Getting Ready for a World of Adventure

After years of wishing and waiting and copious amounts of planning, we are off on our big travel adventure! First stop: the UK.

The authors of this blog will usually be Sam and Charlotte, my 12-year old son and 9-year old daughter, but today I’d like to share a bit about the planning and packing for this trip.

Here’s a bit of background:

When I was twelve years old, I spent a couple of days going to my cousins’ school with them (I can’t remember why). While there, I learned that one of their classmates was going to be away for most of the year because his parents had taken a sabbatical from their jobs and the whole family was traveling around the world. This was long before blogs, social media, or even email, so his friends waited anxiously for each postcard to arrive, which their teacher would share with them. Just hearing about this fascinated me. I remember thinking, “I’m going to do that when I have kids.”

The thought stayed with me throughout the years and grew as I did. At 16, I boarded my first flight and went on a mission trip to Poland with my youth group. Despite a long, uncomfortable flight where my inability to sleep on a plane first became evident, and suffering from somewhat jarring culture-shock, I was truly bitten by the “travel bug” and a love of learning about new people and places.

Later, during university, I spent my third year abroad, studying French at the Universite de Nantes in France. I loved experiencing a new city, country, and way of life. I also loved hopping on a train every chance I got to explore over a dozen different countries that year.

When I became a teacher and married my wonderful husband, I still craved the world. We have spent many years traveling throughout Canada, the US, and Europe whenever we could and in the last few years, we’ve taken our children to Iceland, Ireland, Isle of Man, New Orleans, Nashville, Chicago, and more. I’ve been so happy seeing them develop their own adventurous spirits – trying new foods, appreciating wildlife, hearing stories from the locals, and traipsing around a wide variety of landscapes.

As a teacher, I am lucky to have the opportunity to take a year away from the classroom and to teach my own children through “world schooling.”

The Plan:

We began planning in earnest approximately one year ago. That’s when we sat down with our kids and we all made lists of the top 5 places we’d like to visit. The kids did some research and came up with great lists. We discussed our choices and reasons and settled on a few “musts.” A few choices couldn’t be included because Brad and I don’t feel comfortable traveling to countries with unrest. For example, Egypt was on three of our lists but will have to wait until the international travel advisory is lifted.
Once we had a basic list, we began to research transportation. This was one of the longest processes. Shout out to Nicola from AirTreks for her guidance and encouragement!

Here’s a tip for you – use Google Flights to find the best deals around, even on multi-city jaunts. Their algorithm cannot be beaten by any travel agent around. It takes time, and sometimes trying out many different dates and changing destination order, but it’s worth it. We literally saved thousands of dollars!

Speaking of money, you may be wondering how on earth we can afford this amount of travel. My next tip – home swapping. Yes, we really do switch houses with people we’ve never met. Just like in “The Holiday” (best Christmas movie ever!). This is easy and makes sense for so many reasons. First of all, if you have kids, sharing hotel rooms sucks. Second, it’s free (except for a small website membership fee). Third, you can even swap cars and find people who want to hang out with your pets. Fourth, you occasionally make connections with people that become your friends.

You wonder… But what if they steal my valuables or destroy my home? Guess what? You are in their home, too. They have the same initial worries, so the whole community of swappers terms to overcompensate by leaving your home exceedingly clean and taking better care of your belongings than you do. We’ve only swapped twice so far but have several swaps lined up for this journey and we’ve heard only positive stories from every swapper we’ve chatted with (at this point, that’s close to a hundred).

Arranging swaps is obviously a lot more time-consuming than booking hotel rooms, but, trust me, it’s time well spent and worth the effort. We love Intervac – all of our European swaps have been through this company so far. We have also recently joined Love Home Swap, as it seems to have more members in Oceania and South America. Memberships are only around $100/year and the organizations facilitate contracts and have procedures in place to help in case of last minute emergency changes, etc.

Packing:

The first part of our year is 100 days in Europe and Morocco. We are only traveling with carry-on luggage. Crazy? Maybe, but with tons of short flights and train travel, carrying large and bulky suitcases would make for endless frustration.

How do you fit your wardrobe and other necessities for 3 and a half months into one small 10kg suitcase and a small backpack?

Here are a few tips:
1) Make a list. Of everything. Make it several weeks before you pack and add/remove things as you go forward.
2) Choose a colour scheme for your clothing so that everything you bring can mix and match. Also, you will reduce the number of shoes and other accessories you’ll need to bring if you stick to a limited colour palette.
3) Search for ways to reduce any extra weight in your luggage. If you like to read, like Sam and I do, bring an e-reader loaded up with great books. If you’re “world schooling”, bring a Chromebook and use online resources. Going paperless is good for the environment and the weight of your bag.