Apparently I started this blog about 200 days ago. The time did fly by and hopefully I can make more progress in the next 780 days. The ambition had been to share the progress our family is making towar our long term goal of traveling around the world with our children. We had set a date of July 1, 2022 for our departure and we would spend the next 2+ years planning how to make this dream come to life.
One of the purposes of the blog was to strengthen our resolve to actually undertake such a trip. We find that telling people about our dreams is a good motivator to see them through. We felt a blog was a great way to hold ourselves accountable. In the end it is our version of the “if you build it, he will come” mantra from Field of Dreams.
Today I feel it is a good time to check in and give ourselves an overall grade on our progress. Let us start with financial and budgeting side of the planning as we are furthest along on this front. At a high level, we have many boxes checked off as we have agreed on a budget and a funding plan for the trip. Beyond the planning side of things, we have made real progress as we have managed to save a third of the budget already. A huge contributor was my decision to go back to work sooner that planned but the trip was a major influence on that decision.
Outside of finance, we have made good progress on aligning the family to the idea of the trip. I believe Paige and I are on the same page and have agreed to the timeline and duration of the trip. We have started bringing the kids in the fold and they have begun to mention it to their friends at school. In terms of getting the family excited and committing to the trip, I think we are pretty far along.
One area that we definitely have made progress on (due to outside influences) is that of readying ourselves for the reality of a year of homeschooling. We now understand the heavy lifting involved and have been amassing a good assortment of resources we will be able to leverage at a later date. I dreaded the idea of lugging around a huge assortment of books and school supplies but the online resources that have sprung up the last few weeks have been very useful. Instead of having to figure this out by myself, I get some real time practice like every other parent in our network.
Overall I would give us a solid B rating. We still have lots of time ahead but we have taken some tangible first steps. Yes, I probably could do a better job with the blog and I will put some renewed focus on it. I will set myself some targets around output that I want to realize over the coming months. As for the trip planning, we will focus on aligning on the non-European countries that will form the latter half of the trip. I can not wait for that debate.
Thanks for all the support these past 200 days.
Mike
Family Travel Countdown 