The kids had Madrid circled on the calendar. It had been more than half a year since they had seen their little cousins and they had major plans! The four of us were so anxious, we arrived in the city a couple days before my brother and his family. This ensured that we could scout the area surrounding their hotel and advise them on the good playgrounds. We would spend the next 10 days touring the city, partaking in kid-friendly activities and continue our search for street performers. The girls were happy to cause mischief with their cousins while Paige and I were happy to have other kids around!
I was sad we weren’t in Italy and the previous week travelling along the Mediterranean coast had some hiccups. Unlike Barcelona, we walked into Valencia unaware of what we would do for our extended stay. The focus was Julie’s birthday and we hoped there would be enough for the kids to do. We quickly realized Valencia was perfect for our little family as it is a kid-friendly European city. For the next two weeks, we would base ourselves with Paige’s mom in an Airbnb on the Plaza de la Reina in the heart of the old town. Paigey would dine with her mother at a Michelin-star restaurant, while I would dine with the kids at Mcdonald’s. We were both happy.
Located right on the main square, we were a mere 7-minute walk from the Turia park system that runs through the heart of Valencia. The first day, we rented bikes (bike rentals were crazy cheap!) to explore the 7km park. The kids hadn’t been on bikes for months and Isabella blissfully biked care-free and “car-free” for the day. Unfortunately, we had a parenting fail with Julie. She had forgotten how to ride a bike (apparently that can happen!). While the rest of the family went off exploring on their own, I ran beside her for the first day as she got the hang of things again. She fondly remembers her crash into the public artwork and her accidental “jump” off the edge of an elevated walkway.
Biking mishaps aside, we visited the park almost daily. Every second day, Paigey and I would do a morning run with the locals (by the end of our two weeks, we were dreaming about all the running gear we would purchase back home). The kids would fly paper airplanes (occasionally hitting strangers) and spend hours in the playgrounds. There’s a popular playground in the park in the shape of Gulliver from Gulliver’s Travels. It is a massive plastic contraption with slides, ropes, and walls. It has to be at least two stories tall and watching them clamber recklessly across it was nerve-wracking for us parents. Fortunately, the only one who got hurt was yours truly as I got a friction burn going down one of the slides!
It seemed like every day we would do a new activity in the city with the kids. The Ciutat de les Arts i les Ciencies kept us busy when we weren’t at the parks. The vast complex includes a science museum, a movie theatre and a top-notch aquarium. We have been to a lot of aquariums and outside of the actual ocean, this is as good as it gets. We spent hours trying to find animals from our snorkelling exploits a few months prior. Once we had exhausted all the CAC had to offer, the kids were treated to the zoo by their nan. That was an added bonus of having another family member with us. Somedays, we would split up the kids. Other days Paige and I would go off on date night. And occasionally, Paigey would hang out with her mother. During those times, the kids and I would venture into the city to find as many street performers as possible. We closed the gap to the goal of 100 Julie and I had established in Barcelona.
Street performers in Valencia
Did I mention that we were also in town during one of the large festivals in the calendar? We didn’t really understand what the Feast of our Lady of the Forsaken was, but the city was alive and jumping the last weekend of our stay. There were concerts, performers, food stalls and an enormous parade throughout the weekend. The actual procession passed right below our apartment’s window and for three hours we watched the celebration. The kids couldn’t believe the dresses and outfits worn by those involved and we probably took a bazillion photos. They tried to stay up until the fireworks but they kept the futility streak alive by falling asleep about a half hour before the culmination of the festivities.
But even that festival paled in comparison to the birthday blowout we threw for Julie. When she woke up, the apartment was decorated with a banner, streamers and balloons (we all forgot how much kids love balloons). She loved the desperately needed new clothes and dove right into her new Lego set. But the highlight had to be dinner as Nan made Julie nachos which she had been dreaming about for months. There was none left for leftovers. Paige special ordered a Nutella chocolate cake for the occasion (yep a cake full of Nutella! Seriously how has no one thought of that back home?). We knew the birthday was a success when Julie went to bed complaining about a stomach ache from the Nutella cake.
All credit needs to go to my wife for this one, as she was the driving force behind our three-day whirlwind through Barcelona! She refused to bypass this part of Spain on our way to Valencia. We mixed things up for this “weekend getaway” by staying in a hostel in the suburbs. The kids were excited as that meant bunk beds. We were excited as it meant spending as little time in the room as possible. It was our first time in Spain and we had food to eat, sites to visit and tours to take.
When planning the trip, each family member picked a destination where they wanted to go. And then it was up to us parents, to make it work. Mike picked the Yukon. I chose a Live-aboard boat, and Izzie selected Legoland. Now, it was Julie’s pick (or at least it was supposed to be). She had picked Disneyland. During the circumnavigation, the closest Disney park on our route was Paris Disneyland. So, it was added to the itinerary. When we actually got down to planning this leg, we realized that getting from Siena to Paris and then to Barcelona (our next planned stop) would be difficult. Without much backtracking and/or flying, we would spend 30 hours on a train to make this happen. Rail passes do not work as well as we once remembered because the “reservation fees” are much more common now, and going to Paris involved many of them. We could have flown for less than the booking fees! But at this point, we’ve flown 16 times in 6 months and feel quite guilty about our carbon footprint, so we really wanted to take advantage of the train pass. Instead, we got Julie excited about some theme parks in Spain and convinced her that we could skip Disney. She was satisfied, but we did not feel the best about it.
We were on our way to Jordan for the next leg of our trip. When booking our flight from Thailand, we realized we could add a stopover in Abu Dhabi for a pittance. This would be one of the best decisions of the trip as I loved our 3-night stopover. The city is clean, the waterfront is landscaped, and they have beautiful sidewalks and walking paths. With Ramadan commencing, the city had a different vibe and the children had plenty of questions about fasting. It provided quite the contrast to our last week in Bangkok.
After the last couple weeks in the north of Thailand and Laos, we made one last-ditch attempt to experience beach life before our time in the Middle East. We were thinking Phuket, but it was high season and accommodation was expensive. Instead, we booked ourselves into a nice hotel on a strip of sand about an hour north of Phuket. We hadn’t heard of Khao Lak but the hotel we looked at was attractively priced and had very positive reviews. After booking, we researched the area and then realized that the area has a sad history. It appeared to be the area in Thailand most severely affected by the tsunami.
Should we have skipped Vientiane? Probably. Maybe I feel that way because we were sad to be leaving Laos and excited to return to Thailand. Our time in the Laos capital was so unremarkable we’ll focus on our epic journey from Vientiane down to Khao Lak in Thailand. I imagine there were things to do in Vientiane, but we just phoned it in. We barely left the hotel, didn’t care about eating local and spent too much time playing Pokemon. Looking back, we just weren’t in the right head space from the get-go as our train from Luang Prabang wasn’t enjoyable, and it set the tone.
Up next was our scheme to take the slow boat from Northern Thailand to Luang Prabang. Floating down the Mekong on a boat turned out to be a blast. The children entertained the like-minded travellers, while it was a chance for the parents to be social with other adults again. Upon reflection, we spent two awesome days recapturing some of our old backpacking glory.
Having finalized our decision to take a “slow boat” to Laos, we made our way closer to the border in Northern Thailand. Chiang Rai would be our home for the next four days, and we kept things simple. Our only agenda item was to visit some famous temples. We stayed at a decent hotel with breakfast, a pool and a large lobby that we made our own. We passed the time playing board games, reading and catching up on school. Isabella was not pleased with the amount of schoolwork she had to get through! Julie was not impressed with the number of postcards we ended up writing!
The transit days can be fun too! Our mission was to get from our hotel in Langkawi (an island in Malaysia) to a ferry pier in Thailand 600km away. We had the entire day to get to the area around Surat Thani. That would allow us to catch another ferry to the island of Koh Tao the very next day.
Family Travel Countdown 