Location: Galapagos, Ecuador, South America
Published: DestinAsian Magazine 

During a snorkeling session at Gardner Bay on my third day in the Galápagos, I can’t decide what I love most: the sea lion that corkscrews playfully below me then swims right up to my mask, staring deep into my eyes; or the fact that my 70-year-old parents are actually here with me too, finning along like regular water babies in the frigid shallows of this otherworldly archipelago. 

You could say that this moment had been years in the making. On our annual parent-daughter trips that had become a tradition in recent years, my sister and I had made it a point to travel with our mom and dad to as many bucket-list destinations as possible while they were still willing and able. And anyplace there was water, we’d practically forced them to don wetsuits for a look below the surface…