My mom and I have been traveling together for years. It started small after I graduated college, weekends in Charleston, then a few trips to New York City. One Christmas, we decided we wanted to be somewhere warm and ended up on a cruise with a weekend split between New Orleans and Mexico. A few years later, we booked a spontaneous trip to Italy with approximately 48 hours' notice. And somewhere along the way, traveling together just became something we did.

There was, however, one person who was usually missing from these adventures: my dad.

My parents are happily married, but while my mom and I were busy finding excuses to cross the Atlantic (a trip for my birthday, a trip for her birthday, a trip for Christmas, etc. etc.), my dad was perfectly content staying home. We invited him, of course. He just never seemed particularly interested in joining us.

Then, after returning from a trip to Italy for my mom's 60th birthday, I jokingly asked him where he wanted to go for his.

"Pick anywhere," I told him. "I'll take you."

A couple of months later, I got a text from him at work.

It was a photo of his computer screen, displaying one of those rotating Microsoft screensavers: snowy mountains, pine trees and an enormous castle perched dramatically above it all.

His message simply said:

“Here?”

I had absolutely no idea where "here" was. A little Googling eventually led me to Neuschwanstein Castle, tucked into the Bavarian Alps near Füssen, Germany. I sent it back to him.

"Is this where you want to go for your 60th birthday?"

"Maybe."

It became a bit of a running joke after that. The castle appeared on his computer again, this time in a different season, and another photo landed in my texts.

“Look 👀”

Eventually, the joke turned into an itinerary.

In March 2025, the three of us flew to Zürich and set off on a trip through Switzerland and Germany, built almost entirely around one random photo that had appeared on my dad's computer screen.

We spent a few days in Zürich before taking the train through Bern and into the mountains, eventually settling into Interlaken, which quickly became my favorite stop of the trip. From there, we explored mountain towns, traveled to Zermatt and Lucerne, watched the Alps roll past train windows and found ourselves in landscapes so impossibly picturesque they looked suspiciously like computer screensavers themselves.

I also decided that simply looking at the mountains wasn't enough and signed up to paraglide off the side of one.

There is a video my parents took as I floated back toward the ground, suspended somewhere between the mountains and the clouds, absolutely giggling like a little kid. I remember running straight off the edge of the mountain and then suddenly… flying. For a trip planned around something my dad wanted to see, Switzerland unexpectedly gave me one of my favorite experiences I've ever had.

But eventually, we made our way to Munich and to the place responsible for the entire trip. Neuschwanstein.

There was only one problem.

To get the view, the one from the screensaver, we had to walk out onto Marienbrücke, a narrow bridge suspended terrifyingly high above the gorge behind the castle. I cannot adequately explain how high this bridge feels when you're standing on it, or how little I enjoyed contemplating its structural integrity while hundreds of other tourists crowded onto it with us. But we did it.

And on that bridge, I have a photo of my dad standing in front of the castle he'd first seen on his computer at work, elated to finally be there.

That’s one of the many things I love about travel; sometimes a trip begins with a carefully curated bucket list, years of dreaming or a place you've always known you wanted to see.

And sometimes it begins with a Microsoft screensaver and a one-word text from your dad:

“Here?”