Mother, daughter become a travel team

This 2012 photo provided by Anne D’Innocenzio shows her on the right with her sister Donna in the middle and mother Marie on the left in Rudesheim, Germany.

NEW YORK — When I was young, I learned a lot about travel from my mother. She taught me how and what to pack. She taught me to keep a travel diary to record my memories. And most importantly, she taught me how to power-sightsee.

“You never know when you’ll be back,” my mother used to say as she and my dad pushed my sister, brother, and me to yet another art museum, Gothic church, or 18th century cemetery.

Decades later, my mother and I still travel together, but now that she’s in her mid-80s, our roles have changed. She’s hearing-impaired, and often uses a cane for balance, while I bring a notepad and pen to write down tour highlights for her.

I also handle hotel accommodations, hail the cabs, and make sure a wheelchair is waiting at the airport to take her to the gate.

Some might think of traveling with an elderly parent as a burden, but my mom is invaluable to me. She’s still vibrant and fiercely holds onto her love of travel. She’s a globe-trotter and a wealth of knowledge — my personal version of a Frommer’s app. I also depend on her to help me with the research for our trips.

Back when I was in college, I would have never dreamed my mother would become my travel companion decades later. I might have even shuddered at the possibility. You see, growing up in our family, vacations were rarely about splashing in hotel pools or relaxing on beaches. Vacationing was a form of boot camp.

Try touring Washington D.C. in July where scorching temperatures wilt hair bows and drench summer shorts. Even a trip to Walt Disney World in Orlando, Fla., was squeezed between educational sightseeing trips to Cape Canaveral, home of the Kennedy Space Center, and St. Augustine, where we learned about 16th century history and explorer Ponce de Leon.

But as the decades have gone by, my mom’s and my life’s circumstances have made the mother-daughter travel combo a natural, practical, and enjoyable experience.

To be sure, I have taken plenty of trips with friends to a variety of places. And over the years, my mom has traveled with her own circle of friends, and most often with my father, crisscrossing the globe to faraway places. But mom lost her most dependable travel buddy when my dad died in 2002, and her aging friends are too frail to travel now.

As for me, most of my friends are married and often travel with their families. I don’t particularly like to travel alone, and it’s hard to synchronize my plans with my single friends’ crazy work schedules.

What makes this mother-daughter travel team work is that we understand each other. That includes our differences.

Unlike me, my mom is fearless. Turbulence on planes doesn’t bother her, while I get a pit in my stomach anytime a plane lurches. At 80, she climbed the steep stone steps to the top of Ireland’s Blarney Castle. I, on the other hand, get nervous when I see spiral staircases. So I stayed at the bottom, and waited for her to come down.

Friends tell me how lucky I am to have my mom as my travel companion. I do feel lucky, but I’m already starting to feel nostalgic. A few weeks ago after being hospitalized with a severe case of the flu, my mother confided in me that perhaps her traveling days are over.

I refuse to believe it. And so I’m planning our next trip. An Alaskan cruise maybe, or what about a trip to the South of France to visit her friend? If I have my way, the possibilities for more adventures with my mom remain endless.