Last week, I spent several days with my sister, her husband, and my niece in Minnesota. We do not see each other often, as they live in southeast England and we live in east central Iowa.
My 11-year-old niece has traveled back and forth from England to America numerous times in her life so far.
I wonder what our great-grandparents would think of the ease of international travel these days. In their time, crossing the Atlantic was often a once-in-a-lifetime trip. Thinking of our immigrant family members who said final goodbyes to their families in Sweden because the cost of the passage was so great.
Today, it is a long day's flight, depending on which direction we are traveling. The greatest inconvenience is going through security or customs. It is not the difficult trip by air as it was by ship back in the day. The world is much smaller than it was just 100 years ago and the ease of international travel allows for cousins to spend precious time together growing up.
