I definitely attribute my love of travel to the memorable holidays that my parents took my family away on when I was young. I was fortunate to travel overseas twice as a young girl. Both holidays were to Mauritius, where Mum and Dad had both grown up. Most of our family holidays growing up were driving holidays up and down the east coast of Australia and as I grew older, Mum and Dad purchased a little fibro shack on the NSW Central Coast where we ended up spending a lot of our weekends holidaying with family and friends and where they now live.
Playing sport also afforded me the opportunity to travel within Australia, as well as places abroad including Italy, New Zealand, Canada and the USA. At one point during my soccer career, I decided to take a break and a couple of my friends and I hatched up a plan to travel to Europe for 6mths. It took us a year to save all our money up. My friends would meet in Venice, Austria once I’d travelled up through Italy, after completing an Italian soccer tour with my club team Marconi. We used the amazing European train system to travel through Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, France, Hungary, Czechoslavakia, Spain, Italy & Malta backpacking in hostels and staying with a couple of friends in Germany and the Netherlands. I grew up a lot on this trip, met so many new friends along the way and had so much fun. Towards the end of my time in Europe, my sister met me in Rome, Italy and we travelled to Greece to holiday with a couple of girlfriends before returning to Australia.
I have a keen sense of adventure and travel has given me
the opportunity to go on endless adventures.
When I met my husband, he had pretty much travelled EVERYWHERE including Africa, South America, Asia, Europe and the USA. So I knew that travel was going to be a big part of our future for the two of us. We travelled to France, Greece & Hawaii together before we had children & have travelled to the Whitsundays, South Africa & the USA together since our daughters came into our lives.
Welcoming Gigi and Bronte into our family never deterred us from travelling, but it has forced us to move at a slower pace on holidays and factor in more down time on our holidays, rather than moving at break neck speed which we can do when we’re travelling to multiple destinations in one trip. Our daughters who are now 14yrs & 10yrs young, are not impressed at all that we’ve travelled without them, so I don’t know if we’ll get away with any get away romantic interludes anymore in the near future, now that we’ve passed the travel bug onto them.
When my daughters were both quite young, I made a promise to myself that they would learn about their heritage and I created two intentions for our family. My first intention was to travel to Kythira, Greece with my husband’s parents to visit my mother and father in law’s villages and for us to see where my father in law had lived for the first 15yrs of his life, before moving to Australia.
My second intention was to travel to Mauritius with my parents, so that my daughters could see where their maternal grandparents grew up, listen to their stories & meet our extended family who still reside there. Both my intentions became a reality over a 3yrs period. In 2012 we travelled to Greece with my husband’s parents and in 2015 we travelled with my parents and my eldest niece to Mauritius. This was hands down one of the best decisions I’ve ever made as a parent, to be able to bring together 3 family generations in this way, is something I will treasure in my heart forever.
During our time in Kythira, Greece, my mother in law mentioned to me that her dream was to travel back to Kythira with our entire extended family. Now this dream did indeed come true for her in 2018, when we all met up in Budapest, Hungary for 1wk together, then went our separate ways before meeting up again in Kythira, Greece where we had THE best time together. My husband, my 2 daughters and I also snuck in a couple of side trips to Rome, Venice & Dubrovnik, during this family trip away.
My parents had their own dream, to take each of their grandchildren (no parents were invited on these adventures) on an overseas holiday together. In the last few years, they've travelled to Mauritius, Fiji and Hawaii (my girls scored this fabulous holiday destination) with 5 of their 7 grandchildren in the last few years and are currently planning their final trip with the youngest 2 grandchildren in our family.
I've learnt such a huge life lesson during this time,
if you have a dream in your heart,
do what you need to do,
to make it come true.
Live life without regret!
Milestone birthdays & weddings also are a great reason to travel too. We travelled to Thailand in 2010 to celebrate my sister and brother in law’s wedding and have celebrated both my parents 70th birthdays with a family holiday. We also celebrated my mother and father in law’s 50th wedding anniversary with a 3 day family get away.
So you can see, we definitely prioritize travel in our life and we are more than happy to save up for trips away each year because we value quality time together. In fact, to my husband’s dismay, I’m usually planning our next holiday, whilst we are currently on holidays. Let’s just say that I’m just super keen continue creating magical memories together.
Travelling with children requires a fair bit of patience,
can be super exhausting and is one of the most magical
experiences you can gift to your child in this lifetime.
Whether you go on family camping trips in your local area, skiing with friends which we personally love, or jump on a plane to travel around the world, I highly recommend travelling with your children as they grow up.
My parents have gifted the opportunity to "travel" this to me, my husband and I are gifting the opportunity to "travel" to our daughters and hopefully if they love it as much as we do, they will gift the opportunity to "travel" to their children.
So what’s on my family’s travel bucket list?
Well, my husband is keen to visit Cuba,
my daughters are dreaming of holidaying in Jamaica
and I’m keen for another skiing adventure.