“Are we just going to be go, go, go?”
We were close to starting our 23-hour journey from suburban Boston to New Zealand, and our 15-year-old son had a question.
“Can we just chill?” he asked us. “Why does everything have to be go, go, go?”
That’s Cal, who had been to Norway, Jordan, Spain and Greece by the time he was 8 years old. But since then, he’s developed into a real homebody. He prefers routine: His regular shifts at the local supermarket, Nike shorts, meals that stick to the three teen food groups (chicken tenders, pizza and pasta). And while we’re comforted that he finds home as comfortable as his baggy sweatshirts, we want him to remember there is a world beyond our front door.
So when my wife Carlene and I nudged him about potential locations for a 16th birthday trip and he mentioned New Zealand — Cal read J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy and saw Peter Jackson’s films — we did not delay. We had been saving for two years and purposely clicked through (gulp) $6,000 in travel costs.
Now all we had to do, as Bob Odenkirk’s Hutch promised in “Nobody,” was concentrate on “making memories.”
Challenge 1: 46 hours of travel with only a week of vacation
When we told people of our plans, they reeled off suggestions based on their New Zealand trips. Roam both islands. Hike the Haruru Falls. Take a flight to Sydney. Then I explained that we only had a week. We were constrained by school vacation and our daughter’s college graduation week. That meant arriving in Auckland on a Sunday morning and heading home the following Friday. That brought reactions such as: “Why don’t you put it off until later?” or “It’s really somewhere you have to spend time” or “That’s crazy.”
The hustle: Ignore everything logical, and remember that 23 hours of travel time is awful whether you’re going away for two years or two days. What counts is what you do in between those flights. And if cost is an issue — we know not everyone can set aside a few thousand dollars — just find a closer alternative to keep the budget more reasonable.
Challenge 2: Remember this is your teen’s trip, not yours
A few days before takeoff, we got that request about chilling. It was only natural. Cal knows all of our offensive habits, from hiking and museum visits to lengthy post-dinner conversations. He wanted to establish the ground rules now, on American soil. And I couldn’t blame him. When I was 15, about the last thing I wanted to do was roam through the Louvre or anything remotely resembling what my parents did.
“No,” I said. “We won’t be overprogrammed.”
Then, after a pause, I added: “But we’re not going to stay in our room all day.”
The hustle: Resist the urge to turn every moment into a teen enrichment exercise. So instead of opening up our first day in Auckland with a visit to the War Memorial Museum — or any cultural institution — we asked Cal what he wanted to do. He had found Iron Age Comics, a fantastic store packed with original Star Wars cards, vintage action figures and shelves of comic books. Cal splurged and picked up a rare copy of “Invincible” which, he decided, would be the first comic book he’d send to get graded — a process in which a book is rated as a collectible and then put into a protected, plastic slab. We capped our travel recovery day walking along the harbor and getting ice cream and coffee at a fashionable outdoor cafe. We also put Cal in the front seat of our rental car so he could help me adapt to driving on the left-side of the road. It was a simple task but it became entertaining to hear him bark out “left side” whenever I began to make a turn or head into a roundabout.
Challenge 3: Take no credit, give zero warning and let him discover
A teenager can be like a bad boss. They want every idea to be their own.
Lake Taupo is about two hours southeast of Auckland and quite remote. I found a converted, metal shipping container on Airbnb. A few years ago, on a work trip, I had stayed in a similar container in Joshua Tree. I was bored of hotels and wanted to see if this metal can without windows would kill me or be the greatest experience of my work-travel life. The next day, waking up to the prairie dogs, I realized I’d made a good choice. Same for Lake Taupo, though this container had windows and a full kitchen.
I was gathering supplies at the store when Carlene texted me a photo of Cal mingling with three young cows in the field. I felt relief wash over me. We’d come to the right place.
“He has been down there with them since you left,” Carlene wrote. “He said this is the most beautiful place he’s ever seen. He said why did we waste a day in Auckland. We should have come straight here.”
The hustle: Look for cool, unexpected accommodations. Bonus points for animals. And if you, the hapless parent of a teen, want to give yourself credit, wait until you’re back home from the trip because self-praise is only going to spoil the experience.
Challenge 4: Disguise physical exertion as a brief pause from regular programming
When Carlene and I went to Cumbria, England, a few of years ago, we spent almost eight hours a day walking through the landscape, exploring villages, discovering such dishes as celeriac soup.
In New Zealand, we weren’t about to confront Cal with our rucksacks and Zoolander bandannas. But we thought it was insane to come to New Zealand, truly one of the most beautiful places on Earth, and not do any roaming. We would have to pick our spots but not telegraph our spots. Call it stealth strolling.
The hustle: We never mentioned a hike or shared any preplanning. We just made sure there was a spot near the main target of the day. For instance, after leaving our container on Lake Taupo, we drove three hours to Waitomo, home of the famed glowworm caves. The worms are technically maggots, using the glow to trap bugs they scarf down. The whole thing is a kind of an underground Christmas light extravaganza.
We scheduled our glowworm tour, a walk through the caves and then a short boat ride, for late afternoon. That left us with a couple of hours to fill up. I drove us to an abandoned railroad line packed with caves and mountainside paths. There was a tunnel nearly a mile long. And by the time Cal started to grumble — he caught on to the fact that we were walking after a while — it was time for our glowworm tour.
Challenge 5: Don’t peak too early. Save the best for last.
Cal knew that Jackson’s filming site, Hobbiton, had become a tourist attraction with a giant gift shop, buses and lines of eager visitors. But this wasn’t Disney. There’s no Gandalf go-kart track or Bilbo buffalo chicken sandwich. In other words, it’s not cheesy. What makes Hobbiton special is how natural the campus feels: grassy fields, gravel paths, garden locations easily identifiable as scenes from the movies.
We did the “Behind The Scenes” tour, a four-hour-plus experience with a majestic group lunch of lamb, vegetable soup, chicken and other treats suited for Middle-earth. You also get a chance to visit the scenery shop, which displays the intricate drawings sketched as Jackson developed his set and see the props workers who still keep Hobbiton fresh.
The hustle: Whatever your Hobbiton is, plan it as the capper. We went on a Thursday, knowing that night we’d crash at a nearby Airbnb and then head to Auckland the next afternoon for our flight. We didn’t want to do Hobbiton early in the week and then have the rest of the activities not live up to it.
We had a 23-hour return ahead of us, but we were glowing from our hobbit hole explorations. And at some point, as we sat in the airport, Carlene asked if Cal wanted to think about another trip for high school graduation. Hong Kong, he said. I wondered how long that flight would be.
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