These are the most common questions we get asked when we tell people about our trip. We are going to: France, Spain, Portugal, Morocco, Japan, Indonesia and New Zealand. The why is a bit more complicated. I don’t know specifically why we picked all these countries. Some we have been to before, some our on our bucket list. Some are meaningful or just fit in nicely with our itinerary. Our initial plan was to pick one place in every country and settle in, live like locals and get to know the area well. Full disclosure, this is the first plan of ours that has gone up in smoke. We have succeeded at this in only one country, the first one, France. Ironically, the plan of one place per country was in order to facilitate homeschooling: less travelling means more time for learning. But once we started researching the places we wanted to go, we couldn’t decide on just one place! So our plans unravelled. And school won’t even be in session when we’re in France. We have made some attempts to spend...
5 years of planning and saving … 11 flights … 4 backpacks … 8 countries … 12 hours to clean the house for the renters (or more?!) … 20 Airbnb reservations … 144 hours of homeschool planned … 5 months on the road … Countless memories await us …
About five and a half years ago, we made the decision to take an adventure of a lifetime with our kids. They were still so young at the time (aged 5 and 2) and imagining them as older kids was next to impossible. But we knew that by 2025, they'd have grown up and they'd be at a great age to take on a trip of this magnitude. So in January 2020, we started saving. I was able to do it through a deferred salary program that my employer offers. It means that every paycheque a portion of my salary is put away so that over the six months of my leave, I'll still be getting paid. Jon had to save on his own. As a self-employed medical professional, he also had to get permission from the hospital he works at to take a leave. Lucky for him, his boss had done something similar just a few years before — in fact, she was part of our inspiration for this crazy trip — and she agreed. I'll be taking six months off, starting July 1. Jon is taking five months, starting the day we leave. Ou...
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