Husband and wife Brits, Douglas and Connie Petersen, and their seventeen year old son Albie Petersen are about to embark on their long planned grand three week summer vacation traveling through the continent, their final trip as a family before Albie is planning to head off to art college in the fall to study photography. The trip is despite Connie having just told Douglas that she believes their marriage is over after twenty-four years as a couple, the split something they don't plan on telling Albie until their return home. Douglas and Connie had always been a classic case of opposites attracting - Douglas a left-brained former biochemist turned pharmaceutical company manager, and Connie a right-brained former bohemian artist - with Connie wanting the trip to be one last chance for Douglas to bond with Albie, the two who have never connected in Douglas not understanding Albie in he being more like Connie. While Connie has long been unhappy in the marriage, a precipitating factor in the timing of her proclamation to Douglas is the fact of Albie soon leaving for good meaning that it will just be the two of them alone again. While Connie sees the trip as that bonding exercise for Douglas and Albie, and Albie sees the trip as trying to do what he wants despite his father having planned it to the nth degree, Douglas sees it as three weeks to win Connie back, which he may or may not be aware also means finding that bond with Albie.