And we’re off! After a few glitches and a bit of procrastination our travel blog is finally ready to go. Apologies for the delay; was a tad bit hectic leading up to our departure from Canada on August 1st and since we’ve been away, believe it or not, it’s been busy travelling! Many thanks to all who helped us with the prep and planing for our adventure and especially our friends and family who saw us off. We miss you all!
Our intention will be to add commentary here on the blog and post our pictures on our Facebook and Instagram pages (solsearchinfamily). Please feel free to join us there too for a more “visual” experience. We both have personal Facebook pages we have been using to post as well.
Going forward we will plan to update our blog more frequently. This post will be a bit of an overview of the last 3 months, but future posts should be a bit more detailed.
We are 3 months and 16 countries in to our adventure already and have finally adjusted to the time change, adapted to living out of a backpack and being together 24/7. We’ve had many amazing experiences, and a few not so amazing. We’ve learned lots, met some wonderful people, tasted some interesting foods, and seen some pretty fantastic sites. What a wonderfully world!
Countires visited so far? Ireland and Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales, England, France, Monaco, Italy, Croatia, Slovenia, Greece, Malta, Italy, Austria, Slovakia, Germany and are currently in the beautiful Czech Republic (Cesky Krumlov today). We’ve stayed in 41 different beds; many lovely AirBnbs, hotels, farmhouses, castles, 2 cruise ships, a converted asylum, a mobile home and even a yurt. Mostly all “hits” and a few that we were happy to check out of.
We’ve visited castles (however at this point the kids are officially “castled out”), museums, farms, churches, monesteries, but shockingly not a single winery (travel with kids is indeed a different experience). We have however enjoyed lots of local cuisine and treats. We try and make a point of trying the “typical” foods of each area and WOW there are some amazing flavours!
We’ve honestly covered too much to cover here but some highlights include:
Cliffs of Moher in Ireland
Titanic Museum Belfast
Driving the North 500 in Scotland
Dunrobin castle (Scotland)
Hadrian’s Wall (England)
The amazing city of London including Buckingham and Kensington Palaces (and getting “this close” to prince William!) and the Tower of London
Stonehenge
All the castles in Wales, truely unbelievable
The Eiffel Tower
Disney Paris
Juno Beach Centre Normandy
Mont-Saint-Michel and Carcassonne, France
Game of Thrones sites in Croatia and Malta
Gondola tour in Venice
The hike in Cinque Terre, Italy
Ferrari and Lamborghini museums (kids favourite) in Modena, Italy
Leaning Tower of Pisa
Pompeii
Italian Riveria
Haus der Musik, Vienna
Hofbräuhaus Munich
Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, Berlin
Everyone is doing really well…in spite of the occasional teenage attitude, arguments over us making them do “too much school work” and struggles to find something our fussy eater will like. We are missing home, family and friends but our adventure has been absolutely amazing so far and with each passing day we discover so much more we have yet to see and do. We are very grateful for this opportunity!
We have 7 more days in Europe then we move on to our next continent…Africa!…more to follow…
With love
The Travelling Babins
Blog looks great!
Good for all of you! You have accomplished so much already! An opportunity of a lifetime! You are arriving on my favourite continent.
What an adventure … thanks for taking us along with you!! Love the pictures and more so, the smiling faces ?
Such amazing learning experiences! So happy your family is able to do this together. My husband and I have been doing the same, working and travelling through Europe, Asia and Indonesia so far. No better way to experience other ways of knowing and learning about the world.
All the best,
-Melissa
Wow, what an experience and wonderful education.
Wow! Did anyone actually get any sleep in the asylum? Good to see you post and can’t wait to hear more about where you are and what you all are doing!
We did…but later we found pictures of how it looked before…would not have slept had we seen those prior
Wishing I was a brave as you. But you are adding sooo many things to our “list”. Have fun! xoxo
Hi! You don’t know us. We met your parents/grandparents at a Probus pub lunch yesterday.
Your blogs take us back to a 7-month world trip 30 years ago – to at least some of the same countries (with a 16-year-old daughter).
Love your photos and the writing! Hope you don’t mind us “eaves-dropping” on the rest of your amazing trip – a life-changing one for all of you!
Bob and Mary Skelton
Great to have you along, glad you’re enjoying the blog and our adventures