Family Travel
“Life is about growth and exploration, not achieving a fixed state of balance. You have a very limited time on earth to experience all that you can. Figuring out how to squeeze the most out of your family, work and spirituality is your life’s purpose. Go do it.”
Mel Robbins
Once the kids were more self-sufficient and could walk a couple of miles (aged 5 and 6) we started heading a little further afield in our adventures. We haven’t looked back. For us, there is nothing better than exploring as a family.
Evie and Aiden are great little explorers and love to explore. As a family, we look to get outdoors to see the wildlife and landscapes (we are definitely more about the natural wonders than the man-made ones) and we try to avoid the main tourist areas and get a little closer to the local culture.
In 2019 we took this one step further and quit our jobs, rented the house and set off around the world for a year. That was cut rather short after 7 months by Covid 19, but we still got to explore SE Asia, New Zealand & Australia together!
What amazing places have we explored as a family so far?
We’ve been to:
- Myanmar
- Australia
- New Zealand
- Malaysian Borneo
- Peninsular Malaysia
- Vietnam
- Singapore
- Cambodia
- Laos
- Philippines – admittedly only in Manila for 24 hours whilst en route to Australia but what a day it was!
- Spain (short family visits rather than a real holiday so we’ll have to go back – apparently the mountains in the North are incredible!)
- Cyprus for another family wedding but we spent two weeks out there in the Paphos area and the kids loved it. They keep asking to go back!
- Croatia. A truly beautiful country with amazing parks like Plitvice and Krka showcasing stunning lakes and waterfalls. The Makarska Coast is magnificent with the enormous Bikovo mountain cliffs rising sharply behind the coastal town. At sunset, it is painted red as the sun sets behind the islands out to sea. Paradise.
- Lapland, Finland. Easily our most expensive holiday so far per day but worth every penny! our first proper snowy holiday. All booked by me rather than as a package so it was much cheaper and we had the place to ourselves – see how we did it.
- Costa Rica. Over three weeks travelling the length of Costa Rica in April 2018, exploring rivers, cloud forest, sandy beaches, underwater reefs and lush tropical rainforest. Waterfalls and birds everywhere. We stayed in some great places – an eco-lodge in the rainforest, an emoji themed hotel and a villa with an outdoor kitchen. Had our fair share of bad luck which would have been enough to ruin many people’s holiday though! Read about it.
- And not forgetting our own green and pleasant land – England! We’ve also been to the New Forest, Yorkshire, Devon (when Evie was 8 weeks old), Dorset (many times – I think it’s my spiritual home), Somerset and the Lake District.
Read along! Try using the search bar below to find our blog posts from our travels in these countries!
The map below shows the countries we’ve been to together
[wp-visited-countries width=”600″ height=”300″]As a family we’ve visited {num} out of {total} countries. That is {percent}.[/wp-visited-countries]
Where next?
With our travels taking a break for lockdown right now we’re hoping to get a bit more of the UK covered in the coming months, before a possible US road trip and /or a European Road Trip with a long stint in Spain… Watch this space!