Deciding to travel long term as a family over three years ago was one of the best decision we have ever made. I could spend hours listing out the benefits that we’ve found individually and as a family. But we’ve also found ourselves creating this small list in the back of our head, the ‘When we stop one day’ list. The things that are impracticle or impossible to have while you are living out of suitcases or moving location every few months or year.
Pets
The one thing our children feel like they are missing out on the most is having a pet. They would love a cat or dog. Being in Asia certainly doesn’t help the situation. Some days it seems like every restaurant that we eat at has a stray kitten or puppy to play with. They’ve even started naming them and asking for money to buy food.
We’re about to stop for a year or two in New Zealand. The kids have seen it as an opportunity to ramp up the ‘We want a pet’ campaign. Our daughter has taken to googling funny cat photos and emailing them to us. The problem is unless we’re happy to commit to one country forever or start travelling with a pet, we need to start our own parent campaign that convinces them a hamster, a mouse or fish is a much more sensible idea for now!
One day though, when we are stopped forever, it would be lovely to had a pet.
Walls covered in large photos
When you travel long term you take a lot of photos. But the irony is you don’t have anywhere to display them. No home to print them off and display them proudly in frames on a shelf. And certainly no four walls to call your own covered in giant canvas prints of your favourite travel memories. We have digital copies, the blog and I’ve printed off one photo book of our favourite photos but I like to dream that one day we’ll have a house that we’ll call home for long enough to justify printing all our favourite memories on canvas and filling several walls with thme.
Not having to say “Maybe one day … when we stop”
I love that travel has taught us all how little we actually need to be happy. But if I’m being totally honest there are things that we’d all like. Most of them are more expensive, good quality purchases and larger items. Things like bikes and toys too large to fit in a backpack.
After three years you get tired of saying to the kids and each other “sorry we can’t buy you that because we can’t carry it. One day when we stop”. And they get sick of hearing it. So I look forward to the day that we stop and we can actually get those few important things we’d all really like.
More than two pairs of shoes
I never realised it was actually possible to hate a pair of shoes until I only had the option of wearing two pairs of shoes day in, day out for a year on end until they fell apart. I’m not a girly girl but this life style is enough to make even the most practical woman think Imelda Marcos might just have been onto something with her 1220 pairs of shoes.
Personally, I’ll settle for having a brown and black pair of sandals so I don’t always have to wear brown sandals with black skirts, two pairs of heels, joggers and maybe, lets not get too crazy now … an equal amount of shoes in a winter selection.
How about you? Do you have a list of things you dream of for that day when you stop?
