I wanted to connect with my teenager daughter, now we travel the world together

An early jaunt to the Gold Coast has evolved into a treasured annual adventure, and one of the sweetest rhythms of my life.

It started pretty simply when my eldest, Audrey, was maybe eight years old. 

“Let’s go away, just the two of us,” I said. I didn’t think it was a particularly revolutionary idea; in fact, it just seemed like a nice idea at the time but it has become one of the best things I have ever done.

Where would you want to go – like the best place in the world? Just us two for maybe three days? The answer was obvious for any young girl in Sydney. Movie World, Dreamworld, Sea World – all the worlds.

So off we went to the Goldie. Stayed at a fancy hotel. Shared a room. Ate all the breakfasts at the buffet, just the two of us. And it was awesome and we’ve not stopped this tradition ever since.

So every year for a little more than a decade, Aud and I have made a proper effort for father and daughter to take a trip to somewhere we might not normally go on a “proper” family holiday, inaugural Gold Coast trips aside.

I asked my daughter where she wanted to go. The answer was obvious for any young girl in Sydney: Movie World.

Now, let’s get this straight. I have two children – girl Audrey and boy George, now 20 and 18 – and love them absolutely perfectly equally on almost any given day, but for most of us dads it’s easy to grab the son and go to the footy or the cricket.

Sometimes, however, it’s harder to figure out connections and destinations for a middle-aged dad and his teenage daughter. Granted, it’s not always a simple exercise to take one child away for any period of time, and in many families that might be both individuals’ worst nightmare, but for me this has become one of the sweetest rhythms of my life and my fathering journey.

Of course, after the initial trip to the Goldie, we decided to go back the next year because, quite frankly, how can you improve on “perfection”. But we organised the second trip to coincide with a Sydney Swans game at the hot and desolate Gold Coast footy stadium that has had about four name changes since we visited. There were about 200 Swans fans there and we lost. That was pretty disappointing but, hey, we had the Green Lantern to crush four times the next day so the footy result was soon forgotten.

Every year, Aud and I take a trip to somewhere we might not normally go on a “proper” family holiday. Picture: Supplied.

A few years later Aud (and the rest of Australia) was in peak MasterChef phase and we both had almighty crushes on Maggie Beer (I mean, we are human) so we took a weekend to visit the Barossa Valley and I could show her where I “studied” and met her mum and we could eat chicken testicles as hors d’oeuvres. The best part of the evening was when the aforementioned testicles were being handed around and we were standing adjacent to Maggie’s lugubrious husband, Colin, who when offered the delectable, bite-sized morsel looked at it aghast and said, “I’m not eating that.” Bless you, Colin Beer.

After the MasterChef phase we entered our indie music phase and both Aud and I moved our crush from the pension-aged Maggie to a rather more groovy, and younger Maggie named Rogers. For reasons not even I fully understand I have always loved female American country singers and when Maggie Rogers arrived on the scene with her unique sound (and that Pharrell video) both Aud and I were hooked. 

When Rogers announced she was touring Australia we were all set to go but all the gigs in Aus were restricted to over-16-year-olds and Aud was 15. Fear not, super-inventive father can sort this out and we found an all-age gig in Auckland – a cheap points flight – and the next trip was well and truly sorted. The Powerstation in Auckland, by the way, is a brilliant music venue, capacity around a thousand, and the show was one of the best I’ve ever seen, and from a performer who now headlines at Madison Square Garden.

As food was still a passion we took ourselves, again on points, to Singapore.

As we progressed through the senior years at high school timing and trips away became a little more difficult, but at the end of year first year away at university I was adamant we should go again and as food was still a passion we took ourselves, again on points, to Singapore. This was truly an epic trip, highlighted by a night at one of my favourite restaurants in the world, Burnt Ends. I’m a lucky duck and go to plenty of nice restaurants, but on family holidays, like the rest of the world, we tend to end up at mid-level, please-all-the-kids-type restaurants. Even if we go somewhere nice it tends to be “do you have any pasta”-type evenings out.

Our night at Burnt Ends was the first time father and daughter had sat together (at the bar – always sit at the bar if you’re a two) and had a truly luxurious, totally over-the-top and expensive meal together. We will both remember it for the rest of our lives. We had cocktails and all the foods and at one stage the staff asked us if we would like Champagne in their cellar. I swear to god the look on my daughter’s face was priceless – she thought we were the fanciest people in the world. I could not have been happier.

As she approaches her 21st birthday I feel, like most dads, that I have to try harder to keep her coming back, so last year it was Seoul in a snowstorm and this year it is Bangkok and Phuket for spice and sun. And this year, as these trips have become legend in our household, we are taking George with us.

This year it is Bangkok for spice and sun.

This will be a change to our rhythm, but the new plan is to make trips on a three-year cycle. One kid alone, other kid alone and then both together. I hope it keeps going for the rest of my life.

And there remains only one immutable rule: no mother allowed. Sorry, Sal.

Kendall Hill is on holiday and returns next week.

Originally published as I wanted to connect with my teenager daughter, now we travel the world together