By Alexandria Nolan-Miller
Often, a significant life event is marked with a trip of some kind. Not always to a far-flung or exotic location, and not always in a way that looks impressive from the outside. Sometimes these moments are celebrated more simply, closer to home. Still, again and again, transitions and accomplishments seem to call for movement—a journey, a leaving of one place and an arrival in another.
We celebrated the last day of third grade with a quick trip to the ice cream store, ordering a banana split with extra whipped cream because that day mattered. We take a trip “up north” to celebrate the summer between eighth grade and high school, knowing—even then—that something is changing. Childhood is quietly slipping into something more complicated, more serious. Even if we can’t name it yet, we feel the shift.
As adults, the trips just look a little different. We go out to a fancy dinner to celebrate a raise or a new position at work. A wedding is followed by a honeymoon, and more recently, an expected baby is honored with a babymoon. Retirement is often paired with a European river cruise or a few slow days on a warm beach in Florida, Jamaica, or the Bahamas—somewhere restful after a lifetime of responsibility. Again and again, we leave our normal lives to celebrate, to acknowledge movement from one chapter into the next. It’s almost as if travel itself becomes a bridge, connecting who we were to who we are becoming.
Travel, then, is not just a reward for hard work or a well-deserved break. It is a gateway. A portal. A way of stepping out of the familiar so we can better understand what has changed inside us.
My husband and I spent our honeymoon on the French Riviera. We left our home in Houston and lived for a few weeks in a small furnished apartment overlooking the sea. That honeymoon existed in a kind of in-between space. We were married, but we hadn’t yet lived as a married couple. The sun-soaked days by the water and winding cobblestone streets felt like a long exhale before real life began again. We weren’t just celebrating what we had done; we were quietly becoming something new.
Before my son was born, we took a babymoon to Hawaii. It was, of course, a celebration of the baby on his way, but it was also something else entirely. It was a last hurrah for the two of us as we were. We knew—without fully understanding it yet—that we were leaving behind being a family of two and stepping into the unknown territory of three. That trip wasn’t about beaches or sunsets. It was about transition, about pausing long enough to recognize that everything was about to change.
Not all life events require plane tickets or passports. Sometimes, the need is simply to go out—to step away from routine. To order the good bottle of wine at a restaurant that feels just a little too special for an ordinary night. To linger longer than usual. Even in small ways, we crave separation from the everyday to mark the moments that matter. We want to pause time, if only briefly, and say, “This was important.”
Still, there are milestones that feel too large to be contained by normal life—moments that demand a journey equal to their weight. We didn’t need to travel to the Amalfi Coast to celebrate our anniversary last year, but doing so marked the moment intentionally. Not just the joining of our lives, but the choice to keep choosing one another. To celebrate that the event still holds meaning years later.
This year, I will turn 40. To me, this is significant. Not because 40 means I am old, or because of anything vain or dramatic, but because I am deeply aware that not everyone gets to reach this age. I have friends who never will. I have lived 40 years across two countries, eight cities, and probably thirty different houses. I have traveled more than many people and far less than others. Most importantly, I have lived long enough to understand that time is not guaranteed.
As I step into the next 40 years of my life, I want to acknowledge that. I want to honor it. And so this summer, you will find me in Mackinac—the same place my family went when I was a child to celebrate our most important moments. The destination matters, yes, but not as much as the meaning attached to it. The journey is rarely about where you go. It is about who you are before you leave, and who you become by the time you return.
