This spring, I absconded from New York City with my best girlfriend of 23 years, Emily, to Rancho Santana on Nicaragua’s Emerald Coast. The sprawling resort is known for its family-friendly surf and extended-stay accommodations. We were making good on our commitment to take an annual “moms trip.” Prerequisites include 10 hours of sleep a night, a weird amount of stretching, and dedicated time to tear through our respective books — when I get tired, Emily reads hers aloud to me, so it helps to agree on the literary material ahead of time.
For those interested in making this happen for yourself, I recommend negotiating with your partner for one special trip with your favorite friend. Upon return, shower them with compliments for how capably they held down the fort in your absence (preferably within earshot of friends or colleagues). Basking in the recognition of their domestic labor, they will hardly notice that you’ve begun referring to this trip as a “tradition,” and that you’ve set it to repeat annually on the Family Google Cal.
Once in Nicaragua, us 42-year-old “girls” checked into a Pied-a-terre suite with a small living area and towering canopied bed. The low-slung hacienda was a monument to custom millwork and local stone. On one side, the room opened onto a private patio with ocean views; on the other side, archways revealed vistas of a lush, interior courtyard.
We zeroed in on the exercise and spa offerings, with just five days to reverse the signs of impending middle age. In the treetop palapa overlooking the ocean, our teacher, Coco, put me at ease by name-dropping high-powered New York yoga studios and instructors — code for: I see you, cortisol-fueled New York alpha lady, on a mission to relax quickly and efficiently. For me, physical exhaustion is a precondition for chilling out. Once Coco had her way with me, I could barely drag myself up the winding stairs leading through the jungle to the 6,000-square-foot spa. But after our third green juice of the day, we were fortified for a rigorous schedule of massages, contrast baths, and, finally, facial acupuncture, where a lifetime of tension deflated, one prick at a time.
On day two — as Emily and I remarked for the hundredth time on the destination’s heavenly balance of humidity and wind — I spotted familiar faces among the young families milling about, all seemingly cast from the same mold: broad-shouldered, tattooed surfer dads and fit moms, with barefoot, wild children in tow. They were old friends who used to live on our block in Brooklyn. I was shocked to run into someone I knew and felt betrayed to learn that, for the past five years, their family had spent the worst months of winter at “The Ranch.” Mom and Dad surfed all day while the kids attended the onsite school, becoming fluent in Spanish. Why the hell hadn’t I thought of that?
When I hear the words “family resort,” my mind flashes back to 1995. I’ve just arrived in the Dominican Republic with my parents. Their faces blanch as they’re forced off a bus into a processional of clapping Club Med staffers, their arms outstretched, bearing beads and flower necklaces. We check out before we ever check in. I wasn’t raised in a world where travel catered to children, and I suppose I’ve continued that tradition with my own family, possibly at the expense of my husband and myself. For decades, we’ve made a sport out of trips involving body-rocking time changes, house swaps, and meltdowns in the world’s best art museums.
With two small kids, a restaurant to help open, and my salad dressing brand threatening to launch (so help me God), I can’t afford to return from vacation more exhausted than when I left. Add to that my husband’s cellular yearning to surf and, suddenly, the appeal of a place that can hold everyone — without martyrdom — takes on a new sheen. I imagine my own daughter correcting my Spanish accent as we gallop down the beach on white horses, intercepted by my husband trotting towards us from “the barrel of a wave,” or some such place I hope never to find myself.
After five days of sobriety, a daily cocktail of pre- and probiotics, exercise, and pillow talk on Egyptian cotton sheets (that neither I nor Emily had to wash, fold, or iron), we emerged anew, anxious to be reunited with the very children who had driven us 2,000 miles away just five days before.
By Julia Sherman from Dossier.