Aditi's Monologue

I have written plenty about traveling with kids on this blog and other places, so you know that I travel with my daughter a lot. Traveling with kids is always an adventure, obviously. When my daughter was a tiny baby, it was mostly about packing a million things that cater to every what-if scenario – as every parent does, I’m sure. But now she is 13, and things are changing.

I used to think that I had mastered the art and science of traveling with a toddler. I seriously did. But traveling with a teenager? That’s an entirely new script, let me tell you right away. It is not the chaos of over-packing or the low-key stress of finding food that she will willingly eat anymore, but curiosity, sharp opinions, and hilarious hot takes on everything from sneakers to geopolitics.

My daughter is officially Gen Alpha, I wrote a whole post about it. And traveling with her is like carrying a mix of Lonely Planet, an F1 commentator, and a UN diplomat in one suitcase. We’ve gone on a few trips this year (2025), including Phuket (Thailand) and Hong Kong, and I’ve realized that the joy (and comedy) of traveling with a teenager lies in watching the world through their very specific lens. Now she isn’t asking the Whats and the How Comes, but she’s sharply observing subtle differences in culture and delivering opinions. Well, she’s the same goofball so there is a lot of comedy there amidst all the opinionating.

In this post that I am writing on my Notes app btw, (pls excuse typos, I shall edit them out over the weekend if I spot them), let me tell you how travelling with a teenager is different for me, as compared to when she was a toddler or even 8 or 9 years of age. For one, she is very chatty – all throughout the trip and I love love LOVE it, I really do, but I am also old(er) and I get tired. Hope you can relate without judging me. Anyway, here’s a meme and then let’s dig into my experience of travelling with my teenage daughter.

Hong Kong: Cup Noodles, Sneakers, and Geopolitics

We have family in Hong Kong so we have been there a few times. But this trip in 2025 was our first trip to Hong Kong after COVID, and hence there was novelty in it. While I was busy marveling at the skyline everywhere you look in Hong Kong, my daughter’s “must-do” list had one star attraction: the Cup Noodle Museum. Yes, we had our usual Disneyland and Ocean Park trips planned, but this cup noodle place was very important to her, while I did not see any appeal to visiting a place with a floor-to-ceiling display of cup noodles.

And Disneyland Hong Kong was also different from the last time we visited it, when my Daughter was 6 or 7. This time, I realized that gone are the days when she wanted to meet Mickey & Minnie Mouse or queue up for a long time to meet “Elsa” or “Rapunzel”. No.

This time, she made it clear: every available minute was to be maximized for rides (multiple times on a few rides, actually), and cute but tiny merch. We’re talking keychains, caps and socks. Disney characters are cute, she said, but rollercoasters are better. AT one point, while licking the melting Olaf ice cream from her fingers, she spotted Chip & Dale waddling by for their meeting time, and she yelled, “Yo Chip, lookin’ cute!”, and Chip actually turned on his heels and bowed towards us, while Dale gave an exaggerated sigh and walked off. Then she promptly dragged me to the Frozen rollercoaster.

And yes, she strategized the ride sequence at Disneyland like an F1 pit crew planning a race.

Sneaker shopping also came up, but here’s the thing: she’s not into fashion because “everyone has it.” She chooses comfort, features, and her own preferences. Which, honestly, makes me admire her even more.

She is also not super into taking pictures or videos. Aside from posing for me when I made her stand still for a second and clicked pictures, the very few pictures she took were sans herself (no selfies at all), and were all of funny things to share with her friends for laughs.

The most interesting part of Hong Kong, though? She devoured local newspapers, comparing stories across countries and asking questions about geopolitics. “Why is Hong Kong writing this about the U.S.? What does this mean for India?” I’ve already shared here in a previous post that she is deep into her MUN (Model United Nations) era and has a keen interest in politics around the world. But this level of interest while on a vacation was a new thing for me to witness. Traveling with a teen suddenly felt like an international relations seminar, but one I was happy to attend.

And don’t get me started on her love for Hong Kong’s public transport. She was in awe. Efficient, safe, accessible. “Why don’t we have this in Gurgaon?” she asked, with equal parts disbelief and frustration. I only had rants about the traffic situation in Gurgaon, obviously.

Phuket, Thailand: Food, Street Life, and Big Questions

Phuket, on the other hand, brought out her food-obsessed side. She is otherwise a picky eater. But this time, she devoured and experimented right along with me. Mango sticky rice, Pad Thai, Ice cream rolls, fish balls in gravy, and all types of street food – there was nothing she did not want to try. While she loves Din Tai Fung in both Hong Kong and Phuket, she wanted the hawker stalls, the places buzzing with local life, equally. I know this might not sound like a lot to many of you, but listennnnn – I know this kid, up until now she has never been up to trying new food items except what she likes (sushi, pizza, soup, chicken), and this recent change is a big deal for me.

It wasn’t just about food, obviously. Another new thing I noticed was that she began noticing how women dressed differently in both Hong Kong and Thailand, and most importantly, how safe it seemed for them. For me as a mother, it was both heartening and heartbreaking: heartening that she could recognize and value this, heartbreaking that she could so clearly sense the difference compared to back home.

The Gen Alpha Perspective

What makes traveling with her fascinating is how her interests shape the trip. She’s fiercely into Formula 1 (and is already lobbying hard for a Grand Prix trip with paddock access), obsessed with BlackPink (attending their concert is on her vision board), and deeply invested in geopolitics and video games like Genshin Impact. And all of that somehow colors how she sees the world.

When I traveled with her as a little girl, the focus was on keeping her entertained and fed. Now, as a teenager, the focus is on keeping up with her questions, her observations, and her never-ending curiosity.

Lessons From the Road

Traveling with a teenager isn’t about just showing them new places anymore. For me, it was more about witnessing and listening to how they process those places, different cultures and new ways of life. Their version of travel is more nuanced, funnier, and sometimes braver than ours.

After these two trips I realized that I am now playing the parts of a sounding board, a travel buddy in addition to being her mom. And let’s be honest, she also makes me see the world with a fresh outlook. From Cup Noodles to metro systems to the politics behind international headlines, it never stops being exciting.

If traveling with a toddler was about managing logistics, traveling with a teenager is about embracing perspective. And trust me, those perspectives are worth every detour.

Share with me your tips or anecdotes of travelling with teen kids, I’d love to know what more is there to this.

PS: Connect with me on LinkedIn, Medium, Substack, X and/or Instagram.