From the beginning of the Niece Project, it was always Allie who concerned me. She is my brother’s middle daughter and is like none of my other five nieces. When I introduced the concept of traveling anywhere in the world with me, I honestly was never sure if she would even want to go anywhere, let alone out of the country.

What is the Niece Project?

“As a woman who never wanted kids, I wanted to form bonds with my six nieces. After all, they would be my lifelines as I age. I decided to stop getting them gifts for their birthdays or holidays or even graduation. I didn’t want to bring more meaningless stuff into their world, but instead I wanted them to see the world. I wanted to awake their wanderlust and thirst to experience new cultures and ways of doing things. So the answer was easy…I would give them the gift of travel.  I told each of them that once they turned 16 years old I would take them anywhere in the world they wanted to go. Originally my thought was that it would give them something that I never had—a passport and a chance to travel internationally. However once I announced this mission and it settled in, I realized that it was giving them more than that—it gave them the chance to make their own decision. It got them thinking about the world and considering their own desires.”


At 16, Allie is an interesting and stubborn mix of my brother and sister-in-law. She has my brother’s aloofness, and strangely my sister-in-law’s ‘get it done’ attitude. One would think that these two traits would be at battle with each other—and they are. They sometimes erupt in a tidal wave of emotion that leaves me confused. And then there are times where I get her—I totally get her. I feel like I know what makes her tick, how she pragmatically looks at the world, and I understand and admire her fierce loyalty to time, friends, and plans. However, I’m sure there is much more beneath the surface of Allie than I’ll ever know.



Image: Allie with her mom and dad…she’s a little bit of both

But this July, I’ll start to know more and more about Allie as we take off together on the Niece Project 4.0! This is the fourth out of my six nieces that I will have traveled with and yet another adventure of exploring my life without kids and the aunt-niece relationship.



Image: One of my favorite pictures of Allie as a young girl—she is so intense at times!

Allie was clearly frustrated by the daunting question: “You can go anywhere you want in the world, where do you want to go?”  Just when I thought I was getting good at this niece travel thing and able to predict the decision-making process of the girls, Allie threw me a curve ball last December.

“It’s too big, I just can’t choose,” she said in an irritated voice when I tried to probe her to see if she may want to travel with me this coming summer.

That was when I realized just how hard of a question this is to ask people—any people—whether teenagers, adults, or seniors. The world is really big and asking people to choose is a stressful proposition in a way. Since Allie had never been out of the US, she approached the question by thinking that this was going to be her only opportunity in her life to travel outside the US. However, I know that this is not going to be her only opportunity to travel outside the US—she’ll have her whole life ahead of her. In this increasingly global marketplace, odds are she will travel and maybe even live outside the US at some point in her life. But when you are 16 and have never gone outside the US, it’s hard to imagine a life with a passport and that you really can go anywhere you want. Therefore, Allie was paralyzed with the big decision of where to go as she approached this ‘once in a lifetime’ proposition.

So I went slowly.



“Ok, first lets start with—do you want to go with me somewhere?” I asked as gently as I could.

“Yes, “ she said still irritated, “I feel like I shouldn’t pass up this opportunity.”

“Well you don’t have to go now, we can postpone it until a time when you feel better about it, it can be in five years from now if you want. However, if you want to go this summer, then we will need to figure it out somewhat soon so that I can plan it.”

“I want to go now, I just can’t decide,” she replied. “Ok—why don’t you give me your criteria of what you know you want to do and don’t want to do and I’ll give you five destination choices that you can choose from; I will narrow it down for you to make the decision easier. But I want to be clear—YOU have to choose. This is your trip, not mine. This needs to be something you want to do,” I reply in a lecturing tone.

Soon I had a list of criteria to work with:

1. It needs to be in July (only time she is free from sporting commitments).
2. No super long plane rides (she hates planes).
3. Wants to go some place warm and beachy.
4. Doesn’t want to move around a lot and go to multiple countries or places?.
5. Only wants to go for a week.

I spent a few weeks considering all of this and came back with options: Hawaii, Mexico, Costa Rica, Belize, and the Galapagos. We sat down and talked about each one and she pretty quickly came to a decision.

The Decision

Three months later, Allie has a passport, her first plane ticket without her parents, and we have a trip booked for July 13th. We are going to Belize!



Image: Belize snorkeling Image via Adventure Life

I’m so excited for this trip—the same kind of excitement I have when I jump out of a plane or do something scary or adventurous for the first time—it’s fear and excitement intertwined. I have absolutely no idea how Allie and I will travel together or what she will think about life outside Lincoln, Nebraska, but I’m super excited to find out. This is a real adventure for me, a people/relationship adventure. And to top it off, she’s the first niece to pick a country that I haven’t been to before—so it will be new for both of us!

I worked with Adventure Life who specializes in trips to Belize, and they have put together an amazing Belize itinerary that any 16-year-old niece and 45-year-old aunt would love. Allie is really athletic and loves the water, so they were able to find the perfect Belize adventure for us. We will be spending half of our time in the jungle caving, tubing, visiting ruins, and zip lining, and the other half our time at the beach snorkeling and doing other water sports.  This will be not only Allie’s first time out of the US, but it’s her first time to see the ocean. The turquoise waters of Belize is a great place to start.

You can follow along on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook in mid-July when Allie and I take off with Adventure Life into a world of passport stamps, getting to know each other, new cultures, history, and some of the best snorkeling in the world!  This is truly an adventure for both aunt and niece, and hopefully the start of more world travel for Allie.

And most importantly, I hope if you are an aunt or uncle, you’ll consider a project of your own. Be a travel mentor to your niece or nephew, it’s the beginning of a bond that I expect will last a lifetime. If you have a great Niece/Nephew travel project you are undertaking, let me know by Tweeting me at @Ottsworld.

Photo: Sherry Ott
Published: June 26, 2015