“No way!” Anna and Arthur shout almost in unison. It’s the end of August, and we are sitting on a tree stump on the rugged slope of a peak in the Dolomites. Marie-Laure and I have just shared our plan to go on a round-the-world trip as a family. “Are you serious?” And then, when they realize that this is not a joke but the real deal, they leap into our arms, shouting and dancing with joy. There are almost five months left, and in reality, we wanted to wait to tell them, but now we can’t backtrack.
That morning, at the campsite, we had already faced a small protest. “Why do we have to work and do our homework every morning while all the other kids get to play right away? It’s not fair, is it?” They had figured out that something was up. What they didn’t know was that we had already arranged with the school for the kids to work every day during the summer vacation to get a bit ahead before leaving. They had also been working hard the previous weeks at grandma and grandpa’s in France. Everything made sense: “Oh, that’s why?!” And we smiled: “Yes, that’s why!”
In hindsight, this was the moment when things really began to become concrete for us as a family. Until then, we had been doing a lot of research online, inventorying our needs for the trip, and looking into flights, travel advice, details about traveling in different countries, and the best season to go. But we often did it in the evenings when the kids were asleep. In secret. From now on, this round-the-world trip would become our project together.
That very evening, at the campsite, Anna had already drafted the first version of a presentation for her classmates, and the topic of discussion was who to tell the news to first: the grandparents or the friends. We showed them where the countries we would visit were located, how many times we would need to fly, the people who live there, the customs, and of course, the wildlife.
Naturally, throughout the rest of the vacation, the topic came up several times a day. Everything was going well, and we felt we were on track. At least, that’s what we thought. But we still had no idea what the last four months would bring us…
Globetrotterdammers 