After I graduated law school, I took off for three weeks to travel with my college roommate. Given the state of domestic and foreign relations at the time my parents- whom I was still living with- were very nervous about “two young girls travelling alone.”  To appease their concerns, I promised to keep in touch.

I kept in touch with my parents by calling them collect from a pay phone when we landed at our first destination.  According to our plan my parents refused the charges but, just by receiving the call, they knew I was okay.  I called home collect once a week during my trip and each time my parents refused the charges. After I got home, I hurriedly drove my undeveloped film to the drugstore and, two weeks later, I was able to share pictures of my incredible trip with my parents.

Recently, my two youngest children left for Thailand to travel for two weeks. From the moment Ryan and Sydney’s first flight took off, I was able to track their flight progress on my Flightaware app. Each time they landed-they had an initial stopover in Hong Kong- they had a text message from me telling them that I knew they landed safely. We were able to speak to them on their cell phones every day-although mindful of the eleven hour time difference-and text message with them several times a day.

As for photos of their trip, they texted us pictures every day. We also followed their postings on Facebook and waited for their daily posting on Instagram (apparently, “cool” people only post once a day on Instagram). We followed their Snapchat stories and Snapchatted with them individually daily.

My experience as a parent having children travel was very different than that of my parents.  One of the blessings of technology. How has technology enhanced your life?