The Year of Adventure, or The Year There Was No Winter

We haven’t decided on a final name, but we have got a timeline and a plan.

Buddie came up with the idea, we’ll tweak it as we go, and the children are already mentioning things they’d like the year to include.

When we talk about future plans, it’s now always part of the discussion, and we are ready to create the spreadsheet to track the potential expenses.

WHAT is it, you may be thinking?

Here’s how the concept came about:

Every year there is a Partners’ Weekend at Massadoah. All the partners, as their lives currently allow, come out to The Valley and spend the weekend together. It’s relaxed and fun; great discussion and time together. Buds and I were able to spend a day out there this year, which will change as the children grow older. Several hours of this day we spent hiking up to the fire tower with Christine, Ann Marie and John.

On the hike, we asked them their favorite places they have traveled. The three of them have visited some amazing places, and we had an interesting discussion about travel and new places.

Then, on the drive home, Buds said, “As we hiked up the ridge, I realized what we need to plan to do. In five years, we’ll travel around the world with the kids, living in a different place for a couple months at a time.” That discussion took place on Saturday, April 7, 2012. Since then we have talked about the idea with the children; they bought right in. I hung a world map on the living room wall, with adjoining papers for each person. Zoe came up with the visioning process for us: Each person can write as many countries as they find interesting on their papers, and those countries will become our list to cull from in a year or so. We’ll eventually have about 15 countries to study and really delve into. From that group, 5 or 6 countries will make the final cut, and we’ll put plans in place to live in those countries.

So far, critical criteria include, in random order:

1) A country that supports homeschooling. We already had to knock out Botswana from our list because they jail homeschoolers there. That wouldn’t necessarily impact us, but we don’t want to support a country with our money if it doesn’t support a practice that is so fundamental to our lives.

2) Safe for our family, or at least as safe as one can generally expect when living in a different place where we may not know the language.

3) Reliable internet: Buds and I will both be working remotely, and the children will need to have that access to the “library of information” the internet provides since we may not have access to a bricks and mortar library.

Additional opportunities we’d love to have available:

1) A UU Church: for ready-made connections with like-minded people

2) Dream option: A CrossFit box…yeah, we like to dream.

The children have written down Egypt, Italy, New Zealand, China, and Hawaii for their interests so far. The Buster has said, “On our year of travel around the world, can we go to Costa Rica again?” Good stuff, that!

This has also been a fantastic conversation starter. At a friend’s birthday party this weekend, we were able to visit with several different people about where we should go. The birthday boy is ex-military, so, many friends with extensive experience living in many different countries. People’s eyes light up when we share the vision for The Year of Adventure, and they love reminiscing about places they’ve been that they loved.

Turkey has come up in a couple different instances. Some good friends just returned from a trip to Istanbul, so we look forward to hearing of their adventures and viewing their pictures. A couple we talked to this weekend had lived in Turkey for three years, and they said it was both their favorite place to have lived, and the most family-friendly place they lived. One of their children was born there, and when they’d go to eat other patrons would ask if they could hold the baby. In the US we would have been sort of shocked, but there they gladly accepted the chance to relax and enjoy their meal while their baby girl was snuggled and cooed at by these loving Turkish women. What a great memory!

I’m enamored of the idea of living on 6 of the 7 continents. Buds isn’t sold on that vision…yet.

A couple friends have suggested having a recurring theme running through each home spot:

1) Zach suggested hooking up with a local sports league of some sort in each country.
2) Mia suggested having a service project to do in each place.
3) My contribution has been that we travel as light as possible, including taking only one set of clothes to each new home spot, leaving the rest with friends in the previous country, or mailing home a box of the most-loved local clothing.

Another of Buster’s questions has been about food. “Will I get to eat penne on our year around the world?”

Whatever the locals eat, we’ll eat.

Another great idea suggested at David’s birthday bash this weekend: That we pick a country to live in in “Central” Europe, like The Netherlands, and get a Eurorail pass to travel all around.

One other item we’ve implemented to start preparing us is beginning to study world religions. What a great way to learn about other perspectives.

You’ll be hearing more about this grand adventure.