If you’ve made up your mind, then at this moment you must have firm resolve, because all worries and concerns will shake your determination to travel alone.
Why did I choose to travel alone with my child?
Regarding this question, I’ve asked myself over and over again: My child’s dad is busy and doesn’t have time to join us—that should be the objective reason. But deep down, I actually yearn for the opportunity to travel with just my child. Ever since Nu’er was born, I’ve been looking forward to this day—the two of us, just mother and son, spending these few days together in the closest possible way. In my world, there is only him; in his world, there is only me. We are each other’s one and only. I selfishly hope that during this stage when my little life, whom I gave birth to, still fully needs me, I can purely have him to myself once. I firmly believe this is the most direct way to deepen the bond between mother and child, leaving deep memories for both him and me.
But can I really take a child who has just turned four out on a long journey alone?
While affirming my travel plan, I also questioned myself: Do I have what it takes to live in a foreign place for several days with such a small and vulnerable child? What difficulties might I encounter? And how would I solve them?
In repeated deliberation, I wavered, but ultimately, thinking about my inner longing and my dissatisfaction with my child’s current state—his spoiling and over-dependence under the doting care of the grandparents—I steeled my resolve, packed my bags, and set off full of anticipation. I hoped that distance could help shift our lives, accompany my child to see the scenery along the way, and experience the emotions that come with it. The joy of travel often lies in the fact that although the destination is set, you never know what you’ll encounter next. Anticipation outweighs worry.
Life makes us so rushed, but only with our children can we be willing to slow down and truly feel life. Although I am taking my child out to see the sights, in truth, it is my child who is helping me rediscover my original state of mind.
So, I slung a backpack, pulled a large suitcase, held my child’s hand, and boarded the high-speed train from Ningbo to Xiamen.
The train slowly started moving, and our trip officially entered the test phase. The first challenge to face was my child’s patience.
On a five-hour-plus journey, when we had passed about a third of the way, my child started getting restless: “Mom, why haven’t we arrived yet? Mom, when will we get there?”
If it were any other day, getting my child to sit quietly in one spot would last at most twenty minutes or half an hour. But on this train, in this confined and narrow space, he had to learn to entertain himself in various ways to pass the long hours: drawing, reading, snacking, chatting... An hour and a half was already a long wait for him. I understood his gradually building frustration, but at the same time I explained the undeniable fact to him: we still had a long time to go before we arrived.
Whether he liked it or not, he had to accept reality. This was the first lesson travel taught him: learning to wait.
Luckily, not long after, the seat next to us was taken by another mother and son of similar age. The two kids quickly became friends, putting their heads together to watch cartoons and communicating with their own special language. Meanwhile, the moms also had endless topics to talk about regarding parenting. Perhaps they got too caught up in their chat that they missed their stop. Later, we found out that the mother and son who were supposed to get off at Cangnan, which was only a twenty-minute drive from their home, ended up waiting an extra hour at Fuding before turning back to Cangnan.
What an unforgettable wait that was. Though we were strangers who just happened to meet, we gained a touch of warmth through a new friendship right at the start of our journey.
Children are the lubricant of social interaction. Without him, I probably would have spent most of the ride resting my eyes, giving polite nods and smiles, and thinking my own thoughts. In the adult world, we’re always guarded, afraid of being seen through. But actually, if we let our guard down, we realize we can talk about things other than our own lives—just to pass the time during a long train ride.
After that mother and son got off at Fuding, an elderly man boarded. I was resting with my eyes closed when I heard my child chatting animatedly with the old man. Thanks to my child, we also ended up exchanging tips on health preservation, learning quite a bit.
The old man asked where we were getting off, and upon learning that we were heading to Xiamen, he also told us he was going to Xiamen. His son studies at Xiamen University, so he had bought a place there and now lived a life split between Fuding and Xiamen.
Nuonuo was playing with his toys while listening to our casual conversation. Suddenly, he looked up, called the old man “Uncle” quite solemnly, and then made a request: “Uncle, Mom doesn’t have much strength. When we get off, can you help us get the suitcase from the overhead rack?”
At that moment, my heart warmed: I hadn’t expected the little guy to proactively offer to help me.
When we first boarded the train, due to the limited legroom, I had asked a young man to put our luggage on the rack. Nuonuo had asked me, “Why put it up there? How will we get it down later?”
“Just ask someone for help when we get off,” I had casually replied. He’d taken it to heart and had been mulling over the unresolved issue. But after chatting happily with the old man, he easily solved my lingering problem. The old man was probably also touched by the child’s sudden thoughtfulness—he immediately gave a thumbs-up and praised the boy, assuring him before the train approached Xiamen and made its first station announcement, he would get the suitcase down for us.
The help from strangers warmed my heart, but my child’s thoughtfulness and willingness to share the load moved me even more. In an unfamiliar environment, my vulnerable status as a mother unconsciously awakened his instinctive sense of responsibility as a little man. Though it was just the beginning of the trip, it made me feel more and more that this journey was absolutely worthwhile.
Traveling with your child isn’t a simple, spur-of-the-moment trip. Behind the carefree image lies a lot of preparation—but you may find that all preparations pale in comparison to the unexpected challenges that catch you off guard. If you choose to travel alone with your child, the most important preparation you need is—strength. The strength to face all the unforeseen.
Arriving in Xiamen went smoothly. We checked into the cabin room that my child loved. After settling in and having a good meal, we walked ten minutes to the beach.
“Wow, the sea!” The child ran forward like crazy, his joy even livelier than that of a running deer.
I asked him, “Are you happy?”
He shouted back loudly over and over: “Happy, Mom. I’m so happy!” He kissed my cheeks over and over. At that moment, my heart melted again, and I felt once more that braving all the pressure to travel, and enduring the exhaustion of the journey, was completely worth it.
I dashed toward the beach, and before I could even take a photo of his retreating figure, he had already plunged headfirst into the waves. A wave crashed over him, and I urgently called for him to come back. He hadn’t taken more than a couple of steps when he suddenly winced in pain. When I picked him up, oh my God—there was a fairly deep cut on the sole of his foot, and bright red blood was dripping down drop by drop. I panicked instantly, and the child, frightened himself, burst into loud sobs. Following the advice of a kind passerby, I scooped up my nearly 40-pound child and sprinted toward the rescue station on the shore.
Happiness and distress—just two minutes apart. The itinerary for the next three days was suddenly thrown into serious doubt.
There was no turning back. A new challenge had begun from this very moment.
After a simple treatment, seeing the reluctant look in his eyes, we stayed on the beach a little longer. My heart was filled with mixed emotions—worry, guilt, anxiety, regret, and disappointment... At that moment, it was the child who comforted me: “Mom, let’s not swim. Let’s just play with the dry sand on the beach—that’ll be fine!”
The child had adjusted his mindset so quickly. What reason did I have not to be cheerful? Before we left home, his biggest wish had been to swim in the sea. Now that we were finally at the ocean, he was told he couldn’t go in. What a blow that must have been. Yet the child quickly adjusted his own feelings and instead comforted me.
The rocky start to our first time in the sea seemed to foreshadow that this trip would be full of challenges.
The next morning, I woke up to find the child’s eyes red and crusted with eye discharge. My heart sank—it was acute conjunctivitis. After hastily visiting one attraction, I hailed a taxi to the hospital, worried sick. As I got out of the car, I accidentally left my phone on the seat. The driver kept saying something to me, but I couldn’t understand the local accent. Only after he repeated himself several times did I realize he was reminding me not to forget my phone. I’m grateful for that warmth from a stranger.
I had rushed to the hospital in the morning, thinking I could finally relax—but in the afternoon, after the child had napped, he developed a fever. I had thought I was well-prepared for him getting sick before we left, but I soon found that all my preparations were useless. The physical cooling methods that always worked at home failed here—in Xiamen, in a foreign place. By 10 p.m., the child still couldn’t sleep. The discomfort made him cry for no reason, complaining that everything hurt and that even his private parts ached. He couldn’t explain it clearly, but he refused to go to the hospital. At that moment, I had to admit I was panicking, and I had no choice but to call Nuo’s dad. Hearing my son crying on the other end of the line, Nuo’s dad felt heartbroken, anxious, and a bit annoyed. That’s when I truly realized how much responsibility comes with traveling alone with a child.
We insisted on taking a taxi to the emergency room, only to find there were even more children there than in the regular outpatient area. The nurse said waiting might not be forty minutes—it could be four hours. Should we see a doctor or not? We had to go. We registered for both internal medicine and surgery. It was the child’s first ultrasound ever. When the results came back normal, I finally let out a long sigh of relief—thank goodness nothing was wrong with his organs.
After leaving the emergency surgery department, I checked the time—it was almost midnight, with the hour hand about to strike twelve in another half hour. The internal medicine emergency area was still as bustling as when we arrived. The number of sick children hadn’t decreased; if anything, it seemed to be increasing. Should we keep waiting or go back? I hesitated. The child was well-behaved. Though he had cried and resisted going to the doctor at first, once we were in the car, he calmed down. He stood on tiptoe beside me, following me through the various departments of this unfamiliar hospital in this strange city. Fortunately, his spirits were still good, and fortunately, the fever wasn’t too severe. I consoled myself—he must be benefiting from the physical cooling.
“Mom, can we go back to the hotel now?” the child asked, looking up at me. I looked into his hopeful eyes, then at the endless line that seemed to have no end in sight. Clenching my teeth, I decided to take a gamble: “Let’s go. We’re heading back.”
The hustle and bustle of the hospital had distorted my sense of time. It wasn’t until I stepped outside that I realized how late it was. The tall buildings faded into the night, and the dim streetlights stretched the shadows of the trees long. There were almost no pedestrians on the road—just a few scattered people like me, leaving the hospital and hailing taxis.
To take care of his foot injury and ease his fatigue, I carried him all the way from the hospital. At that moment, I suddenly remembered a scene from *Mom is Superman*—it was also late at night, and Dong Jie was carrying a big bag while holding her sleeping child as she climbed the stairs home step by step. She said that as long as she could clasp her hands around him, no matter how heavy he was, she could carry him.
The strength to hold up my child came from a voice inside my heart that told me: “I am a mother. I am this child’s mom.”
I suddenly joked and asked Nuo’er, “Am I a superhero, Mom?”
In an instant, the child hugged my neck tightly and started kissing my cheeks fervently. Then he whispered to me, “Mom, I want to tell you a secret. I used to love you a little, but now I love you so, so, so much!”
What words could be sweeter than this heartfelt confession from my child? I hugged him tightly. All the exhaustion, worry, and even complaints from these past two days were worth it because of those words.
People often say that if you want to spend your life with someone, travel with them first. And if you’re still willing to spend your life with them after the trip, then get married. Travel is the ultimate test of whether two people are ready to build a life together.
If traveling as a couple is a test of marriage, then traveling with your child is a test of their growth. You might be dissatisfied with your child’s usual behavior—just like my initial motive for bringing my child on this trip. I was unhappy with how spoiled and overly dependent he had become under his grandparents’ doting. But every little moment of the trip reveals the innate strengths every child possesses—they just need the right environment to bring them out. You’ll see your child in a new light, and you’ll see yourself in a new light too.