And We’re Off!

We are ready to go on our family sabbatical around the world! We hope it is going to be an amazing adventure, a chance to spend time together as a family, an opportunity to see countries that might be completely different in 20 years, and a chance for some extended stays where we can live like a local.

Here is Hazel in the Boston airport ready to go!

How did this all come together?

To do a family Round the World Trip, you need all the stars to align. It needs to work for both spouses’ careers and lives, the kids, and the kids’ school. It is trickier if you have a health problem, a sick parent, or a pet. You need to figure out what to do with your house, your car, and your mail. Amazingly, it all came together for us.

We hope that if we were looking back at our lives when we are old, this would be one of the most memorable years of our lives.

Here are Jamie and Hugh ready to go!

How did we decide where to go?

We built the trip around a few themes: seeing animals (great with kids!), natural beauty, ancient sites, and cultures different from our own. And we wanted a mix of jungle, islands, beach, small town, and a little bit of big city. We received invaluable help from talking with friends about their favorite trips and places on their bucket list.

We decided to start with the Greek islands because the kids love Greek myths, and we thought this would help bring them to life. Here are the kids dressed as Athena and Apollo for Halloween in 2016 (Hazel 5, Hugh 2).

Why are we doing this Blog?

We started doing this mostly for our parents and many friends who don’t do social media. A surprising number of people asked us if we would be doing a Blog.

Now, we are doing it also for ourselves. It will be a great way for us to keep a modern form of a journal (we will also do paper journals) for ourselves. We want to remember and savor this trip for years to come.

What does “300 Summer Days” mean to us?

We planned the trip with the goal of having 300 Summer Days. We will visit places in their summer (or the dry season in places where it is always warm). This should put everyone in a good mood and make packing easier. We hope also to capture the closeness, relaxation, new friends, sunsets… everything that is great about summer! It does mean a little extra flying around Asia /Pacific, but we are ok with that.

Here we all are, ready to go!

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HOW DO YOU PACK FOR THAT???

By far the most common question we receive is: how are you packing for this long trip???

To begin with, 300 Summer Days will make it a lot easier - only one season to pack for.

So, what are we packing? We have managed to distill our life for 10 months down to each adult getting 1 wheelie duffel bag, and the children sharing a bag for clothes and a bag for homeschool. The max weight per bag is 55 lbs. In addition, we each have 1 carry-on backpack — with little backpacks for the little people!

Even with these constraints, we couldn’t help ourselves from packing a few wacky items: a hand held milk frother for coffee, a rollable silicone pan to make Hugh’s favorite egg dish, 2 child sized life jackets, and an AP World History test cram book.

We are bringing fewer toys than we bring to an average dinner at the Paramount – and enough medicine for a small army. We have piles of Steri-Strips, powdered amoxicillin to mix with water in an emergency, and 2 EpiPens. There is no CVS in Raja Amat…

The size of our medical kit is only outdone by our “school in a bag” -- one bag devoted entirely to home schooling. We have math workbooks, flashcards, spelling lists, laminated maps, magnetic letters, triangular crayons - you name it! Much to my horror, we have limited all the physical books that the kids love, and each family member has a Kindle. We have spent a tremendous amount of time curating book lists for the kids, books to read as a family, books for them to read on their own, books about all the countries we will be visiting, as well as an age appropriate introduction to economics, religion and famous explorers. Thank you to Christian Porter, the incredible librarian at our children’s school, for creating a reading list of myths and folk tales from the countries we are visiting!

Packing cubes have been a real game changer. They help you cram much more stuff in, and they keep you organized. Each family member has their own color, and each one is labeled. The children each have 3 cubes: one for summer clothes, one for coats and warmer clothes, and one for underwear. They also share a cube for bathing suits. Since we have 300 Summer Days, the bathing suit cube is one of the biggest…. Here are my packing cubes.

We have tried to find clothes that are easy to wash, could mix and match and that could take a beating. We are all finished with packing, and I feel like I have accomplished a miracle: everything we need for 10 months fits into our bags, and it is within the weight limit !!!