What I miss about long term family travel – and what I don’t miss
Last year on our gap year we learned a lot about ourselves. We learned we can do more than we think. Small things are just that – small things, adapt and keep going. We’re just as happy (or even more so) crammed in to a tent or a hotel room as we are spread across our house. We explored, we played and we grew as a family and as people. Together we can do anything. There is so much we miss about traveling. Many things we miss are due to travel itself and there a lot of things we missed from each stop. There are also things we don’t miss but that’s not going to stop us from planning our next trip.
Here what we miss most about our travel year and why we can’t wait to do it again.
1. We had more Family Time
From rushing to catch a flight to camping to just sitting around the AirBnb and watching a show together, everything we did was as a family. Family time wasn’t rushed. When you work 9-5 and cram in your family time in the evening you miss a lot. Travel takes at all the distractions and lets you focus more on what’s important.
2. We Realized Size Doesn’t Matter
We stayed in everything from tents to larger homes and regardless of the size of where we stayed it was what we did that had the most impact on how happy we were. Some of my favorite weeks were camping weeks.
3. We Like having Less Things
We lost my son’t back pack with all his clothes in Copenhagen and – so what? We bought 5 shirts and 3 pairs of pants and all was good. We found the less stuff we took with us the happier we were. Next time I have a goal of 1 backpack per person. We didn’t need the “things” and no one was watching to make sure we didn’t wear the same outfit 2 times in a week.
4. Exploring is Fun
Our family loves exploring and getting to explore so many different cities was an amazing experience for us.
5. You Meet New People
It’s always true that the people are what makes an area so special. We loved any chance we got to sit down and talk with someone new. We loved the different perspectives and point of views.
6. Less Over Scheduling
When we’re home there is work, school, soccer games, birthday parties and an almost endless supply of activities. They are all a blast but getting one kid to Ninja Practice while the other has Viola can just start being exhausting. Our home calendar is so complicated I spend 2 hours a week updating our calendar and making sure we don’t miss anything (like that ortho appt last week :-/ – oops ).
7. We had Less Stress
We walked, we strolled and we enjoyed the view. Travel helps you set your priorities and if you do it “right” your daily stress can improve. We also feel that many of the countries we were less stressed over-all.
8. We got Outside More
Since we weren’t spending our time with our over-scheduled activities we got out and walked almost every day. We spent 2-3 days per week walking and exploring near by and about 2 days a week with larger activities. Since my husband still worked from his state-side job he would log in each afternoon. This gave us more time to get outside.
9. Public Transportation
We love ferries, trains and buses. Riding a ferry in Canada is such a great experience. So are the trains in Europe and we really enjoyed the Copenhagen bus system. Not having to worry about parking (and car seats) can make a trip such a better experience.
10. We Tested our Comfort Zone
We got lost pretty often, we didn’t know the language many places and we struggled with some of the customs and etiquette. We also explored many areas with some pretty steep cliffs and panic inducing heights. We also fumbled around many cities. Some of our most memorable and best experiences were completely out of our comfort zone.
11. We Paid Less Bills
Sure we had plane tickets and car rentals but we did not have car payments, lawn care, daycare, and electric bills. Our monthly bills went down considerably.
12. The Kids (and us) Learned a Lot
For our travel year we pulled the kids out of traditional school. I started with great plans but in the end we had a basic math curriculum and kind of winged the rest depending on where we were. The kids learned a ton in museums and walking through castles and other historical locations. We learned science hands on depending on where we were and what was available. We read historical books. In the end I think they learned more than they would have been able to in a classroom (and thier math is still ahead) – now spelling …
13. We Connected Less to Technology
I worked on my website, my husband used his computer for work and the kids did some of their work on the computer. Otherwise we didn’t use nearly as much electronics as we do at home. It was nice.
14.Our Family Worked Together as a Team
To get a family of 5 through an airport without major drama takes coordination. Yes there was a tug of war leaving Lisbon resulting in the one doll that we took with us being without a head until the sewing kit was found but overall we worked well as a team.
15. We tried New Languages
We tried, but we often failed. We usually learned numbers and nouns and we can point. Most of the places we went someone would eventually feel sorry for us and speak English. Eventually we figured most things out. Google Translate is a huge help.
We Also Really Miss …
- Portland’s Kids Museum – It’s Just a Fabulous place to Spend the day
- Swimming in the exceptionally cold Crater Lake.
- Bagpipes during the eclipse. The Great American Eclipse was an amazing once in a lifetime experience. Pro travel tip — if you’re chasing an eclipse and see a lone bag piper playing in the fields. Stop. It’s a sign – a blaring obvious this is where I should be sign. Such a perfect day.
- Camping through Oregon and Washington State – We stayed so many lovely spaces but taking time to travel through the coast was wonderful.
- Newports Aquarium
- Small towns in Oregon and Washington – So many fabulous places to fall in love with.
- Walking down the Boardwalk at Seaside, OR
- Exploring tidal pools at Cannon Beach – Just beautiful!
- The Trees in Olympic National Park – Camping in Olympic National Park is such a relaxing and restorative experience. The trees are so peaceful. We stayed in Sul Duc Springs campground and I would love to go back and stay longer. This campground is a fabulous anti-depressant.
- Dancing in our Airbnb on Orcas Island – We love the San Juan Islands and this little old fashion cottage was one of my favorite places to stay.
- Sweet treats below our AirBnb and the Library at Coopeville
- Washington State and Canadian Ferries – We love Washington State and Canadian Ferries. Play puzzles and take in the views.
- Canada’s laid back attitude
- The View from our Condo in Ladysmith, Canada
- The playgrounds in Ladysmith and Nanaimo Canada
- The Otters, tidal pools, and sailboats
- The sea planes
- Indian Food, and the food overall in Canada
- The Soda and the little hotel where we stayed in La Fortuna, Costa Rica
- The thick air and “extra oxygen,” the birds, the wildlife of Costa Rica.
- The little grocery store in Santa Maria
- Playing board games in our little hotel in Tortugura.
- Being surrounded by nature and no cars.
- Staying with Family in our home town
- The beaches of Gulf Shores and Orange Beach Alabama
- The kids museums of Jersey
- The big city atmosphere of NYC
- The airport in Norway and seeing the sun rise
- The bus and train transportation in Copenhagen
- Walking around Copenhagen – playgrounds everywhere
- Copenhagen’s museums
- Copenhagen’s people – Hygge
- Christmas in Copenhagen
- Fresh bread, baby belles and fruit
- Glugge
- New Years Eve in Copenhagen – wow, Danes love Fireworks …. it was crazy!
- Tivoli
- Moroccan Mint Tea (just thinking of it makes my mouth water – and it’s the reason I decided to write this article).
- The call to prayer
- Our Riad
- The pastry shop
- The snowstorm in the Atlas Mountains
- The craziness of Marrikesh
- Lagos Portugal – One of my favorite cities.
- Lisbon’s coffee shop and touring the city
- Spain‘s beautiful architecture and scenery
- The bread truck and little grocery store in Olvera
- The wine/Lemonaide
- The playgrounds
- The hiking
- The Worldschool Group in Ronda
- Cordoba and other city centers
- Ireland’s scenery and friendly people
- Drinking wine and reading geanology books next to the fireplace in Killarney
- History everywhere – castles
- The snowman – Hugo
- Our neighbors (the sheep)
- The Old Schoolhouse in Ballyhack and the pub next door (especially Easter)
- Coming Home Again!
What I don’t Miss and Didn’t Like About Full-Time Travel
The Where am I Wake up Jump Start
- Waking up every morning in slight “I don’t know where I am panic.” I still do this, especially if I wake up in the middle of the night. I have to convince myself. You’re in your bed at your house – you are where your supposed to be. You own this place – now go back to bed. It’s a pretty spooky feeling. Also to be fair I wake up going – am I on call, is the phone ringing, what did I forget? Crap, I forgot to call in those meds. So, it may just be me.
Early Morning Flights
- Early flights – I hate early flights. They really, really, really suck. I’m not a morning person and I get down-right nauseated when I don’t get enough sleep. Whenever we take early flights it always takes me a day or two to adjust – but I still keep booking the things.
In Copenhagen I had enough of the early flight transportation drama so we broke our budget to stay in the Airport hotel – best decision ever …
Feeling out of Place
- Feeling OK this is a stretch but I always had anxiety going to the grocery store, especially with kids in tow. We hardly ever knew the language and I just sometimes would feel lost. Once we overcame then it became an accopmlishment. We travelled to put ourselves in uncomfortable positions but I still had to take a deep breath and go for it.
My husband always went to the same stores and would get to know the attendants. Every time we changed he would always mentioned how he missed the last one.
Always Feeling on the Verge of Disaster
- There’s always a chance of disaster like – my 3 year old falling off of the ferry pier in Canada and my oldest spraining her wrists in Tortuguera. Now to be fair – all was OK and same 3-year old broke her arm trying to fly after we returned home. Luckily we live 2 miles from one of the best kids hospitals in the country. So travelling was pretty safe for us – the butterfly wings for Christmas = broken arm. “I was pretending to fly.”
- It’s hard to meet people. – We found the best way to meet families was at the park, kids museum or a pick up soccer game. An even better way to meet people is to plan ahead and look up traveling family facebook groups. They can be a fabulous resource. Regardless, we’d see kids at most 3 times which was not enough for our kids. They missed their friends and we did too.
And other Honorable Mentions that I don’t miss about Travel
- Internet Troubles (to be fair, I have internet issues at times at work too)
- Phone issues (OK, again may not really that big of a deal – I actually kind of enjoyed not being glued to me phone)
- You miss the people – the pub owner, the grocery store attendant, the cafe owner. When you travel long term, just as you start to get use to people it’s time to go.
- You fall in love with so many places. We did not fall in love with every place we went but we fell in love with parts of every place. My heart wants to be in 5 places at once. I am truly in love with so many different places. It’s like being pulled in 10 different directions.
- You’re always planning your next trip. I obsessively search frontier and travel websites looking for a great deal.
- Your Facebook Feed gets locked up with travel blogs. Yep, no friends anymore … just blogs. I miss seeing my friends feeds but really most people have stopped posting the fun meaningless stuff I like seeing anyway.
- Storing and keeping tract of your photos is a full time job.
- Worrying about Home Schooling but after dealing with COVID virtual schooling, home schooling now sounds amazing.
- My Books and Library
- I think I’ve become rather boring – I want to talk about travel all the time. Give me a lead in to a travel story and I’m on it.
- Working out income
- Managing properties from across the ocean.
- Missing our neighbors, friends, and family.
- Living without a support system.
- Our tendency to have unnecessary stress because we we always in new situations
- Feeling like we were being cheated. We don’t like to barter and in some places we always felt like we were overpaying.
The good much outweighed the bad and now we’re planning our next adventure. Here’s to 2021 (but more likely 2022) and our next big trip – We can’t wait!
We’re a family of 5 taking a gap year from normal life to travel. For blog posts, locations, and more information on how we did it and how you can to click here.
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