Traveling With Your Inner Child
- Sarah Wright
- Sep 16
- 4 min read
These insights came from a bigger trip I recently took, but you don’t have to go as far as Prague to try them. I use the same approach for micro-adventures close to home. Even a Saturday afternoon outing can be a chance to care for your inner child!
Traveling is ✨hard✨.
Even exciting trips can bring stress, exhaustion, and moments where you wonder if you’re doing it “right.” And for many of us, it gets even harder when we forget that we’re often anxious, insecure kids walking around inside adult bodies.
Everything shifted on my recent trip to Prague when I made my inner child the priority. Here’s what I learned:
1. Expect Imperfection
Delays, miscommunication, and exhaustion aren’t signs that anything is going wrong. They are part of the experience, and they can be opportunities to take care of your inner child in real time.
This was my first big trip after starting my private practice, and I wanted to celebrate with a perfect vacation. But then I found several things really challenging: the time change was brutal, I felt lonely at times as a solo traveler, and financial fears had a way of creeping up often.
Even though I had crunched the numbers several times, I had to keep soothing my inner child (who I call Babygirl). I would put my hand on my heart, close my eyes, and say, “Babygirl, don’t worry about money. Inner Mama has got it. Just enjoy yourself in this beautiful place!” And when I did, I could feel little Sarah relax and enjoy.
My very first purchase was a bouquet of flowers at the farmers market along the Vltava River. My inner child was so happy to be carrying them around on that first day. It felt like a visible sign that, “I am special! Someone loves me enough to buy me brightly colored, beautiful flowers!”
Those flowers became my favorite part about returning to my Airbnb each afternoon. They were like a throughline connecting this trip to my daily life. I’ve been buying myself flowers weekly or bi-weekly for the past year, and it has been a gamechanger. Every time I see them, I remember that someone loves me enough to add beauty and care to my space. And that person, at this point in my life, is me — my Inner Parent self.
Buying that bouquet reminded me that resting in my Airbnb wasn’t a failure. It was part of the trip.
2. Kid’s Choice
Your trip doesn’t have to be a checklist of every museum and landmark. Especially in a historically rich place like Prague, it was easy to feel like I was “wasting time” if I wasn’t touring every museum, walking through the entire castle complex (known as the largest in the world), or sampling the many non-alcoholic beers in a city considered the beer capital of the world.
Instead of over-packing my itinerary, I started asking, What would little Sarah be excited about today?
My favorite excursion ended up being an electric tricycle ride all through the city. The guide warned me that my tricycle was especially jumpy. A small part of Adult Me thought, “Uh oh, this is going to ruin the tour and I’m going to look so silly with my jumpy bike.” But little Sarah giggled uncontrollably every time it happened, and it even led me to make friends with the others on the tour as we all started saying “vroom vroom!” whenever my trike did a funny acceleration.
Little Sarah was just truly along for the ride, and so was I!
3. Reject Diet Culture
I grew up as a Millennial during the heroin chic era, where the message was always “the skinnier, the better.” Like so many Millennials, I’ve spent years working to accept my body the way it is without trying to change it. And honestly, I’m not loving this Ozempic-crazed timeline we are living in now.
Between taking more photos and selfies than usual, the harsh Airbnb lighting, eating different foods than I’m used to, and dealing with travel bloat, the old voices definitely came up.
At an ice cream shop, the woman in front of me ordered “half ice cream” so she wouldn’t “get even more fat.” Ouch. That used to send me into a spiral. This time, I paused and put a hand on my heart again, reassuring little Sarah:“You are allowed and encouraged to eat. Don’t ruin older Sarah’s health, bones, teeth, hair, and comfort by falling back into restriction. Keep fueling yourself and stay present.”
And then little Sarah would remember: we didn’t come to Prague to be an object. We came to be the subject, experiencing everything this place had to offer.
It was work, but I felt so proud of how far I’ve come!
A New Way to Travel
Adventures don’t have to be perfect to be meaningful. When you bring your inner child along for the ride, the goal becomes care, comfort, and gentle curiosity, not performance.
As the saying goes, if you look outside yourself for comfort — even in “healthy” places like traveling and experiencing new things — you won’t truly find it there. You still need to comfort your inner child, care for your own soul, and be present with yourself. Many of us didn’t have caregivers who modeled this for us, which means we have the chance to be cycle breakers.
Next time you pack your bags (or head out for a simple micro-adventure), consider:What would make my inner child feel safe, cared for, and delighted?
If this resonates with you and you’d like to practice this work in community, join me for my Virtual Inner Child, Inner Wisdom Workshop on Saturday, October 11, 11 AM – 12:30 PM PT. Learn more and register here.
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