Hope, dreams and expectations... Sonia (mum)

We’re off to Great Places! We’re off and away! - Oh, the places you’ll go by Dr. Seuss.

Life is too busy. We are stuck in a daily rut. The children are getting older, and we don’t connect with them anymore. We can’t go anywhere because we have a mortgage. These are some of the usual clichés that we all use every day! I choose to live life to the fullest, and make some memories!

Damien and I met in Egypt in 1999, and backpacked through some amazing countries over the next 5 years. That travel bug remained, and in 2012 we headed to Canada on a teacher exchange (Damien is a teacher) to live for a year with 4 & 6 yr old children. This was an incredible adventure, but the children have limited memories of this trip, so it’s time for a new one.

Our adventure will begin in Dec 2019 when Joe is 14yrs old and Jess is 12yrs old. I’m loving the idea of plucking the children out of their comfort zone, removing the technology and spending quality time with them. I know that there will be good and bad times, but really hope the kids will grow in confidence and learn from experiences and problems along the way. I just can’t wait to see how we all deal with things we would never encounter in day-to-day life.

I do have concerns about our safety, but I have enormous faith in humanity and kindness. The media feeds such negativity, and I just can’t believe that this is actually the world we are living in today. The positive experiences we had when we backpacked 20 years ago still hold a special place in my heart, and I hope to share this with Joe and Jess. I want the kids to live in a place where they are not afraid of different places, different people or different cultures.

Although excited, I admit that I get a little anxious about how we will cope with the constant change on the road in sometimes remote destinations; and things like finding a place to sleep, where and what do we eat, how do we pack 12 months worth of gear in a backpack, what happens if we get sick, can we actually afford this! Homeschooling the kids may also be a challenge, but luckily there is a teacher in the family.

Outdoors activities are high on my agenda - I love hiking and climbing mountains, so my mission will be to drag the family up some big hills. Some ideas I have (sshhh, don’t tell them yet) are climbing volcanoes in Indonesia, yoga/trekking retreats in Southern India, hiking some of the Camino de Santiago in Europe, and plenty of trekking in South East Asia.