I’ve travelled with my 76-year-old gran for years – ‘grandma-maxxing’ is more than a trend
This summer's biggest travel trend has nothing to do with an undiscovered city or a flashy hotel opening – it's "grandma-maxxing".
For the uninitiated, the phenomenon involves adopting the lifestyle of an elderly matriarch – in many cases, an Italian nonna – while on holiday . In practice, that means ditching late-night bar crawls, prioritising restfulness and leaning into analogue experiences. In one recent survey, 76 per cent of travellers said they actively want to book a "grandma-inspired" holiday.
I can proudly call this my area of expertise. For years, my primary travel companion has been my 76-year-old grandmother.
Venus and her grandmother have long enjoyed travelling together – seen here in Porto - Venus Wong
I've been grandma-maxxing long before it was a trend; it's a rather delightful way to see a new destination. But what does my grandmother think of travelling the world with me – a millennial who is admittedly obsessed with perfecting trip itineraries using social media?
A second chance at adventures
A-Po – what I call my grandmother in Cantonese, my native language – was raised in a modest fishing family in China's Guangdong province, and had little time or means to explore the world until she was widowed in her mid-50s. Now a sprightly senior citizen, she's making up for lost time.
My grandmother lives in Macau and I live in London, so we're thousands of miles apart. When she visits me in the UK, I add on a few European getaways , and if I fly east for work, I take her on short-haul trips in Asia . This means we get to go on a big trip at least once or twice a year.
Together, we have travelled to Portugal, the UK, Italy, Vietnam, Malaysia and too many Chinese cities to count, often, just the two of us.
Venus's grandmother is a big fan of the notoriously pungent durian fruit, often seeking it out on their holidays - Venus Wong
A-Po and I have very different ideas for what sightseeing means – I'll happily spend hours at a historic monument, while she'd rather inspect every fruit stall at the local market.
"I like to experience how locals live, and the best way to do it is by hitting up the supermarket," she says. "You can compare prices with what's back home by rifling through the aisles, which also helps me quickly understand a new culture."
I make sure our itineraries leave room for maximising the grandma-friendly activities. Knowing how much she loves durian (a notoriously pungent fruit seen in south-east Asia), I took her to the Malaysian city of Penang during durian season in June, where she gleefully worked her way through different varieties and persuaded me, a former durian sceptic, to join in.
Generational differences
As it turns out, millennials and Gen Z aren't the only travellers obsessed with documenting everything for social media. My grandmother is a bit hopeless with technology, but she loves documenting our adventures.
A-Po is an avid poster on WeChat Moments, China's answer to Instagram Stories, and expects me to collage her photos and ghostwrite her posts in real time. "My friends are always saying how lovely it is that I have a granddaughter who takes me to cool places," she explains. "I love posting every update on my trip – and let them be that much more jealous of me."
Naturally, I try to give her plenty of bragging material. When we went to Suzhou, China's famous garden city, I booked us a professional photo shoot, complete with hair and makeup service, with us posing in rented qipao (a traditional fitted Chinese dress). Any excuse to glam up – and have a bit of fun – goes a long way with my grandmother.
Writer Venus as a child with her grandmother - Venus Wong
Of course, travelling together isn't always smooth sailing, as we both have our quirks. A-Po is highly superstitious and terrified of ghosts, so she'll sometimes rumple up a pristine hotel bed to dispel any negative energy before I've had a chance to take a photograph. She also leaves the bedside lamp on when we sleep as she's scared of a pitch-dark room.
For my part, my fondness for iced drinks remains a constant source of her disapproval; in traditional Chinese medicine, cold beverages are thought to contribute to period cramps.
But our squabbles rarely last. Usually, I'd ask her to blow-dry my hair – just as she did when I was little – and we revert back to our chummy dynamic.
A more mindful pace
My grandmother is in excellent health, but she knows her limits, and any activity that requires more than 10,000 steps is usually her cue to sit things out. For instance, when we visited the Natural History Museum , she opted to wait and nap on a bench. On another trip to Lisbon, she tucked into a pastéis de nata in a public park while I ambled around Belém Tower.
"A few years ago, I didn't feel the strain of a packed schedule, but I walk a lot slower now," she says. "I don't mind resting in public; even if I'm not looking around a museum, I like being physically in a space and soaking up the atmosphere."
Venus says that while travelling together isn't always easy, their squabbles rarely last long - Venus Wong
Travelling at her pace has taught me that a good trip isn't measured by how much ground you cover in a day.
All things considered, travelling together seems to do us both good – proving grandma-maxxing benefits old and young alike. I join her on her morning tai chi routine , which does wonders for my technology-induced shoulder aches. Her insomnia completely dissipates whenever we're away together, since we're doing so much during the day.
"When we're away, I'm fast asleep by 11pm, whereas I typically stay up till 3am at home," she tells me. "I wake up feeling so much sharper; just knowing my granddaughter wants to take me out to see the world makes all the difference."
And as A-Po likes to point out, with some life expectancies reaching 100 years old, being in her mid-70s makes her practically middle-aged – plenty of time left for her globetrotting era.
