My husband and I haven't taken a child-free vacation in years. We've still found ways to keep our trips romantic.

My husband and I chose to spend New Year’s Day at Hakuto Shrine, a site famous for its connection to one of Japan’s oldest love stories.

Standing beside an icy pond, we watched a pair of bonded ducks circle each other in the heavy snow. “Look, it’s us,” he joked.

As we approached our 15th anniversary, it felt like the perfect place to celebrate our history and our future.

After leaving the grounds, we grabbed hot coffees to warm our hands and watched stormy winter waves crash against the coastline as the snow fell thick and heavy.

That moment was just one of many romantic experiences we’ve shared while on family trips.

Living abroad without nearby family support means my husband and I haven’t taken a true child-free vacation in years.

Although there are certainly times we wish we had that option, we stopped waiting for uninterrupted time and started finding ways to feel connected during the trips we were already taking.

For a long time, I thought romance lived in a completely different category from family travel, but years on the road together have changed my view entirely.

We’ve shared bucket-list moments watching wild snow monkeys soak in mountain hot springs, and taking twilight canal rides through the historic old quarter of Kurashiki, under swaying willow trees.

We’ve walked along the soft, white beaches of Rarotonga at night to admire the stars.

Sometimes it’s the destination that makes it easier to reconnect.

For our 15th anniversary this year, the three of us went to Nagoya.

The itinerary looked like a 10-year-old’s birthday party, split between Legoland and the Maglev railway museum, but the three of us got completely carried away geeking out over trains and Lego sculptures.

We finished the day with dinner at a high-end restaurant, sharing past travel memories and talking long after the food was gone.

By the end of the night, we felt deeply connected.

Mainstream culture often frames romantic getaways around rose petals over a bed and private, candlelit dinners, but that version has never felt relatable to me.

To me, romance looks like a messy collection of souvenir trinkets scattered across the bed or my husband slipping out to grab takeout, just so I can have an extra hour to soak in the hotel bathtub.

Although family travel has plenty of chaotic, “we should have hired a babysitter” moments, the little routines we’ve built while traveling together matter more than I expected.

Once our daughter is asleep, we spread out a haul of local snacks, put on a movie, and become amateur food critics.

Even shifting our transit logistics has brought us closer.

Now that our daughter claims the window seat, my husband and I sit side by side again, sharing a movie screen and instantly feeling more like a couple instead of tag-teaming parents.

When we travel, the usual distractions fall away for a while.

Away from home, there’s less pressure competing for our attention.

It creates room for connection, like sharing a laugh when I completely butcher the local language trying to order lunch, or finding a moment to buy each other little surprise presents from a gift shop.

Ironically, one of the ways we make our trips more romantic has been to book accommodation geared toward children.

Hotels with play spaces have actually helped us more than luxury hotels ever did, as we can share a relaxed coffee while she plays.

Now that our daughter is 10, any public displays of affection from her parents are met with dramatic eye-rolls and performative gagging noises.

Still, she notices our relationship more than she lets on and volunteers to take photos of us together or sits on the other side of a restaurant booth so we can be closer.

By traveling as a family, we hope she learns that romance isn’t something reserved exclusively for anniversaries or when the kids are left at the grandparents’.

Instead, she sees how we handle stress, affection, and compromise together.

She watches us laugh off a missed train stop, share the load by taking turns hauling heavy luggage through airports, and calmly talk through disagreements over directions.

Granted, that last part has also provided her with definitive, firsthand proof that her mother has zero sense of direction.

Most importantly, I don’t want her growing up thinking she interrupted our life together.

Rather, many of our favorite memories exist because she was there, too.

Our trips may look different from the romantic vacations I imagined before kids, but they still feel deeply meaningful to us.