Mariane Pearl on Traveling the World with Her Son

The widow of murdered Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl penned a touching piece in September’s Condé Nast Traveler about traveling the globe with their 3-year-old son, Adam. Their journeys began when Adam was still in utero—Mariane recalls getting a five-month sonogram in Islamabad—and continued after Daniel was murdered and Adam was born. “I always knew I wanted my child to feel at home in the world, and while I was pregnant, I had fantasized that it would be easy to travel with a son with global genes,” she writes. “It isn’t. Traveling with little people is nerve-racking however you do it and whatever meaning you assign to it.”

She continues:

But by now I feel like a veteran. Adam and I have shared canceled flights in Wisconsin and gloomy airport hotels in Canada. We have endured snoring fellow travelers on the way to South Africa, and I have held him while he vomited ten thousand feet above the Grand Canyon. One day in the Minneapolis airport, en route back home to New York, I found myself stalled—surrounded by my two suitcases, my baby (fast asleep in his stroller), and his giant froggy, which wouldn’t fit into my luggage—with only my two hands to carry everything. But with every trip it gets a little better, a little easier.

She also offers tips on traveling with kids. My favorite might fall into the traveler-as-ambassador category:

6. Mind their manners.
I am rather strict about politeness and good manners. People the world over are drawn to children who show consideration and appreciation to others (within reasonable expectations). In turn, your child creates his own bonds with those he encounters on his journeys.

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