On a journey through Indonesia, writer Kathryn Romeyn ensures her father's new-found mobility issues won't interfere with his adventurous spirit.

Kathryn Emerson Romeyn

At the 8th-century Borobudur, the world’s largest Buddhist monument, in Yogyakarta , Indonesia, I panicked. Our guide, Hariyanto, had just handed me, my four and a half-year-old daughter, Indah, and my 75-year old dad the UNESCO -required pandan leaf sandals to explore the monument. With notoriously sensitive feet, my dad fumed: “They expect people to walk up and down uneven steps in these? How much harder can they make it?” I helped him put on the awkward sandals, but within minutes he had kicked them off. “I’d rather go barefoot.”

Indah and Steve, aka babu, with guide Hariyanto, on the top of Borobudur

Kathryn Emerson Romeyn

Indah inside a candi, or temple, in Prambanan, Central Java

Kathryn Emerson Romeyn

My dad has forever been my up-for-anything adventure buddy—until my husband entered the picture seven years ago.…