After 304 days, 10 months, 75,000+kms, 31 flights, 10 hire cars, 29 boats and staying in 44 beds across 7 countries we are home…. We have shared 850 family meals, taken over 5000 photos, met over 100 new people and drank over 2500 litres of water (we know as we have had to buy it in most places). We have climbed a volcano, dived into 9 cenotes, been to 25 beaches – 15 on the Pacific coast, 4 on the Caribbean coast and 6 lakeside beaches. We have laughed, cried, shouted for joy and despair, had wonderful days and had really tough days. We are back in Sydney although not quite home yet – here is the final blog from us for this trip!
Our favourite places
This is the most asked question and I’m sure will continue to be when we catch up with people over the coming weeks and months. In short it’s impossible to narrow down to one place. We have been to such diverse places and experienced so many different, amazing things that are all special for different reasons.
The boys say Silver Star was their favourite place due to skiing and snowboarding every day. Silver Star will always be special to us, we were there for 3 months skiing and snowboarding is a passion for all of us and we had so many great days on the snow. We also had some of our most challenging times but more about that later.
LA - staying with our friends Dinesh and Nicky was great, so great we were there 4 times. Our trip would have been really difficult without this as a logistical base at various times in the year.
Mexico - we always knew we would love Mexico, Mexico City is special to us as we met Alex and Kerrie and their gorgeous girls (and Chewbuca). We saw so much more of the city because of them. Bucerias - again a highlight due to friends, Luke and Mireya. We will definitely return to Oaxaca, so much Mexican culture, arts and amazing food we only saw a little bit. The cenotes on the east were great fun, the boys learnt how to dive and somersault to the delight of the locals. Loved visiting all the mayan temples in Mexico and also in Guatemala.
Guatemala was the surprise of the trip, probably because we had zero expectations. We had an action packed 4 weeks covering so much of the country and also having a great holiday with our American family. Tikal at sunrise was amazing, climbing an active volcano and roasting marshmallows on lava is something the boys will never forget.
Costa Rica was very chilled, the environment is amazing jungle to beaches, learning to surf was great - how that goes now we are back in Sydney is another question.
Colombia - spending time volunteering on tierra bomba was impactful for all of us, we will stay in contact with Amigos Del Mar and the kids that we met during our time there and has really made us think about how we are contributing to our own communities back at home.
Chile - Santiago was a surprise highlight, our Airbnb was in a great location that made it easy to see so much just walking around, getting out to the Andes to see the oldest ski resort was also very cool as well as see some of their stunning beaches – if only it was a little warmer!
Burning man without question was a highlight for Tim and I - you would know why from that lengthy blog!
Quick fire ‘best and worst’
Best beach – Santa Teresa (Costa Rica)
Worst beach – Playa del Carmen (Mexico) – due to the sargassum
Best margarita – Cartagena (Colombia)
Worst margarita – Tequila (Mexico) – who has cucumber margaritas?
Best food/meal - Pastor tacos in Mexico, Rancho Burger in Costa Rica, Intern in Colombia, Casaluz in Chile
Worst food - uber eats seafood pasta in Antigua (Tim...)
Best airbnb – Lake Atitlan (Guatemala) or Puerto Escondido (Mexico)
Worst airbnb – Guatemala City
Best parenting moment – watching them in the ski and snowboard competitions
Worst parenting moment – Archie ice skating accident (no helmet…)
Best road trip – going into Burning Man
Worst (scariest) road trip – tie between Bucerias to Tequila and Oaxaca to Puerto Escondido
Hottest place – Flores (Guatemala) +38 degrees celcius
Coldest place – Silver Star (Canada) -30 degrees celcius
Best kids park – Mexico City
Best bike ride – out to the playa at Burning Man (for T&L) and bike / skatepark in North Carolina with their Aunty Jo for the boys
Best souvenir purchase – tablecloths from Oaxaca
Worst souvenir purchase – you’ll have to ask the family about their Christmas presents….
What has challenged us
It hasn’t all been happiness and laughter, there have been arguments and tears, fights and accidents. Tim’s broken collarbone in Canada really threw us, totally not what we had planned for and really changed our daily life for a while, but he was back on the slopes in record time of 21 days and we all adjusted, totally helped with the arrival of mum and dad.
Home schooling - wow. I know I have mentioned this a few times through the blogs but this was hard and probably got harder as the time went on. More because we moved around more and so getting into a routine was a challenge. The boys have both improved their reading (just), worked through some maths, some real world maths and we have attempted spelling. We have been told by a few different people (their school included) to not be so hard on ourselves as what the boys have learnt through spending time as a family and traveling through different cultures, meeting new people, doing new things is all the education they need at this stage. We have certainly visited plenty of museums, parks, archaeological sites, beaches, nature reserves.....
Missing mates - absence makes the heart grow fonder... we have all missed our friends, part of that is also about having our own time away from the family. 24/7 living is intense and sometimes all consuming, I’m surprised Tim and I haven’t had more arguments, when we have it’s normally been in times of stress - travelling to a new place, figuring out where to go, what to do or simply just super tired. We realise how important it is to have your own time as well as together time, for the boys as much as us. They don’t realise it but their bond as brothers is super close now, they have fought more than ever but they have also played for endless hours together. It will be interesting to see how that goes once we are home and they have their mates in the street and back at school.
Lack of routine - this has been a real challenge for Archie, this is partly his age and partly who he is. He likes to (needs to feel) in control and moving locations regularly, going on random day trips, walking around cities just aren’t fun for him. He got to the point towards the end where he simply refused to leave some of the Airbnb’s, with negotiation (screen bribery) we coaxed him out and we nearly always had fun! He misses riding his bike, skateboard and the routine of school and activities. I do wonder how quickly he will want to be back on holiday once he gets back into school life (which is the end of year 1 not kindergarten…). At the moment he repeatedly says how he will never go on a long holiday ever again.... I’ll remind him of that when he’s off backpacking with his mates...
What have we learnt
Going into the year we had agreed some family goals which were more about spending time together, learning new things, experiencing different cultures. At a high level we have achieved that but here are a few other things that stick out.
We have all built resilience - changing circumstances, new environments, crazy weather, new homes, new friends, moving on sometimes every few days can only help to make you more adaptable and accepting of change. The boys are amazing in how they will approach anyone, anywhere to have a chat - Dex especially. We have had to watch closely in some places but on the whole we haven’t worried about the boys’ safety in many places. We had encouraged them to figure out on their own how to do the things they want to, which they do even with a large language barrier – their white skin, blonde hair and cute smiles have also been helpful for that.
Spanish - we are all loads better than when we started but let’s be frank the baseline was so low it was almost non existent. I would have liked to speak better but that was down to not practicing enough or keeping up studies daily. My understanding is good and we can just about make ourselves understood, it’s something we are going to try and keep up (regular Helen and Julio Spanish (and cooking) evenings….) we want to come back to South America and when we do we are all determined to have better conversational Spanish.
Improved tolerance - this is debatable we are still a loud shouty family, at some points the kids have driven us so crazy we have to walk away to prevent all out war, and sometimes we have been awful shouting parents to their awful children moments. Am I more patient? Doesn’t feel like it but maybe back in ‘normal’ times I will be? I have enjoyed morning cuddles from both boys and whispers of I love you. They have regularly said ‘this is the best day ever!’, they have been excited about new places, seeing new animals, exploring the beach or the jungle.
Travelling to a budget - well... money is one of the reasons we are going home a little earlier than originally planned. We have kept to budget for accommodation and food, daily allowance has also been ok. The things we didn’t plan adequately for were all the flights we have ended up doing, logistics for burning man were more than we thought, car hires we didn’t account for (some crazy expensive and some super cheap), the cost to send our winter equipment and clothes home was more than we had worked out and my souvenir shopping went crazy in some places…. It’s also surprising to see the variations in cost for similar things or experiences across the different countries, we have been in a lot of the more tourist places which also means higher prices than the off beaten track, off the track which wasn’t always possible or the safest option with the boys – we have no regrets on where we visited.
You really don’t need much ‘stuff’ in your daily life. These are our thoughts on the essential daily items we needed. The ‘daypack’, probably Tim’s most hated item, we used it every day whether we were going to the beach or hiking or to the city, whilst the kids aren’t babies we still needed a supply of snacks – peanut butter wraps (to try and prevent hangry archie), clothes, sunscreen etc, Water bottles also essential – trying to minimise our plastic use was challenging, travel towels we had been bought as a present were brilliant, light for the daypack(!) tigerbalm – preventing and also post mosquito bite – mainly for Dex and I as Tim and Archie seem to be able to escape the mosquitos. Power board to recharge everything – we lost a few travel plugs on the way but having an ozzie power board worked well. Whatsapp – this was our most essential app (paired with airbnb and google translate) we communicated with friends and family, airbnb hosts, day trip organisers, restaurants, so many people…. Finally our kitchen essentials – we ended up buying a few things to travel with us as so many airbnb’s didn’t have them – peeler, bottle opener, grater, tongs and scissors…. For the rest of the stuff – I got pretty good at packing, also got easier after burning man when I offloaded a few bags to friends returning to Oz (thank you Lou, Katie and Bek) I am really looking forward to binning quite a few of the clothes and hiding the backpacks for a while – a wardrobe will be a luxury (for me – can’t say the boys are excited about that part of returning home)
I would like to say we have balanced slowing down and going with the flow against planning activities to keep the boys engaged and also making sure we see the key things in the town or city we are in. Without a plan - downtime has become an increase in screentime, so much so it’s a real concern for when we go home. Although we have agreed screen time guidelines for all of us that we will try and stick too.
It’s hard to really see the impacts for this year, are they tangible? Will it be something that shapes us over the years? What will the boys really remember? We have created a lot of memories, we will print our favourite photos and have them up all over the house so we can remember and talk about the amazing adventure we have had, and bore all the people that come over for dinner.
What happens now
The day after we landed we picked up Stevie, we have all missed her so much! Thankfully she has had a great holiday herself first with Nic and Andy in Orange and then with Caz and Sam in Penrith, both awesome families that have loved her as their own. For that we can’t thank you enough! Thank you El and Kate and Christian for looking after CeCe and Spike! We will collect them soon – not sure we will get such a positive reaction from them at our arrival home.
We are homeless until beginning of November as our tenants don’t move out until then so we have been staying up to St Albans with our dear friends Rob, Kate, Alfie and Isla. It doesn’t matter where we were in the world the boys would always tell whoever would listen that their favourite place is St. Albans - forever. So it’s the perfect place to come back too.
The kids are going back to school for the last 6 weeks so we’ll really understand how they are going. Tim and I are working through job options over the coming weeks too. We have lots of friend catch ups to have and time to reflect and appreciate what we have back at home. We are going to be more community focused and look for ways locally that we can positively contribute too. We will also continue to focus on experiences and not things. De-cluttering is needed given how little we have truly needed over the last 10 months. We will also see how we can apply the 10 burning man principles to our everyday life.
So this is it, our last blog. Thank you for reading, thank you for staying in contact. We hope you have enjoyed a view into our travels.
Francis Four on Tour signing off (for now….)
Xx
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