Tell Us About…Travel

Travelling with Children

Let me tell you a story.

I’m the proud mother of three grown-up daughters, now all mothers themselves, and I believe that taking them travelling when they were young really helped shape them, and taught us many lessons at the same time.

But believe me when I say it wasn’t always easy!

Up until my early 30s, the Mathematician and I hadn’t travelled outside of Australia together, we were too busy producing three gorgeous little girls and coping with parenthood while trying to get ourselves sorted. There was little spare money for much let alone overseas travel!

My first overseas trip, a school excursion, at age 16 going on 17, ended in disaster when one of the buses rolled off a cliff, into the river below, with 3 people sadly losing their lives. I was on that bus and was thrown out of the window as it rolled over and over down into the river. It took me over 40 years to be able to write about the accident, although I could talk about it, I’d never contemplated writing down my thoughts. As a result of this tragedy I, and others involved, were awarded a Bravery Award from the Queen. I’d rather have my friends back please. You can read my memories of the accident here:

What I’ve learnt from surviving a school trip that went terribly wrong

Thankfully it didn’t put me off travelling.

In 1992, we took on the experience of a lifetime, participating in a Teacher Exchange program, swapping houses, cars, lives and jobs, moving our little family across the world from Australia to England for a whole year. The English family we swapped with came and lived in Tumbarumba for the year and loved their experience.

How brave we were taking on this mammoth life-changing trip with 3 girls aged 8, 6, 3 – well brave was one word, at the time there were other more descriptive words that came to mind. It turned out to be the best thing we’ve ever done and gave us all a serious case of the travel bug.

Despite being seriously short on funds, the exchange rate that year was not our friend, we managed to travel to many parts of the UK and into Europe during the summer holidays. We begged and borrowed equipment, (we drew the line at stealing), and camped around France, Germany, and Switzerland, making friends and seeing sights I’d only ever dreamed of seeing.

Added to our family travel has been hosting Rotary Exchange Students from all over the world, a real joy and something we’re still very much involved in today.

Each of our daughters did a GAP year after they finished school in Tumbarumba, one went to England to work in a local pub in Cheddar (where we’d had our exchange year); one went to work in a Girl Guide Activity camp in England setting herself up for her future sport oriented career; and one went to Italy to work as a nanny, in a ski resort area, returning home fluent in Italian and a fabulous skier to boot. They all then completed their university in Australia before gaining work in their respective fields. It should be noted that our middle daughter went to Sweden for a university exchange for a semester during her course and the oldest daughter returned to the Bristol/Cheddar area as soon as she had enough money together. She hasn’t returned to live in Australia since 2007 and has now clocked up more years living in England than she’s lived in her country of birth – and it’s all our fault for taking her travelling when she was 8 years old!

Now that we have one of our daughters living in England, we always tend to head that way first when we travel overseas, especially as we now have a special little granddaughter, Dottie, to enjoy! Our two daughters, and three grandchildren in Australia are quite a distance away so we make every effort to see them as often as we can.

Yes we do love travelling and we know we are fortunate to do what we do. Life is full of opportunities and sometimes you just have to grab them and go!

Words from my daughter Melanie

I love this letter to us, her Travel Loving Parents, from a few years ago. Here are some snippets from the post, written on a blog my daughter started, but has since moved on from. She’s also become a mother in the meantime.

Being the offspring of such inspiring, caring, empowering, sometimes cringy, overly energetic, life loving parents I wanted to write them a little letter…

As I sit here in my lounge room on the other side of the world from you I think about how I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you. Not because you created me (ew that’s a bit weird) but because you brought my sisters and me up to be adventurous, fearless, inquisitive life loving women and more importantly you brought me to this little village that I now call home all those years ago. You set my path in motion over 20 years ago and none of us would have ever expected the decisions you made then to have had such an impact now.

You took us overseas before we even knew there was another side of the world and although you had to wait till your 30s to see outside of Australia we got to see it before we even hit our teens. We now know to do this you needed to sell the house, that the opportunity to do it happened at a really unideal time and that you were both scared about having to leave your families behind with little to no way to contact them with three temperamental little girls. The world was a different place then and it was either too expensive or the technology hadn’t been invented to keep in touch like it is now.

In doing what you did then and what you continue to do now, you taught us so many lessons. Seeing as you both are teachers seemed kinda adapt. Lessons such as an awareness of other cultures and religions, how to get to the airport way too early, how to not tackle roundabouts when driving on the opposite side of the road, how to be respectful of others beliefs, random acts of kindness especially when travelling speak volumes, how to be polite when eating new local cuisines, how trying to speak a different language with a thick Aussie accent is extremely hilarious and how to enjoy and relish the moment of being somewhere new.

Thank you for being the type of parents that my friends make comments like ‘ can’t your parents just have a relaxing holiday’, ‘your parents go to amazing places’ It gives me something to aspire to. You don’t sit still you keep going and keep pushing to see more of the world.

For making friends wherever you go and then actually keeping in touch with them. You did this long before Facebook and email were around to make it easier.

For having the type of holidays that push you outside of your comfort zone. Hiking in Nepal, exploring India, cycling through Croatia, solo travelling to England. You’ve shown us that you’re never too old or too scared to give something a go.

Thank you for not stopping my sisters and me when we got on all those many planes taking us away from you to let us continue our next steps in the world. I now it was and is still hard but thank you for being the parents that know you raised us to make the right decisions, to learn from our mistakes and to know who we are and that it’s ok to be whoever we want to be.

Thank you for now not crying until I’ve gone through the departure gate when we say our farewells. It’s funny how saying goodbye never gets any easier even though we have done it more times than I can count. The horrible goodbyes make the G’days so much sweeter.

For helping at times to fund our travels but also saying no and making us work 3 jobs to make the money ourselves. We know to have and enjoy something we need to earn it. Travelling isn’t an expectation or a right, it’s a privilege and that is a lesson I will always be thankful that you taught us.

I am who I am because of you and I am where I am because of you. For sacrifices, you made years ago and sacrifices you still make now and for that, I will always be so very grateful.

You are the best role models a little traveller and young (well kinda still young) woman could have.

What is ‘Tell Us About…’ about?

Tell Us About…is a monthly opportunity for bloggers to showcase their creativity. Each month one of the co-hosts will choose the word to focus on. It started in January 2023 with Gail’s prompt of Time, February was my choice of Play, March was Jill’s prompt about Scent, April was Whimsy courtesy of MK, Penny chose Gardens/Gardening for May and June was all about Michelle’s prompt of Curiosity. Onto July and Travel is the timely prompt from Sue.

On the third Thursday of every month we’ll respond to the prompt “Tell Us About xxx” which could be absolutely anything. And how we respond is also wide open.  It could be a blog post with our opinions or reminiscences; a poem,  photos, a short story or whatever takes your fancy – it could even be a mix of all these!

We encourage you to write your own post around this prompt. Interpret it any way you please, with a reminiscence, an opinion, photos, a poem, a story or whatever inspires you.

We are:

• Deb from Deb’s World (Australia) – you’re reading my post 🙂
• Gail from Is this Mutton (UK) In theory Gail is well travelled but she hasn’t seen very much. Find out why. Read her post here.
• Jill from Grownup Glamour (Australia)
• Leslie from Once Upon a Time and Happily Ever After (USA) The only traveling Leslie is doing is among the blogs of my Tell Us About buddies reading about the traveling they are enjoying.  Stop by my blog for a power nap.  I’ll join you!! Read her post here.
• Marsha from Marsha in the Middle (USA) Marsha and her husband, AKA Nigel, rode the Empire Builder from Chicago to Seattle and loved each and every minute!  But, they didn’t stop there!  Head over to the blog to read all aboard…ahem…all about it! Read Marsha’s post here.
• Mary Katherine from MK’s Adventures in Style (USA) MK finally gets to write about her favorite hobby and reflects on some of the fun times she’s had on trips over the years. Read her post here.
• Penny from Frugal Fashion Shopper (UK) At first Penny thought she had nothing to write about as she felt her travelling days were over and then, on reflection, she’d had many adventures when traveling as a young woman. In fact she had so much to say Travel has been split into two parts!  The second part you’ll get shortly. Read Penny’s first post here.
• Sue from Women living Well After 50 (Aus) – Sue isn’t too well so is unable to post this month. Get well soon Sue.
• Suzy from The Grey Brunette (Portugal) Having moved from England to Portugal when she was a child, Suzy got the travel bug quite early on. Read about some of the wonderful places she’s visited here.

Our posts go live on the third Thursday of each month at 8am UK time (that’s 5pm on the same day in Australia). There is a linky at the end of my post, which you can join, and you’re encouraged to spend some time exploring what others have written and leave a comment if you feel like it.

Final thoughts

I found this month’s Travel prompt very difficult as most of my blog is about Travel in one form or another and my tag line of my blog is Midlife – travel, fun and adventure. So to narrow down to just one travel story was hard, which is why I didn’t do that! Instead I’ve tried to sum up how travel became a part of my life and how it’s impacted on my family’s lives. Using words from my daughter’s story made sense as she covered most aspects and said it so well!

I’ve also just returned from two months overseas visiting my daughter and granddaughter and blogged about some of the things we did, so didn’t want to repeat those stories. I’m still in that ‘am I really home’ mindset and struggling with getting back into real life. I’m trying not to wallow but I am missing my travel self which I mentioned in my most recent post Life is a bit like a camera

To travel is to live.

Hans Christian Anderson

At the time of writing this post I’ve been home a week and I’m slowly settling back into real life, despite fighting it for most of that time. I feel a sense of grief when I get home and admit to suffering separation anxiety! I miss the sense of freedom, of little to no responsibilities, the break from normal life and the fun I have being on holidays. It’s hard having family living on the other side of the world.

I love to travel and could have listed so many travel posts but will leave you with a link to my Travel page on my blog in case you’ve not seen it and have some time to browse!

What are your thoughts on travel – fun or hard work?

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I hope you’ve enjoyed my post on Travel – our family’s motto is To Travel is to Live for obvious reasons! Thanks for your visit 🙂

Deb xx

Coming Up Soon:

• What’s on Your Bookshelf #WOYBS – Friday 21 July 2023
• What’s Been on Your Calendar #WBOYC – Friday 28 July 2023

Recent posts from Deb’s World

• Bonjour Noumea, it’s been a while!
• Autumn Colours in Tumbarumba
• Re-grouping as the years move on #SundayStills
• An Apple a Day and all that! #WOYP
• It’s the little things that count #SundayStills

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