drifting clouds
The decision for the trip around the world was made a year and a half before Zero hour. Big moments and big emotions. From that moment on, a significant portion of the paycheck pennies were automatically vacuumed into the travel account. In practice it meant that consuming was scaled down to a bare minimum of the most necessary things like kids’ hobbies and food.
The wonderful craze for the trip around the globe began during our trip to California, during which we dreamt of coming back to at least San Francisco. And what better pastime than comparing our respective Must-destinations and bucket-lists and planning the upcoming route.
IT’S WORTH HOLDING ON TO THE PANT LEG OF YOUR DREAM
Even as I’m writing this I still can’t believe we will soon be going. I can’t believe it, even though the Round The World-tickets are finally flashing in my inbox. We have faced so many uphills during the last year. At times the Lonely Planet travel guidebooks were in the trash when everyone’s faith in the endeavor was weak. But in the dusk of the evening they were dug back up and after months of despair our own attitudes, too, were furiously converted towards a happy future. In moments of desperation we read a lot of blogs about trips around the world through which the joy and happiness of travel caught us again. The rest of life found its direction, too.
At this point we want to give faith to those, who dream about breaking away and fulfilling their own dreams – be the dreams about travel or some other hopes. Many people have whispered to us, “I wish I could.” But why not, if you so decide and you are willing to work for your dreams. The greatest obstacle for making your dreams a reality usually lies between your own ears. It’s easy to slip out excuses, like “we don’t have money,” “what if something goes terribly wrong,” or “how can one go on a trip around the world with three kids.” During the bigger girls’ toddler years our mantra was, “that’s ok, we’ll try again soon,” and the same mantra worked surprisingly well with us grown-ups, when we threw our mental crying, kicking fits.
HOW THE IMPOSSIBLE BECAME POSSIBLE
Our breakaway was enabled, quite simply, by our third daughter. Thanks to parental leave and annual vacation time, we were able to arrange our work situation so that we could take several months off. Originally the breakaway was supposed to be six months long, but then the other daughter’s school surprisingly didn’t grant the vacation we applied for, so the trip had to be shortened to four months. The good thing about this of course is that the kids only need to go to school for just over a month while we are traveling, after which their real, leisurely vacation will start, too. A big thank you goes to the kids’ wonderful teachers, who had to work extra themselves in order to make the remote schoolwork possible.
Schedule-wise we would have been more than happy to be gone from Finland during the snowy slush and darkness instead of during the light spring months. But this is our time-window this time. And this will, of course, not be our last longer vacation. Isn’t that the best thing about life, anyway – that you never know what wonderful journeys you will still get to experience and where our travel blog will head to after the trip around the world!
TRIP AROUND THE WORLD: THE ROUTE
Our trip route is a sum of several things, and we’ve changed it many times during the last year and a half. Right from the start, it was important to us to get to visit countries and places that we were not yet familiar with. Indonesia, Australia and New Zealand were on both of our bucket-lists from the get-go, but finally, after some bidding, the selection of airlines, the direct flights, the kid-friendly travel hours, the time allowed for traveling and, most importantly, a competitive price affected the result.
The flight routes and transition days were not easy at all to plan months in advance, but due to the limited time we had for travel, we didn’t want to risk not booking flights, car rentals and accommodation in advance. Luckily, our flight arrangement allows us to change flights without fees, if need be. The flight package for a trip around the world also enabled that all but one of the transitions we had initially planned on doing by land were now flights, free of charge. A lot of people would probably now want to know more about the topic, and there will be a blog post under Before the Trip on the budget for our trip around the world, as well as about the rules and conditions for our flight package.
The countries on our route around the world are, in order: Hong Kong – Indonesia – Australia – New Zealand – Chile – Brazil – Spain. Hong Kong serves as a flight stop on the way to Indonesia, and we will fly home from Brazil via Spain. On average, we will spend about three weeks in every new country. Our route will be updated on the map below as the travels progress.
