How and Why We Started Traveling with Kids
We’re officially in our first month of being a full time travel family, and we’re loving it.
I’ve been getting so many great questions on my Instagram about how we’re making full-time travel work for us, when we have three young kids and a thriving business.
I’ve said it before, but travel has always been important to us.
We definitely had a few years of staying close to home when the kids were babies and Brian was at his sickest, but by the time Stella was in Kindergarten, I had the itch to travel again.
Something about her being in school every week day, all day, not only gave me more freedom but reminded me that we have just eighteen short years with our kids, if we’re lucky, and I didn’t want to waste a single one.
It wasn’t long before I had set my travel plan into motion.
For me, travel is a hobby. It’s how I choose to spend my free time. Not just on actual trips, but planning them, organizing for them, and reorienting our lives so that travel fits in without too much effort. For example, when we lived in a house instead of an Airstream, I would keep my clothes in my favorite Container Store packing cubes 24/7, so that when it was time to leave, all I would have to do is zip up a cube and all my underwear would be packed and organized!
Planning for trips is as easy for me as breathing.
So after some thought and some research, I picked some places right in our backyard, in beautiful Arkansas, that we could visit on weekends.
That year, I’d pack up the car on Friday, get the boys (who were three at the time) ready in their carseats, and by the time Stella’s school let out, we were on the road!
We had so many wonderful adventures that year, and we didn’t have to leave the state, spend thousands of dollars, or sell everything to live in an Airstream full-time like we’re doing now.
When it comes down to it, it’s really simple. It was important for me to keep this part of my identity, even as a mom with small children. Sure, it looked different. Brian and I couldn’t backpack through Europe for a month with a five-year-old and twin three-year-olds.
But we could still show our kids new pockets of this big world. And that’s what we did, and what we’re doing now as we travel full-time.
The rest of this month, I’ll be sharing some of the adventures we took that year.
And I want to encourage you. If you’re in a space of life that looks different that you imagined it would because of parenting, a pandemic, or any other reason, remember that when you have a system for outlining your dream life, you can bring elements of that dream into each day, regardless of the thousands of circumstances you can’t control.