For me when I say traveling or a trip, I think of 2 month backpacking trip across southeast Asia. No hotels booked ahead. No set travel plans. No mode of transportation. Just us and our packs. With all of Asia, ready to be seen.
But for my husband that sounds like a nightmare just waiting to happen. He sees us stranded someplace in the cold, without a place to sleep and no one around that can understand English. He does have a point. That’s a very real possibility.
When he thinks of travelling, he thinks of renting (or using services such as house sitters)a small house somewhere…Where English is found and spoken(New Zealand or Malta maybe?). We would sightsee a little bit during the day. Have some adventures- Maybe Ziplining? Maybe snorkelling? Come back to the little house at night, cook up our own meal and eat on the deck watching the sunset. That doesn’t sounds bad to me at all :)
Yes, we’ve interviewed families who have taken 2 or 3 years off from the ‘normal’ life and travel, making it a lifestyle in itself. But we’ve also interviewed families that have gone on a 2-week trip to Israel and took lots of EPIC pictures and bought lots of cool souvenirs and they enjoyed it!! And that’s the WHOLE point! YOU should go wherever excites YOU and go for as long as you want….whether it’s two weeks seeing a place you’ve always dreamed of or taking that one-year (or 2 or 3!) off and bounce from one country to the next!
Don’t wait til you kids are ‘old enough.’ Travelling with kids at any age has its challenges. I can tell you from an adult perspective, I’m so grateful that my parents took us out travelling. I may have missed my friends at the time, I may not have been able to go shopping on Saturdays at the mall like normal teenage girls but I’m grateful now. Because I’ve seen parts of the world most people only dream of going to. Because now, I’ve come back all in one piece and can inspire and encourage other people to leave, and go……..and see where you end up.
{Maggie Blackham is a twenty-something travel writer who grew up living on a sailboat with her family of 8 seeing the world. She loves to write in long ongoing sentences about the places she’s seen as a teenager. She currently lives in Wilmington, NC and is constantly making plans to travel the world again. This time with her husband Josh.}
