Want a Memorable Gift for Mom? Try a Mother-Daughter Trip Celebrating Women

Getting a mani-pedi, taking a spa day, enjoying a drink on a sun-covered patio while gossiping about family or taking in the latest playhouse production are a great way to spend mother-daughter time. But there are lots of other options, as well. The destinations on this list are atypical but stand as symbols of female history and accomplishment that are worthy of exploration, whether you’re looking to empower the next generation, or simply interested in learning the history of formidable women who have walked before us.

No Place Like Home
Academy Museum of Motion Pictures
Los Angeles

There’s no more prominent family of Academy Award winners in motion picture history than Judy Garland, Vincente Minnelli and Liza Minnelli. Artifacts from Garland’s heralded Wizard of Oz movie, including her famous red slippers, are on display at the museum.

Remember Herstory
Women’s Rights National Historic Park
Seneca Falls, New York

Central New York is home to many prominent women’s rights movement locations, including those celebrated at the National Park: Wesleyan Chapel, location of the First Women’s Rights Convention in 1848; a waterfall that features the words of the Declaration of Sentiments drafted there; and the home of suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton. The National Susan B. Anthony Museum and House is just a short jaunt down the road in Rochester.

Family Tradition
Nobel Prize Museum
Stockholm, Sweden

The Nobel Prize Museum in Stockholm’s Old Town celebrates the more than 900 creative minds that have been named either Nobel Prize winners or Nobel Prize laureates. Among those persons honored are Marie Curie (the first woman to win a Nobel Prize) and her daughter Irène Joliot-Curie. They both, along with their husbands, won prizes for their work with radioactivity. The family has five Prizes total.

Find Frankenstein
Villa Diodati
Cologny, Switzerland

Mary Wollstonecraft is widely regarded as one of the world’s foremost female philosophers, but she is perhaps best known as being a novelist. Her daughter, Mary Shelley, is also known for her novels, in particular Frankenstein. In 1816, as she summered on Lake Geneva with Lord Byron, who was renting Villa Diodati, she composed her famous novel, which was based stories she told around a fire at night while staying there.

Women-Led History
The Hermitage
St. Petersburg, Russia

Though the museum is expansive and home to over 3 million items, its history is more impressive. The former Winter Palace was home to numerous tsars, but also Catherine the Great, the Russian leader who started the country’s Enlightenment period, transforming the country. It was Catherine who started the collection that would lead to the museum as it is today.

Ancient Female Leadership
Cheomseongdae
Gyeongju, South Korea

Cheomseongdae is the oldest surviving astronomical observatory in Asia. It was ordered built by Queen Seondeok, the first queen of the kingdom, in early 7th century, and today sits near Woljeong Bridge and Donggung Palace. The queen was a champion of farmers and peasants and eventually laid the groundwork for the unification of the Three Kingdoms of Korea. She was succeeded by her cousin, who became the second female ruler of the kingdom.

Frequent Flyers
The Mission Inn Hotel & Spa
Riverside, California

The Mission Inn is a U.S. National Historical Landmark and a California Historical Landmark, and it’s on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places; it is one of its walls that landed it on this list. The “Famous Fliers Wall” at the St. Francis Atrio features the names of some of the world’s foremost female aviators including American Amelia Earhart and Australian Maude Bonney.

Trap-Door Tourism
La Recoleta Cemetery
Buenos Aires, Argentina

Modern history shows a mixed image of Eva Perón, but there’s no denying her star power. She grew up in poverty, rising up to become a stage, radio and film actress before marrying future Argentinian President Juan Perón and making her debut on the world’s stage. Twenty-four years after her death, Andrew Lloyd Weber’s musical take on her life, Evita, debuted. She’s buried at Recoleta Cemetery, under the marble floor of her tomb complete with two trap doors to prevent grave robbers.

Artistic Aesthetic
Museo Frida Kahlo
Mexico City, Mexico

Frida Kahlo is one of the most successful female artists of all time. Museo Frida Kahlo features Casa Azul, the blue house where she spent most of her life. It includes the four-poster bed where Kahlo rested after being injured in an accident, when she started painting. Her wardrobe, as well as pieces from her life with on-and-off-and-on husband and fellow painter Diego Rivera are also featured.

Unknown Whereabouts
Royal Tomb of Akhenaten
Amarna, Egypt

The burial place of the eighteenth dynasty pharaoh Akhenaten is notable because of who isn’t there—his wife Nefertiti. While her burial place is currently unknown, the Royal Tomb is thought to be where her family was originally buried. Her exact historical role is unclear; she may have been a pharaoh. In ancient Egyptian art, she is depicted as being as powerful as her husband. Her bust—on display at the Neues Museum in Berlin—is believed to have been created in 1345 BCE by Thutmose and is regarded as one of the most noted Egyptian artworks.

Famous Five
Emily Murphy Park
Edmonton, Alberta

The Famous Five were a group of suffragettes who did more than just advocate for women’s rights. One of the best known is Emily Murphy, an Edmonton resident who took up the cause of getting women named as “persons” under Canadian law. This accomplishment should not overshadow some of Murphy’s more controversial, anti-immigrant views, however. Emily Murphy Park, along the North Saskatchewan River connects to the Alberta Legislature Grounds via walking trails.