Cool trips people have taken after becoming widowed

[maddalena]

as my husband lay dying he made me PROMISE to go to Italy. 2 months later, I was there. i was still in shock,  but i did a lot of things there with him in mind including buying an inexpensive bike and giving it a similar name to the bike he had (His was Katrina, I named mine Caterina)

the highlight of that trip was spending a week with a cousin who was widowed a year before.

[Meema]

I've traveled a lot in the last three years. First I took my then 17 year old son to Paris 2 weeks after my husband died. It was a welcome distraction, a place I'd always wanted to go, and it would have taken a great amount of coaxing to ever get my husband to go, though I know he would have loved it once he got there. I dropped a small bit of his ashes in the Seine.

 

I can't stand to be home at Christmas anymore, and my son and I have a new tradition of traveling during the holidays. Christmas 2012 we went to Venice, the next year back to Paris, and in 2014 I met him in Istanbul where he was finishing up his semester abroad. That was an amazing trip.

 

Some of my favorite trips have been the 3 times I've driven from coast to coast with a girlfriend bringing my son's car either to him at college in California or getting it back home to Massachusetts for the summer. This is an incredible country with so much beauty to see. And lots of corn.

 

In April my boyfriend and I are planning a week in Colorado with his two sons, 18 and 14, which is very new and different. Yikes. Should be interesting.

[Nuggets]

I travel a lot, John and I traveled a lot as a family and individually... but my post-widow flee was proposed about 3 weeks after John's funeral when his nephew called up from Melbourne, Australia and said:  'I think you and the kids should come and spend Christmas with me and Louise...' - it was August - and I couldn't think of one good reason to not go.  So I did, then the kids (12 and 21 at the time - I got a notarized authorization for my son to travel with his adult sister) came 2 weeks later --- it was the best thing I could have done. 

 

We were so screwed up that first year that it just seemed right that a bunch of Canadians were celebrating Christmas in southern hemisphere summer - I liked it so much I went back a couple more times after that.

[rememberingjason]

About 3 months after Jason passed, my mom, aunt, and I traveled to Niagara Falls for my birthday. I have since been to New York City and Chicago on school trip. I have been to Rhode Island, Maine, Arizona and all of the states around including a short stint in Las Vegas NV. I love to travel.

I also went on my first cruise to the Bahamas! I wish I had done it sooner and will be cruising again! So relaxing....

I want to go back to Costa Rica but I don't think I will ever be able to do it alone.

 

My mom and I are headed to Florida in about 24hours....on the sadiversary of Jason's passing to visit his parents.

 

 

[Out_of_the_Blue]

My kids and I went to Peru to avoid the first Christmas after my husband's death; expensive but worth every penny.

 

The next year my daughter and I went to LA to see Ellen. While my husband was ill, I spent many a night watching her show to escape for an hour from fear and anxiety. Seeing her in person was amazing.

 

 

[RemysWife]

Traveling is my passion! And in the beginning, having a trip to look forward to was probably the only thing that kept me going.

 

Mark died Thanksgiving weekend, and he was supposed to be in his cousin's wedding on New Year's Eve. There was no way I could go to that wedding without him. My friend flew me out to Louisiana to spend the holiday with them. Escaping didn't make it better, but it certainly made it more bearable.

 

I took a few more weekend trips to see friends and then decided that I wanted to go on a big trip by myself.  I found a women's travel group and went to Europe for a river cruise. I was the youngest person on the boat (aside from a teenager with his parents!) but I had a fabulous time. I remember walking along the river in Holland - a place I had never really given any thought to visiting before - and thinking, "Wow, you would have really liked it here." And in that moment, I could feel Mark with me. The next year, I went to Costa Rica with the same travel group. Aside from seeing new parts of the world, I was really proud of myself for taking off and having fun with a bunch of strangers.

 

Since then, I've decided that blowing all of my savings on fancy trips is probably not the best plan, and I've toned it back down to more reasonable trips. I went to Nashville in February for a crazy weekend of fun with my friends. (And at 41, I was still able to keep up with my 30-something friends!) I'm going to New York this summer to see U2 and spending a couple of days in the city with Mark's cousins. Then later in the summer I am going to a conference in San Diego and extending the trip two days so I can see some friends out there.

 

 

[CJF]

At a little over a year out, my kids and I took Amtrak to NYC, stayed overnight and checked out the city, boarded a Disney Cruise the next morning for 8 days at sea, Nassau, Castaway Cay and Disney World and then another night after spent in NYC.  Planning it kept me busy and gave us all something to look forward to.  We had an amazing time!

[Captains wife]

I also LOVE to travel and I needed to get away after the sudden death of my husband in May 2012. I took a trip to London (UK) in Sept 2012 to visit a bunch of close friends (I lived there for 10 years) and family. It did me the world of good. In 2013, I took a trip to Japan and Malaysia with 2 girlfriends. I feel very fortunate that my two families have been so generous in providing babysitting coverage over those amazing trips.

[Mac]

Two months after Cindy passed I went and climbed Mt. Fuji in her honor. Her sister's family joined me. We watched the sunrise and had an informal memorial service.

 

 

20 months after she passed I went to one of the beaches in Oaxaca, Mexico with my then girlfriend. It is so beautiful there and not as touristy as most places. We ended up breaking up on the last day of the trip. It was mutual. No bitterness to each other. We had been dating for 7 months. She said to me: "I will always cherish this time that I spent with you" I feel the same way. It was a wonderful 7 months, but ultimately we are just too different.