Jennifer Garner Reveals She Once Gifted Her Parents a Cruise to Antarctica: 'Merry Christmas'

Jennifer Garner is remembering how she helped her parents reach their goal of visiting all seven continents.

While chatting with Christy Turlington Burns on the Kelly Corrigan Wonders: About Your Mother podcast in support of Every Mother Counts, the actress recalled, “A few years ago, they called me and said, ‘We need to go to Antarctica.’”

“And I said, ‘Okay, I hear you. Merry Christmas. So here's a cruise to Antarctica,’” Garner continued. “They weren't pressuring me to do it, but at the same time it felt like, ‘Okay, let's get this taken care of right away.’”

Garner noted that her parents, Pat and William Garner, returned from the voyage on March 10, 2020 — the day before the World Health Organization officially declared COVID-19 a pandemic — but fortunately didn’t catch the virus.

Jennifer, 52, announced last month that her father had died “peacefully” at the age of 85, and the podcast episode was recorded 10 days after his death. The episode is part of About Your Mother, a special five-part series of Kelly Corrigan Wonders that features Corrigan and co-host Christy Turlington Burns, founder of Every Mother Counts, with guests like Garner, Cindy Crawford, Amy Schumer and Bono, who reveal intimate details about the relationships with their moms and the life lessons those women passed on, with a goal of raising $100,000 for EMC.

The 13 Going on 30 star opened up about her mom’s love for travel, saying she “wants all of us to have adventures.”

“I mean, she came from nothing and has been to seven continents and 50 states,” she said of Pat, 85. “And I think she believes in seeing the world and its beauty and really seeing it when you are able to. … When I realize I am being my mom, it's when I've stopped the car and I say, ‘I'm not going further until you look at the tree. Look at the tree. Everyone, stop what you're doing. Check out the sunset or you cannot have dinner.’”

While reflecting on her parents’ wanderlust, Jennifer admitted, “I don't think I have it as much as they do.” 

“I want to go and I want to see things and I want to experience, but I feel like our jobs take care of a lot of that for us,” she said, “because we're traveling so much with our jobs.”

Jennifer, who's mom to Violet, 18, Seraphina, 15, and Samuel, 12, whom she shares with ex Ben Affleck, continued, “I have to see once my kids are grown how I feel.”

“I definitely want my kids to see, and I take them places and it's a hassle and I do it anyway," she said. "But I haven't been like, ‘You know what? We got to get on a ship to Antarctica.’”

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The actress added that both of her siblings share their parents’ passion for travel.

As for her younger sister, Susannah, “Her kids have counted states.”

“She's an accountant and she always has a couple of different banking accounts going and one of them is just for travel,” she said.

And Jennifer’s older sister, Melissa, recently went on hiking trips to both Chile and Nepal.

“So I don't think I have that thing that they both have,” she added.

Every Mother Counts works to help make pregnancy and childbirth safe for everyone, everywhere. To donate, go to everymothercounts.org/donate. Listen to the special five-part podcast series, created in partnership with Kelly Corrigan Wonders, wherever you get your podcasts.