They say you can never go home again.
Having lived abroad for the last 8 years, I’ve been slapped in the face over and over again by that nasty old adage. People and places can change, and they can stay the same. But its not home that’s causes all the problems, it’s you.
A big goal for this trip is to really experience the cultures and the places we visit; to learn the local customs from locals themselves. We want to get a feel for what the place is really about, and meet the people by staying in B&Bs and guesthouses along the way. We’ve found you learn more about what makes a place special this way – what people are proud of, the hidden gems they direct you to off the tourist circuit, and the journey this community has been on through history. You can’t get that from a guidebook or Wikipedia entry. It turns a tourist visit into a life experience.
That was the honest question from our 6 yr old, as the nurse and mummy discussed travel vaccinations at our local GP! The vaccination schedule can take up to 5 months to complete, so you have to start early on the most unpleasant part of planning for a long term trip. To be fair we had not divulged a great deal about our adventure yet to him, as we didn’t want to distract him too much from school, and we hadn’t yet notified work, school, friends…most people. Travelling into remote places means that we’ll encounter some bad bugs and diseases. Yellow Fever, Hepatitis, […]
Our love of travel didn’t stop when we were joyfully surprised with the arrival of our son. We were expats living in London, and living far away from our families meant that our son’s first flights were long haul to Texas and to Australia. By his first birthday, he had visited his first four countries and just as many continents. Travel with a child is just a part of life for us. Sure its hard at times. Kids complain, get tired and stubborn, and they weirdly don’t seem to enjoy sitting on a terrace just to watch the sun go […]
We have decided that for real, we really are going to take a family gap year. We're working out just how to pull off a round the world trip in a year, with a 6 year old in tow and a lifetime of dreams to realise