Our Round-the-world Family Experience

We did it. We took 4 months off work to travel the world with our kids. We visited Costa Rica, California, Hawaii, Japan, Thailand, mainland Malaysia, Indonesia, Australia and Singapore. It took us 115 days, 22 flights, several family fights, few jellyfish stings, couple of monkey robberies and one horse bite and it was absolutely the best things we could have done.

Now, we are back and on one hand I have so much in my heart and mind and it changed me so much as a person, but I honestly feel it’s impossible to summarize this experience without writing several massive stories. It is even more hard to put it into words that will not sound cheesy, bragging or simply boring at the same time. But, I do feel the need to sum up this absolutely best chapter of our lives, so let’s give it a shot.

1.   We are super grateful that we did it.

We were scared before leaving, super scared of how are we going to manage schooling, work after going back, are we able to pull it off financially, how will the kids behave – list of doubts was almost never-ending. But ultimately, we decided to have trust that everything will work out well and you know what… it did.

All in all, I truly believe that time we have with our close ones is the only thing that we will never get back and I absolutely think that making this move was one of the best decision we’ve made as a family. Everything else will just sort itself out.

2.   We did it our way, you should find yours.

We did the round-the-world trip, but there are millions of ways to travel and you have to figure out what fits you. Our initial idea was to move somewhere cheap, find a beach and live there for a year, at the end that evolved into shorter, more intense plan. You have to find what works for you and what gives you energy.

For us, the important thing was to show the kids new cultures, new points of view, but also to try to balance this with just spending time together, enjoy life and talk to each other. If you just have a month to go somewhere close and be together, but really really focusing on being together, then this is the best investment you can make.

3.   The best part of these four months was also the hardest one.

Travelling as family was harder than we expected and it wasn't the logistics of it or the fact that we travelled with kids. It is amazing how we did not think that the simple fact of being together 24/7 can be an issue. We probably argued and screamed at each other much more than we should have during the first 1,5 month, but then, at certain moment we just ran out of energy and everything changed.

We learned to be much more forgiving and kind to each other, to listen and talk better and I really think it is the biggest thing we got out of this trip. It’s quite amazing how we are now trusting our feelings much more, try to support one another more and just finding joy in being together.

We are still far from perfect (and that’s probably not something we aspire towards), but this trip helped us in simply being a better family and I guess that was the whole point. I guess we got all these memories and 10 000+ pictures simply as a bonus.

So… now it’s your turn :)