Comings and Goings

The Wide Wide World — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 13:00:45 -0500

Here's a pretty definitive list of RTW families currently completing their travels - and a list of families about to begin RTW trips:

http://thewidewideworld.com/2008/06/25/comings-and-goings/

HOW to do extended RTW family travel?? Easier than you think!!

soultravelers3 — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 11:17:53 -0500

Thanks for a fantastic post and for linking us!

We have been traveling the world as a family since 2006 and it really is easier and cheaper than most people realize. We live large on a total of 25,000 dollars a year for a family of 3 and most of our time has been in Europe so far.

We are on an open ended world tour and having so much fun on so little that we don't plan to stop for years. We travel the world for much less than living at home and the secret is slow travel.

I have just written a very detailed post on HOW-TO do extended travel and mini-retirements. There really are tons of ways to do this on every budget and I would love to see more people enriched by this tremendous experience:

http://www.soultravelers3.com/2008/06/how-to-do-exten.html#more

Here is a peek at some of the fun, hope it inspires others!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wn9rDTZj-m4

AND

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrrAFDt9W_U

It's a rush

Claudine — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 17:37:21 -0500

I can only imagine what it would feel like to shuck everything and travel. Yes. It is something that I've dreampt of. You never know. I'm still young!

Claudine Williams

www.vacation-tip.com

www.theatlantatraveler.com

I say DO IT!!

nancy sv — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 17:30:43 -0500

Thanks for linking to us and for a great post! It really is encouraging to read about other families who have done what we're about to do.

We've traveled a lot with our kids in the past 10 years, and it is a truly amazing experience - I truly do wish that more families would head out!

www.familyonbikes.org

Round the World Families

Pam — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 09:41:56 -0500

So, you want to bug out. You want to quit your job or take an excessive amount of leave, rent your house or sell your stuff, take the kids out of school, chuck it all, and, while your kids are still young, see the world. And you're thinking, "yeah, right, that's not going to happen." Well, sure, if you think about it like that. Round the World (RTW) family travelers are making mincemeat of your objections and having incredible, maddening, marvelous adventures with the entire family in places as different as Cambodia and Alaska.

Here's a family at the end of their round the world trip - The Bowman Family's World Travels, answering the question of when to take your family on the big adventure:

Another thing I have learnt is to do stuff when you want to and don't put it off. (Until you've got more money, kids are grown up etc) Watching some people around us dealing with terminal illnesses gave us the push to go and do this trip instead of putting it off until Ali and Maisie were older. I'm so glad we did as we have now experienced all this cool stuff with them

Six in the World are back to traveling again after completing their amazing adventure, with a lot of philosophy about travel and life.

We travel, however, for distinctly different reasons. The point is not so much to leave something behind as to discover something new, to experience something deeper. We hope to learn more about the world and ourselves by changing our surroundings and challenging our assumptions. This is what we both sought and achieved in taking the kids and “leaving it all behind” for 11 months. Though our days were full, even busy, no two were the same and each offered new insight.

Here's one family just starting out, the Vogel family, on the Alaska to Argentina route... by BIKE.

I feel like I’m standing on the edge of a cliff – about to throw myself off into the abyss below. No safety net, no idea how far down, no nothing. Just jump, and hope like hell that someone reaches out His hand and catches us. I’m not sure why I feel this way – this certainly isn’t the first time I’ve taken off for an extended trip.

And another, on Bangkok to Krakow - "8179 Kilometers, 201 Days, 7 Times Zones, 4 Years of Musing, 2 Dreamers and A Baby..."

Not long to go now. We’re packing up our house getting ready to stay with our parents before our farewell trip to New Zealand next week. TV, washing machine and fridge, all gone. All of the accoutrement’s of stability traded in for a backpack each and a duffel bag. This feels different to simply moving to another house, packing up our things, only to set them up again in a short while. The finality is actually quite refreshing. Now the task of squeezing our mountain of travel clothes, books and gadgets into a couple of back packs and a duffel awaits, crossing our fingers and toes that it all fits!

Finally, here's a family right in the middle of their travels - Soul Travelers Three - and faced with the immediate need for, yikes, dental work. It's true, emergencies happen, big and small, but this family dealt with it and survived to travel another day.

It is not a pleasant story, but it does have a happy ending. I wanted to share it, so others who worry about such things happening on the road can know that it can be just as safe as handling it at home. I think the major key is finding dentists that are highly recommended by people you trust who have used them for years... just like you do at home. Between the three of us, we have had to get quite a bit of dental work done on the road ( mostly in Spain). The good news is we got first rate care at super bargain prices, so we also saved a bundle than if we had done it at home.

Thinking that an RTW family trip is on the cards for you and you're crew? There's a great FAQ page on Armageddon Pills, but first, here's WHY they call the site (and the upcoming book about their adventure)

While traveling around the world as a family, we attempted to cross the Bolivian salt flats and got stranded with no more than a bag of peanut M&Ms. How they saved us is how they came to be known as Armageddon Pills.

Yup, gas costs a fortune, air travel is a hassle, there's a lot going on a work right now, the kids are too [your adjective here], there are a million reasons not to take your family traveling. But these families looked past all that and found that there were a million and one reasons TO take the family out to see the world. They all share the how and why and best of all the what, on their blogs. Check them out.

Photo from Active Travel Vietnam on Flickr.

Pam blogs about travel and other adventures at Nerd's Eye View.

BlogHer - Round the World Families - Comments

Comings and Goings

HOW to do extended RTW family travel?? Easier than you think!!

It's a rush

I say DO IT!!

Round the World Families