The 'Matriarch Trip': When Mom Picks the Destination

Leti Muñoz keeps a jar of sand and a shell from Utah Beach on her ofrenda, brought home after three weeks in France and the UK with her mother, Teresa.

The trip was inspired by Teresa's wish to walk the Normandy coast where her late father landed during World War II. Yet her fondest memory is drinking Champagne with Leti atop the Eiffel Tower. "I don't think we stopped talking the whole time," Leti says.

This is the essence of the "matriarch trip": a family vacation built around a mother's or grandmother's chosen destination. It flips the usual dynamic, in which moms plan everything for everyone else. Here the first question is: where would she like to go?

Anthropologist Elizabeth Keating notes adult children often know little about their mothers' and grandmothers' earlier lives, and suggests simply asking where she would take you. Molly Schoneveld's mother, Susan, chose Greece, and the two visited Santorini, Antiparos and Athens.

Experts advise planning around pace and mobility, and leaving room for real conversation. Leti booked the Normandy portion through Road Scholar; Maeve Hartney says the nonprofit sees more adult children and older parents traveling together.

The trips outlast the travel. Leti and Teresa now visit gardens together and plan a Christmas trip to New Mexico, where Teresa's parents were from. Molly says building a relationship takes more than the occasional dinner. "It was the trip of a lifetime," Susan says of Greece.