A Mother's Day reflection from the Adventures in Good Company community
There's a particular kind of courage that gets passed between women, not announced, not performed, just lived. A mother who signs up for a trip she's not sure she can finish. A daughter who says, "Mom, you can do this." A woman who laces up her boots year after year, not just because she loves the trail, but because she knows someone is watching.
We don't always recognize these moments as acts of inspiration when they're happening. They can sometimes feel more like logistics: booking a flight, buying hiking poles, showing up to a trailhead a little nervous. But underneath the practicalities, something more significant is taking place. One woman is showing to another: this is possible, we are capable of this.
At Adventures in Good Company, we've spent decades building trips for women who want to go further into the wilderness, further outside their comfort zones, and further into the relationships that matter most. Every spring, as Mother's Day approaches, we find ourselves thinking about the women who shaped us: the ones beside us on the trail, and the ones back home whose belief in us made us brave enough to go.
This year, we asked our community to share what it means to travel alongside the women they love. What came back was something we didn't expect to be quite so moving.
Showing Her What's Possible
There's a quiet, persistent myth that adventure belongs to the young, that the window for trying hard things and going to unfamiliar places closes over time. Most of the women in our community have spent years proving that wrong. But proving it to yourself is one thing. Having someone you love prove it to you is something else entirely.
Peggy was already an adventurer; she'd been hiking with AGC for years, staying active, showing up. But she'll be the first to tell you that age had started to creep into her thinking, not as a reality, but as an excuse waiting to happen.
"As we age, we tend to make excuses and blame our age for not being as active," said Peggy.
The shift came from her daughter Jennifer, who had been Peggy's original adventure partner long before AGC entered the picture. Jen was the one who'd talked her into hiking, zip-lining, kayaking, scuba diving — and yes, skydiving. When Jen moved away in 2014, Peggy found AGC to keep the adventurous spirit alive. But when Jen turned 30, Peggy invited her back into the adventure. They chose to do AGC’s Machu Picchu trip together.
"Traveling with my daughter has motivated me to not let age define what I can do," Peggy said
What makes this story so resonant isn't just the accomplishment. It's the way inspiration moved between these two women across years and distance. Jen modeled fearlessness when Peggy needed it early on. Peggy modeled persistence when Jen was gone. And when they finally stood on that trail together, it wasn't about who was leading whom; it was about what they'd each become in the years apart and what they could still be together.
Cindy's story is a different shape but the same spirit. Her daughter Amy had been taking AGC trips for years before she finally turned to her mom and said, "Scotland." You can do this. The trip was rated a 3. Cindy had never attempted anything like it. She started training. Amy coached her on packing, hiking, and what to expect.
"Because of her support and encouragement, I was able to accomplish a very challenging trip," Cindy reflected.
That's not a small thing. A challenging trip, completed because her daughter believed in her. Now Cindy is returning to Europe in the fall, this time with Amy and her daughter Kristen.
"I love that my daughters look up to me and are proud of my adventurous spirit."
Seeing Each Other Differently
There's something about daily life that causes us to get used to our surroundings and the people in them. Not out of carelessness or lack of love. We build up a picture of someone over the years, and without realizing it, we stop updating it. We see them as they were: the child we raised, the parent who raised us. And then you go somewhere together, and you see a new part of each other.
Travel has a way of doing this that few other experiences can replicate. Take away the routines, and suddenly you're watching someone navigate the unfamiliar, and you see something you didn't know was there.
Susan described it simply and beautifully. Her daughter, Sarah, was just 15 when they took their first mother-daughter trip together. And what Susan discovered wasn't just that her daughter could handle it, it was that she could thrive in it, in ways Susan hadn't anticipated.
"I saw my daughter through the eyes of others: kind, smart, funny, very mature, and adventurous in her own way."
Sometimes it takes a group of strangers to reflect back to us what we've been too close to see. Susan had to watch other women fall in love with her daughter before she could fully see the young woman Sarah was becoming.
Her advice to mothers considering a trip like this? Get out of the way.
"Let your daughter be who she is, regardless of her age, let her speak up for herself, go off on her own."
One of Susan's most treasured memories from that trip: sitting together in their kayaks when Sarah turned to her and said, quietly,
"Now I understand why you love to travel so much."
Alice experienced something similar across three trips with her daughter, Sarah: The Big South Fork, Switzerland's Via Alpina, and the Canadian Rockies. On the trails, she'd look up and find Sarah deep in conversation with another woman in the group, listening, laughing, connecting with ease.
"I found out Sarah has great interpersonal skills. The women loved her."
It was a glimpse of her daughter in full: not as the child she'd raised, but as a person moving through the world with grace and warmth. And somehow, watching it happen on a trail in the mountains made it more vivid than any conversation over a kitchen table could have.
The Moments That Stay With You
We tend to think of travel in terms of places. We look forward to the views from the summit and the restaurant we've been eyeing up. But when the women in our community talk about what they remember most from their trips, it's almost never the landmark. It's the laughter, joy, and camaraderie shared as a group.
These moments are harder to plan for than an itinerary. They arrive unexpectedly, usually in the middle of something ordinary. What makes them stick isn't the backdrop, as beautiful as it might be; it's the presence of someone you love, and the rare, mutual recognition that you're both fully there.
Olivia described one of hers with startling precision. She and her mother, Terri, were horseback riding in Wyoming on our Living the Cowgirl Life trip. The views were vast. Olivia looked over and caught her mother's eye. Neither of them had to say anything.
"We were both completely in the moment, and it was such a cool feeling to know we were sharing something that special at the exact same time," shared Olivia.
What she's describing is something truly special, the experience of being witnessed in joy by someone who loves you. That kind of moment can be rare in a world that is usually too loud and too scheduled for it. But the trail has a way of creating the conditions that make it possible.
Jan traveled to Utah with both of her adult daughters and found her most meaningful moment in a hotel room, not on a hike. As she lay taking a catnap, her daughters were on the other bed, laughing and talking. She didn't catch everything they were saying; she didn't need to.
"I realized then that for me, this trip would be about the three of us exploring Utah together, but even more about the two of them being together as adults."
The Women We Carry Forward
Not every woman who inspires us is standing next to us at the trailhead. Some of them are the reason we showed up at all. They are the ones whose example took root in us long before we recognized it and who continue to shape what we believe is possible for ourselves.
This is perhaps the most underappreciated dimension of adventure: the way it creates a kind of living permission to say yes to the unfamiliar and to keep showing up for the active and curious life she wants. By saying yes to an adventure, she's expanding the idea of what's possible as a woman to daughters, granddaughters, and every woman watching.
Kathy began traveling with AGC on the Appalachian Autumn Adventures trip with exactly this intention. She wanted to build a life that was genuinely her own.
"I wanted to be an example to other women, especially my grandchildren," she wrote.
She wasn't traveling away from her family. She was traveling for them, in a sense, showing them, through action rather than words, what a woman could decide for herself at any stage of life. That kind of example doesn't announce itself; it just tells the story for itself. And the people watching absorb it in ways that may not surface until years later, when they find themselves packing a bag and thinking: if she could, I can.
More Than Just a Trip
What strikes us as we read through these stories is how many of them describe not just a trip but a turning point. A daughter who finally understood why her mother kept going. A mother who saw her child as a full-grown, remarkable adult for the first time. Two women on horseback, looking at each other across a wide Wyoming sky, knowing without words that they were in exactly the right place. A grandmother setting off alone, deciding that a full life was still entirely possible and that the people she loved deserved to see her live it.
These aren't stories about hiking. They're stories about what happens when women give themselves and each other permission to try, to grow, to show up imperfectly, and discover they were more capable than they thought.
This Mother's Day, we're thinking about all of it, the trails, yes, but more than that, the women beside us on them. The ones who said you can do this when we weren't sure. The ones who looked up at just the right moment and caught our eye. The ones who are, somewhere right now, lacing up their boots for the first time, or the fifteenth, and saying yes again.
Because that's what these women know, and what they keep showing each other: the yes is never just for you. It echoes so somewhere down the road, someone you love will hear it and find the courage to say yes, too.
