheelchair, on vacation

Monica Garwood

Gayle Kirschenbaum,

AARP

Published March 11, 2026

Welcome to Ethels Tell All, where the writers behind The Ethel newsletter share their personal stories related to the joys and challenges of aging. Come back Wednesday each week for the latest piece, exclusively on AARP Members Edition.

My mother is 102, and she still says, “Let’s go!”

Not adding “sometime”, “maybe”, “when the weather’s better.” She’s bright-eyed and ready, with shoes and lipstick on, scarf and jewelry chosen with care, handbag in lap and a level of excitement most people save for grandchildren’s weddings.

We travel because we love it. We love pulling into a place we’ve never seen before. We love meeting people. We love the surprise of a new view, a small museum, a restaurant where the waiter calls my mother “hon” and she beams like she’s been crowned.

Travel isn’t something we endure. It’s one of the ways we stay alive to each other.

My mother, Mildred Kirschenbaum, opened a travel agency in the 1970s and explored the world with my dad. After he died in 2006, my mother and I became travel companions, taking a trip each year. We’ve been to India twice, where she held out her hands to have them temporarily tattooed with henna. On another adventure, we started in Dubai and boarded a cruise in Abu Dhabi; when we sailed through piracy-prone waters, the ship went into a nightly lights-out protocol and brought on extra security.

At 102 my mom is still herself, but the rules have changed. So our trips have changed too. We matter-of-factly plan around what her body needs now.

We book an accessible room

An accessible room is liberating. A walk-in shower and grab bars can be the difference between an easy morning and a day that starts with anxiety.

We learned that the hard way. Visiting and staying with family, there was a step that didn’t look like much of a problem until she took it and went down. A broken shoulder doesn’t just heal; it rewrites what “safe” feels like. After that, we stopped making do. Now we book accessible rooms in advance. Everyone relaxes.

We make road trips comfortable

For road trips I pack with two goals: comfort and momentum. The trunk holds the mobility gear — her lightweight, foldable wheelchair (15 pounds) and her three-wheeled walker.

The car holds the comforts. Within arm’s reach is our “freedom kit”: dry snacks in a bag, our water bottles packed with ice because we like our drinks cold, and a thermos with sandwiches I made ahead of time as well as cut-up melon. We have two large towels to put on our laps when we eat. I keep paper towels, wet wipes and hand sanitizer close — not because I’m fussy, but because if we get hungry, we don’t have to scramble, and if we get messy, we recover fast.

I build the drive around what keeps my mom steady and relaxed: predictable pacing, frequent bathroom stops and rest areas where the walk from the car to the restroom doesn’t feel like a trek.

Author Gayle Kirschenbaum and her 102-year-old mother, Mildred Kirschenbaum, are longtime travel companions.

Gayle Kirschenbaum

And we make the route part of the fun. I’m always using Yelp, Google Maps and Tripadvisor to hunt for places that are worth getting a little off our path: a historic site with a smooth walkway, a quirky museum, a restaurant someone swore was worth it. Sometimes I look up happy hours along the way — not because we need a drink, but because happy hour is social. It’s vibrant. It’s my mother’s favorite kind of atmosphere: people talking, laughter in the air, the easy feeling that you’re in the middle of life.

Once, we arrived by chance at a happy hour right by the water. My mother took one look at the view and relaxed into her chair like she was exactly where she was meant to be. Within minutes she was chatting with the people next to us as if they were old friends. For a while we were just two women on an ordinary afternoon making a beautiful memory together.

And when we pulled into a famous Buc-ee’s in Florida off I-95 near Daytona Beach, we immediately started laughing at the enormity of the place. Buc-ee’s is a mega travel center — gas station, convenience store, rest stop — that feels like its own little universe. I wheeled her through the bright, buzzing aisles, then found the brisket counter. I made sure we grabbed a couple of juicy sandwiches on the way out.

We take cruises

Sometimes we cruise. Cruising removes chores like constant packing, navigating unfamiliar streets and figuring out meals over and over. We unpack once in our accessible room, where her scooter fits nicely. The scooter gives her mobility and independence around the ship as she rolls down the corridors, waving at strangers and making friends in elevators.

After a day in Florida that took Gayle and Mildred from Shabbat services in Palm Beach to the Boca Raton Museum, happy hour and dinner, they settled in for the best part: people-watching at Mizner Park.

Gayle Kirschenbaum

We take it slow

A few years ago while on the road, my mother insisted she didn’t need to wait for me to park and help her at a rest stop. After parking, I hurried in and found her on the floor, surrounded by strangers.

Her fall resulted in a fractured pelvis, and it permanently changed our pace. Now, if the rest stop is small, she takes my arm. I guide her. We don’t rush. We move the way you move when you know what you could lose, but you’re still determined to do it.

We keep going

Traveling with my mother isn’t only for her. It’s for me, too. Caregiving can shrink your world to appointments and caution. Travel disrupts that. It reminds me we are still a “we” — not just caregiver and cared-for, but mother and daughter, with a history, humor and shared appetite for the world.

Someday we won’t be able to do this. I know that, even when we’re laughing in a hotel room, and even when we’re eating sandwiches from my thermos like it’s the greatest luxury on Earth.

But as long as she still wants to go, and as long as I can make it possible, we’ll keep moving. Because travel, for us, is a way of saying, “We’re still here.”

AARP essays share a point of view in the author’s voice, drawn from expertise or experience, and do not necessarily reflect the views of AARP.

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Gayle Kirschenbaum is an Emmy-winning filmmaker, photographer, writer, coach and speaker whose work includes the film Look at Us Now, Mother! and the TED Talk “No More Drama With Mama.” She coauthored Mildred’s Mindset: Wisdom from a Woman Centenarian with her mother, Mildred Kirschenbaum. Gayle’s upcoming memoir is Bullied to Besties: A Daughter’s Journey to Forgiveness. Visit gaylekirschenbaum.com for more.

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