We are a family of four living in Newport on Sydney’s Northern beaches. The cat and dog have found respective homes for the year with friends and we hope to rent our house out (furnished hopefully) for the duration of our trip. As a family we’ve been lucky enough to have travelled widely for much shorter periods including Bali, Hawaii, 2-weeks campervanning in New Zealand (2 weeks was great… but 1 year?!), UK and France (inc 9 weeks in 2008). However this trip – 12 months in a motorhome around Europe eclipses anything we’ve done before.
We are all very much excited but naturally have worries about what it will be like. How will 12 months living together in something the size of a bathroom be? How will we get to go surfing, go to the gym, do art classes or Jui Jitsu like we’ve grown to love? What about our friends and family – its it going to be desperately lonely – ‘just the 4 of us’?
But despite these concerns the positives outweigh the fears many times. Would you ever do a trip like this, and look back on it several years later and regret doing it? Never! The regret would be if we hadn’t have done it when the kids were young enough to ba happy to go and we had the chance financially and career-wise. So we’re done. Committed. All in.
So who is we…?
Dave (37) is involved in a number of successful businesses in the areas of cars(www.privatefleet.com.au), car finance (www.fincar.com.au), domain. names (www.netfleet.com.au) and web development and it’s this career choice that means we are lucky enough to consider such a trip. He won’t lose his job by not being there fulltime, can do a few hours a day anyway as it’s mainly web-related and will hopefully still get a much reduced income while we are away. Originally from the UK, Dave’s love of travel was ignited during 18 months of backpacking in 1997 which eventually resulted in him settling in Australia where he met
Chelle (39), born and bred in Sydney, is a French and German teacher at a lovely girl’s school in Sydney which has very kindly agreed to offer her a year off without pay and a job to return to in 2015. Chelle also has a keen desire to travel that has seen her travel far and wide although her real county love would have to be France. A francophile if ever there was one, this trip was largely swung on the basis that France would be one of our major destinations. Happily it’s a country we all love, no least…
Abbie (5), who although she can hardly remember knows precisely where you can find ‘Mummy’s favourite tower’ (clue: it’s in France). Abbie got her passport when she was about 2 months old and used it shortly after that. She’s currently completing her first year of school at Newport Public School and absolutely loves it. At the same time she is genuinely excited by the trip and can’t wait to go. No can her brother,…
James (7) currently enjoying year two in school but nevertheless appears quite happy to skip year three in favour of an adventure of a lifetime and then slot back into year 4 in 2015. James is the ultimate sociable kid – he’s as comfortable talking to adults as he is with kids. If he hears a foreign tongue he’s right on it trying to work out the language and communicate. Already we recognise that it’s likely our seven-year-old will be responsible for most of the people we meet on this trip!
So that’s us. If you want to get in touch with one of us, please comment on one of our posts so the recipient is directly notified. Or, if it’s a private matter you can also use the form below.
