Final blog: Q & A

For our final blog of this adventure, we have answered a few questions that we are often asked, as well as a few others that people may be interested in.  So, grab a coffee and get comfortable…

Why did you decide to do this?

There was never any doubt after our first trip six years ago that we’d be hitting the road again for another adventure.  The idea for the first trip was born by planning a trip back to Europe to see Iris’s family.  We made a list of places we’d like to stop over at and it added up to substantially more than the month that we had available.  The idea grew from there and we decided to take the big leap to leave our jobs and take the kids from school and head off.  

Although we were leaving behind the comfort and security of a home and regular income, we felt safe in the knowledge that no matter how it turned out, we could never regret a decision to spend a year sharing an adventure with the ones we love.   

It worked out better than we could have hoped, making the decision for a second world trip an easy one. 

Was it a difficult decision this time around?

It wasn’t difficult in the sense that we knew that we simply MUST do this again while the kids are still kids.  The timing was good for the kids’ schooling and was the last pre-high school year, before educating the kids on the road would have become much more difficult.  

It was more challenging from a work perspective with Iris needing to close down her Pilates Studio which she’d build up over the past five years and I left a role that I loved at a time with many initiatives in progress.  The other complicating factor was the depth of the friendships the kids had developed.  Being apart from them turned out to be one of the biggest challenges of the trip.

How much did it cost?

All up the trip cost in the vicinity of NZD$100,000, which we partially offset by renting out our house for the year.  On top of that of course there is the opportunity cost of lost earnings.

Our level of travel was typically ‘two and a half star’, staying at reasonable guest houses, camping, AirBNBs, hostels, and occasionally in mid range hotels.  In general, we spent what we thought represented good value for us.  There were times when we splashed out on special occasions or when we thought an experience was unique and interesting enough to warrant the cost.  Some experiences cost a lot but were unique to a certain part of the world – for example, the rental of the 4X4 with tents for the safari in Southern Africa were expensive, but stacked up best for the type of adventurous experience we wanted in a truly unique part of the world.  There were also plenty of occasions where we forewent activities because the value for money didn’t stack up.  

Was it worth it?

Absolutely, 100% without a single doubt!

It’s a lot of money, but the way we like to look at this is that for that amount of money we could have bought a very nice Audi Q5 Quattro.  I’m sure it would have been nice to drive and great to look at, but the reality is that it would get us from A to B in exactly the same way that our old Skoda Octavia would.  

Fast forward twenty years, the car would be worth almost nothing.  The value of the memories of our adventure as a family can only grow with time.

So, the old Skoda will be sweated for a few years yet until we go electric!

How did you get on with the kids’ education?

The amount of time we spent on ‘formal’ education was reasonably limited.  We were fortunate that the way the kids’ school works is that the years that the kids were both entering ‘consolidation’ years and they’d covered most of the material the previous year.  

The main focus of school at the kids age is still reading, writing and maths.  We worked on maths through the ‘prodigy’ app which gamifies the learning and they both went well beyond the curriculum for their years.   The kids also both naturally read a lot and writing was covered through them occasionally writing about some of their experiences.

It was amazing how supportive the kids’ school and teachers were of taking them on the road.  They were encouraging and believed that they would learn more from their experiences on the road than they could in the ‘inquiry’ part of the curriculum, which is the other main focus of schooling at their age.  That certainly seems the case in our games of Trivial Pursuit where they nail the geography and history questions!

It’s been almost a month back at school now and the kids have fit back in well with no issues at all about where they are in the curriculum.

We are very fortunate in New Zealand that the system is progressive and we are able to simply take our kids out of school and leave.  From people we’ve spoken with, it appears difficult to do this in a lot of other countries. 

How did you go about planning and booking your trip?

We had a good idea of places that were at the top of our ‘Would love to go and can’t believe we still haven’t been there list’ which included India, Iran, Africa in general, and the east coast of the United States.   We developed a rough idea of a route that could include all of these, but the only thing that we booked was a one way flight into Mumbai to keep things flexible.

We’ve found through years of earlier travel that flexibility is invaluable.  What may seem a good idea at one point of time may not be at another, such as the deteriorating political and economic situation in Iran, meaning we chose to give that one a miss this time and went to Nepal instead after spending three months in India without yet seeing the Himalayas.  We also wanted to spend time in Africa, but had no idea about where exactly or how to best go about it and it was only through talking with people in the earlier parts of our travel and some online research that we opted for Southern Africa by 4X4.

We also met many other travellers – particularly others who had rented vehicles in Southern Africa, who had their itineraries pre-booked by travel agents.  While it does give some certainty and there is less to think about, we actually enjoy the process of working out where to go and what to do and where to stay.  Of course, in 2019 it is ridiculously easy to do this with the likes of Trip Advisor, booking.com, Google maps, AirBNB etc and we still had a trusty lonely planet to go by – albeit a digital version.  We typically booked places either on the day or the day before once we’d decided where to go.  We could rest by staying in one place for a few days when we felt the need and we could adapt based on recommendations and circumstances like not going to Victoria Falls when we discovered it was little more than a trickle.  We never had any issues in the entire year with this approach, even in Europe in the peak of summer or in the popular game park campsites of Africa. 

My cycle trip through Europe was much the same.  I typically tried to arrange Couchsurfing accommodation two to three days in advance but when I had nothing lined up, I usually just biked until I got tired and then tried to sort accommodation wherever I ended up, safe in the knowledge that I could simply pitch my tent in any suitably inconspicuous spot.

We didn’t cover off all the places we would have liked to go.  Our approach was to travel at a relaxed pace to see places well rather than rush from highlight to highlight.  Similarly, we weren’t too fussed if we didn’t get to see everything we wanted in the places that we did go.  There’s always next time!

How do you minimise the environmental impact of your travel?

One of the saddest aspects both this trip and our previous one was witnessing the often shocking state of the environment.  One of our starkest memories from our earlier trip through Central America was being in a town called Granada for the first heavy falls of the rainy season and looking on in dismay as the piles of trash that had been building up on the side of the roads flushed into the open storm water system and into Cocibolca lake.  We explored Las Islas de Granada the following day and our boat at times felt like and icebreaker breaking through solid piles of plastic trash.  We again found the state of the environment on this trip to be particularly poor in rapidly developing places such as India, Nepal and Cambodia where a culture has grown around open littering and poor governance of environmentally important areas which was often due to corruption.  It was heart breaking to raft down a once beautiful river in Nepal to see it being ripped apart from unregulated gravel extraction.  

Visiting such places is a two edged sword.  By simply visiting national parks, rafting down rivers, paying to see protected wildlife etc, tourism strengthens the protection of environmentally important areas by improving the economic case for preservation as opposed to other uses of the land and resources.  On the other hand, simply being in places with poor infrastructure to deal with waste can exacerbate environmental issues.

To reduce our impact, we took a few common sense steps.  For example, in India we chose to eat completely vegetarian (Iris and the kids are usually pescatarian and I am usually flexitarian) due to the poor animal welfare practices and because it uses more land, which is in short supply in such a densely populated country.  As a bonus, this also helped the chances of us not getting food poisoning which is more likely to be caused from meat than vegetables.  We didn’t get sick from food once in our three months there.

We also took our own refillable water bottles and were pleasantly surprised at the number of guest houses, AirBNBs and restaurants that provided filtered water in India.  Unfortunately this wasn’t the case in places like Cambodia, so we used our own water filter to reduce our plastic use.  We also tried to set an example by picking up trash whenever it was practical and rubbish bins were near.  The beaches of Goa were particularly bad with people leaving their plastic trash on the beach for the tide to clean it out so we did quite a bit of cleaning up as the tide was coming in.

Carbon emissions are an unfortunate consequence of travel.  Unfortunately the technology either isn’t developed yet for things like air travel, or widespread enough yet, like electric vehicles to viably be able to not have an impact.  We took public transport in most cases where we could, but  the only real way to reduce the overall impact is to offset it, which we partially did by purchasing native trees for planting at our nearby native restoration project at Makara Peak.  This has the added bonus of providing natural habitat for our expanding indigenous bird population around Wellington and making it a nicer place to be for the bikers and hikers using the park.

What was the highlight of your trip?

Ah, the classic impossible question!  There were so many memorable parts, but the parts that stand out for me are those that are bit different or adventurous.  Going on a 4X4 safari felt like a real adventure, as did the tour cycling in Europe, the hiking in Nepal, and the camel safari in Rajasthan.  There were a couple of times the essence of travel seemed to be distilled into single moments like standing out on the balcony of a budget hotel with the kids overlooking life unfold on the Hampi bazaar or experiencing the uniqueness of the ghats of Varanasi.  We also loved the ‘in between’ moments, goofing with the family or getting to know others that our paths happened to cross with.     

What were the biggest challenges on the road?

Logistically, we didn’t have any real issues apart from a passport problem that required us to stay on a Thai island while new ones were sent, so not all that bad really!  In fact, for a year on the road it really was remarkable how few incidents there were and also surprising we all managed to avoid illnesses in the types of places we were.  We were anticipating at least a few adverse events but they never really eventuated.  Of course, there were a couple of close calls like our encounter with a bull elephant in Botswana  that could have tipped our vehicle and being evacuated when my hiking partner suffered altitude sickness in Nepal, but ultimately no harm was done and these contributed to the rich tapestry of our travels.

The main challenges were more internal than external.  One of these is a simple consequence of the fact that at the age the kids are, their friends are more important to them than we are and they missed them a lot.  It helped being connected through video calls, online games and social media.  They also had time with friends and family throughout the trip as well as occasionally meeting new friends.  However, missing actually being with their best buddies in New Zealand was quite tough for them to deal with for a year.  Related to that, we had a handful of tough days where attitudes weren’t quite in check that made for a few challenging times.  This of course is not different to days any family has at home too.

School in Austria didn’t quite work out as well as we would have liked, causing a fair amount of stress for everyone.  Being a new kid in a new school in a different culture and language is a tough gig and was a challenge for the kids to adapt to.  Some positives did come out of it though with Liam in particular significantly improving his German and some new friendships were made.

How did it compare to the first trip when the kids were younger?

We chose some more challenging and adventurous destinations and activities this time around so the whole year felt a little more ‘epic’ even though logistically it was no more difficult.  

The biggest difference was that six years ago the kids were at an age where they simply accepted whatever was in front of them, the attachment to their buddies wasn’t as strong and every day was a positive new adventure.  This time around was still overwhelmingly positive in approach although the kids did tend to fluctuated a lot more with their attitude to new things and there were those tough days mentioned above.

The positive flip side of them being older is that we could do much more with them rather than for them.  I was amazed how they seemingly cruised around quite a challenging hike in Nepal and it was fantastic to go on some mountain biking adventures with them as well as numerous other outdoor adventures.

Did you ever get bored or tired of travel?

Not at all.  Even in the places that we spent extended time like in Koh Chang and Chiang Mai, we always managed to find a nice cadence so that we were never left twiddling our thumbs.  In our down time it was great to have the opportunity to read a lot of books and magazines and our Chromecast and Netflix subscription got some good use whenever we were in a place with a TV and good WiFi.  One of the revelations was discovering Coursera towards the end of our trip where we probably completed the equivalent of a semester of high quality, interesting and diverse papers from organisations such as Yale University and Boston Consulting Group. 

We didn’t fatigue too much of the travel either.  While it was reinvigorating to change continents several times in our trip, we could have gone on happily exploring the places that we were for longer.  At the end of the trip, while the kids were ready to come home after a year on the road, Iris and I could have certainly continued a while longer.    

What will you do with your blog?

Once again we will convert the blog into a book that we will pick up once in a while to keep the memories and feel of our year together fresh for as long as possible.  It’s been great over the last few years to be able to do this with our blog from the previous trip.  It somehow seems to bring the memories closer when there is something tangible to be able to flick through. 

Do you feel your experience has changed you or your perspectives in any way?

One of the valuable aspects of a travel adventure is it widens and fills in the frame of reference through which life is viewed and experienced.  Many places we went had some pretty serious challenges which reinforced our sense of gratitude for life in a place like Wellington where almost every issue we face is a ‘first world problem’ and pretty minor in the grand scheme of things.  It’s a good reminder to just rise above life’s little irritations and be thankful for the life we have.  This was the one thing before all others that we hoped that the kids would get from this trip, but it remains to be seen whether their perspective has changed in this way.

Beyond that, it’s been another reminder about what is really important in life.  In many places we were, people had little beyond very basic possessions, yet through family, friends, and a sense of community and contributing to society, people seemed mostly happy and content.

How has it been adapting back into ‘normal life’?

It’s been remarkable how quickly the kids have picked up right where they left off with their buddies.  School has started and for Sofia that means her first year at high school and Liam is back to the same school and so far they are loving it.

We’ve been easing back and have taken our time to transition our head space from travel to Wellington life and work.  After a year away, there has been a lot to do around the house which has taken up a lot of time.  We also took the opportunity when we left to give away many of the things we no longer use as we were packing things away.  After a year living out of back packs, it gave us good perspective to have another round as we unpacked of deciding what we really need and what we don’t and another car load full of books, toys and clothes have made it to the local school fairs.  

We’ve been back almost two months now and Iris has reopened her studio and thankfully a good number of her clients have returned.  As for me, I have just started another role for the Greater Wellington Regional Council which is all about contributing to the future shape of the city through the Let’s Get Wellington Moving programme, which I’m enjoying and am excited about.  

Probably the biggest challenge on returning has been the weather.  We followed the dry season around on our trip and only saw a handful of days of rain in our entire trip with a typical day being blue skies, 25 degree+ temperatures and a gentle breeze.  Wellington is not famed for its weather at the best of times but in the first few weeks back we saw more rain and wind than the whole of the last year with the thermometer barely cracking 20 degrees and most days with howling northerlies!

Weather aside though, the trip has once again affirmed what a truly fantastic city this is and we feel incredibly fortunate to be able to return here.

Will you do it again?

We’d love to, but are realistic about what school will involve when the kids are a bit older.  Future adventures will most likely involve shorter more adventurous stints over the summer months.  Travelling with them once school is behind them is something we’d love to do, but the question will be whether they’d want to do it with us! 

What advice would you give to other families considering an extended adventure together?

Simply to just do it.  Spending a year having an adventure with the ones you love isn’t something that will ever be looked back on with regret.  The kids will learn a lot and gain a unique perspective on the world and to spend time with them at an age they’ll never be again is something to be treasured.

That’s all from us this time around.  Please contact us if you have any other questions you’d like to know that we haven’t covered here.