Growing up in Miami meant, if you wanted to road trip, it took forever to get anywhere. My dad loved to travel so when I was about 5, he decided to get his private pilot’s license and buy a plane. My mom said she would never get in the plane unless she knew how to fly it so she also got her pilot’s license and eventually got her commercial pilot’s license and taught flying part-time.
We flew all over the United States in that little plane which felt – to a seven year old – like a giant punishment. Stuck in a noisy, hot cabin with my annoying older brother for hours! Plus as a kid, it seemed like we were always escaping death one harrowing incident after another.
The worst was looking out to see a dark line in the sky ahead. My mom would turn around and say “Tighten your seatbelts, kids. It’s gonna get rough,” as we weaved our way around huge thunderstorm clouds and rain pelted the windows. It got so bumpy, my brother linked arms with me and said “If the plane ripped apart, at least we will fall together.”
Another time, I remember chasing tumbleweeds on a cracked runway in Amarillo while my parents weighed the risks of taking off in 110 degrees and me thinking we’d never get out of Texas, that we’d been flying for 3 days, the state was just too big.
Back then, you navigated by maps, so you could easily miss an airport or get lost. “Bill, that’s not a runway” was a frequent phrase we heard. One summer flying to Crested Butte, Colorado, my mom explained to me that we had to follow the canyons using a map but we had to fly below the peaks because we didn’t have oxygen to fly over 10,000 feet.
Everything was fine until it wasn’t. Suddenly, my mother started yelling, “Box Canyon, Bill!! Turn! Turn!” Luckily my dad obeyed and banked the plane, forcing a u-turn by diving. I looked up from my book to see the sheer rock walls of the side of the mountain looming closer and closer until they were six feet from the wing outside my window. On the ground, my mom shrugged, “We made a wrong turn,” as if we had missed an exit on the freeway. Talk about balls of steel.
For one spring break, we attempted to fly to Colorado to go skiing and stopped for the night in Gage, Oklahoma (pop. 600 plus one Pizza Hut). We woke up to three feet of snow on the ground. The owner of the airstrip said he didn’t have a plow, and we realized that not plowing meant snow on the ground for what could be months.
My mom said “If we could get a car up to 70 miles an hour, we could take off.” So, my parents gunned the old geezer’s caddy up and down the runway trying to pack the snow and hit 70 miles an hour before taking out the fence at the end of the runway. Meanwhile, my brother strung together four extension cords from the hangar to de-ice the plane with my hairdryer. I remember thinking, yep, today is the day we all die.
It wasn’t all sheer terror or boredom. My dad used to let me take the wheel, and I loved nothing more than zigzagging around the clouds like a race car driver. Or my mom teaching the names of the clouds (Stratus, Cirrus, Cumulonimbus). And witnessing mile after mile of exploding fireworks on New Year’s Eve then hitting the next time zone and seeing it all repeat again. Or the time we flew by Mt. Rushmore and flew by the chiseled rock faces of the presidents at eye level.
One summer, my dad and I went to pick up my college boyfriend near Orlando at a private airstrip. It was a starless, pitch dark night and as I looked out the window, I saw nothing but darkness. My dad started to put down the landing gear and I asked as panic set in. “Where is the runway???” He said, “Watch the magic!” He fiddled with the radio dial then double clicked the mic and like magic, the runway light up below, appearing out of nowhere. And just like that, we were on the perfect heading.
My parents joined a flying group who convinced them that we should all learn to scuba dive and meet up in the Bahamas (hello, Jaws? no thanks). So, one weekend, Dad tells my brother and I to cancel all our plans because we were getting certified. Off we flew only there was this one problem – they couldn’t find the island we were supposed to land at. It freaked my mom out so much she said she’d never fly again over water with only one engine.
So my dad traded our single engine for a twin engine plane that was slightly larger, they got their commercial licenses so they could fly by radar, and then the real adventures began! We flew all over the outer islands in Bahamas and down to Mexico to Baja California and even to Alaska one summer.
Mind you, this was in the 1980s when the Bahamas and Mexico were part of this little industry called drug trafficking. So, if you were flying a small plane- you were basically suspected of drug trafficking. Upon landing in Miami, I remember watching the customs agent grill my father while they tore out all the cushions and went through all the compartments on the plane looking for drugs.
My Dad’s bucket list was endless, and we started doing bigger trips to Europe, Israel, Australia, Argentina. Mom became a travel agent and when I was 15, she and I went on a Caribbean cruise for my birthday. She really likes cruises so as a family we did a bunch including the British Isles, Greece and Norway. We’d always rent a car in port to tool around on our own.
It was on these zany trips with my fearless parents that I learned what having a sense of adventure is truly like. It’s when the urge to discover something new is greater than the fear of doing it. “What’s the worst that could happen?” seemed to be our family motto.
In 1986, I wanted to go to London for a semester abroad. “Fantastic!” said my mom, “How about we start in Italy and work our way to Amsterdam then go to England to drop you off! And let’s invite my sister!”
Once there, I traveled as much as I could. My friends and I hitchhiked to Cornwall and Edinburgh, hiking on desolate trails, hitting pubs and staying in hostels. We once took the overnight ferry to Brugge for the weekend and another time, we flew to Germany where we met some of my relatives and visited East Berlin, Nuremberg and the Black Forest in Bavaria.
As the semester was winding down, I told my mom I wasn’t coming home, that I was going to live in Europe. “Nonsense,” she said “We are coming to you and going to Switzerland for Christmas.”
So we all went skiing in Verbier, Switzerland, a gorgeous town in the Switss Alps. Between the fondue, raclette dinners and chocolate, my mom broke her leg, my brother almost met his demise skiing with a cute Swiss ski patrol, and my dad and I skied the entire day not knowing we were in an avalanche zone. The Hayes family lives to see another day!
After college, I moved back to Miami and started working as a production coordinator in the film business. One of the companies I worked for specialized in underwater filming. Sometimes, if we needed an island for a shoot, I would hire my dad to take the director and producer around the Bahamas location scouting. I ended up doing a lot of work in the Caribbean, coordinating commercials and underwater shoots. Part of my job was making all the travel arrangements for the crew and actors.
In the 90s, I got married, and my husband and I started to travel together – skiing, hiking all over New England, summers on Martha’s Vineyard and trekking to random islands in the Caribbean. When we two amazing boys, of course, we took them everywhere.
Traveling with kids is one of the most fun things you can do as a family. It’s where you can be together and grow as you struggle to read a menu, marvel at a castle together, try to use a subway or just hug after a long day of new discoveries.
In 2015, I got into a facebook group that was counting countries and started getting serious about seeing as much of the world as possible. My mom and I went on some really great adventures in Iceland and Japan as I racked up more and more destinations.
In 2021, during Covid, my mom and I needed to use up expiring American Airlines vouchers by March so we were looking for winter destinations I hadn’t been to. She suggested we go to Tahiti on a Windstar cruise. It was there where my life took an amazing turn. On board, I met a bunch of friendly travel agents. One said to me, “You talk just like a travel agent.” My mom whispered in my ear, “You found your people!”
We had a lovely week aboard and I met the Vice President of KHM Travel Group, Geoff Cox and his wife, Janet. Geoff encouraged me to join KHM and give it a try. So, I came home and announced I was a travel agent and started getting vacation requests right away.
It’s been five years now and such a fantastic career move!!! Being a travel advisor/agent is the perfect job for me because I get to use my life experiences, creative problem-solving abilities, and practical planning skills for every trip I work on. It’s both challenging and fun to think outside the box and make a trip special for someone.
With my kids out of the house, I’m doing what I love (thinking about travel all day, every day) and helping people discover the world.
The last piece of the puzzle came together in 2024. I was originally running my own brand but got too busy to manage everything by myself. During that time, I met Laura Reece, another KHM agent, and we hit it off. She offered her guidance and became a sort of an unofficial mentor to me. Six months later, I joined her team. I haven’t looked back!
Currently, I’ve been to 101 countries and territories and all 7 continents (made it to Antarctica January 2024). I’ve been to 49 states (somehow Wisconsin slipped under the radar).
So, whether you are just getting started and want to travel the world or you are just tired of planning your own trips and want someone fun to work with, reach out! I’m happy to help.
Lillian Martin is a Senior Travel Advisor/Travel Agent at Reece Worldwide Travel. To book your next trip, click here.
Read more of Lillian’s travel stories here: https://wheretowandernext.com/all-blog-posts/
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