“The only trip you will regret is the one you didn’t take.”
~Anonymous travel junkie scrawled on a hostel wall somewhere~
Meet the Chaos (We Mean Family)
Olivia
Olivia was born in Seattle and is an ex-marketing director turned full-time adventure seeker and part-time sanity keeper. She’s the one with the spreadsheets when we’re lost in a random town at midnight with no accommodation booked. Olivia loves sunrise hikes, pour-over coffee, photographing abandoned buildings, and pretending she’s organized. She’s (theoretically) gluten-free but will absolutely destroy a croissant in Paris, street tacos in Mexico City, and basically anything that smells good. She also makes playlists for every single destination and cries at sunsets. Every. Single. Time.
Marcus
Marcus loves maps, fixing things that aren’t broken, craft beer, and telling dad jokes that make everyone groan. He’s a former software engineer who realized he’d rather debug foreign train systems than code. He believes every problem can be solved with duct tape, a positive attitude, or finding the nearest local brewery. Marcus is now a freelance tech consultant working with clients worldwide via Skype, and honestly just thrilled he doesn’t have to wear pants to meetings anymore. He reads too much sci-fi, talks to strangers everywhere, and has an inexplicable obsession with trying fermented foods in every country.
Olivia (yes, we named our daughter after her mom—creative, right?)
Olivia is 11 and loves sketching landscapes, collecting rocks from every beach, learning phrases in new languages, and correcting her parents’ grammar. In the U.S., she played soccer and took piano lessons. Now she learns history by standing in ancient ruins and geography by actually going places. She’s become fluent in eye-rolling, stays up way too late reading fantasy novels by headlamp, and asks questions that make us question everything we thought we knew about parenting. She’s teaching us that kids don’t need a traditional classroom to become brilliantly curious humans.
Leo
Leo is 8, has perpetually scraped knees, and collects an alarming number of sticks wherever we go. He loves anything involving wheels, water, or heights—preferably all three at once. He builds elaborate forts out of hostel furniture, befriends every dog within a 5-mile radius, and has opinions about which countries have the best playgrounds (Thailand wins, apparently). He’s addicted to gummy candy (a constant battle with his health-conscious parents) and can negotiate in broken Spanish, Thai, and puppy-dog eyes. One minute he’s the sweetest kid alive; the next, he’s launched a pillow war that somehow involves international diplomacy.
Maya
Maya is 5 and fearless. There’s nothing she won’t climb, jump off, or taste. She falls approximately 47 times per day and bounces back up—unless her feelings are hurt, in which case the world is ending and only cuddles will save us. She loves mermaids and dinosaurs equally, asks “why” about everything, and has profound thoughts about clouds, death, and whether animals dream. Maya has wild curly hair that refuses all attempts at control, a gap-toothed smile, and questions about the universe that would stump philosophers. Maya teaches us about living fully in the moment and noticing the tiny miracles careful observers see everywhere.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.”
~Mark Twain (who clearly never traveled with three kids under 12)~
Welcome to a Family Figuring It Out One Country at a Time
Q: Whose brilliant idea was this?
A: We’ve been blaming each other for two years now. It was definitely Marcus’s dream originally, but Olivia’s the one who actually booked the flights, so… both? Neither? We’ve lost track.
Q: What does ‘finding yourself’ as a family actually look like?
A: Messy hotel rooms. Beautiful chaos. Lost luggage and found perspectives. Screaming matches followed by the most profound conversations. Sometimes divine, sometimes a disaster, often both simultaneously. It’s complicated, exhausting, and we wouldn’t trade it for anything.
Q: When are you going to be ‘responsible adults’ and go home?
A: Working 60-hour weeks, missing our kids’ childhood, and being too tired to actually live… is that “responsible”? We slow-travel through countries for 2-4 months at a time, homeschool on the road, and we’ll return to the U.S. when it feels right (or when the budget demands it, whichever comes first).
Q: Where have you actually discovered yourselves?
A: In a tiny café in Lisbon where strangers became friends. On that terrifying bus ride through the Andes. In Balinese rice terraces at sunrise. In Marcus finally learning to let go of control. In Olivia embracing imperfection. In our kids becoming global citizens who see the world as home.
Q: How do you afford this? Keep your sanity? Educate three kids?
A: We can’t afford it—we’re creating it as we go through freelance work, severe budget discipline, and occasional panic. Our kids are surprisingly patient with their parents’ midlife crisis disguised as adventure. And the world is teaching our children things no classroom ever could (though yes, we also do actual schooling when we’re not losing our minds).
Q: Do you ever regret this?
A: Only when Leo has a meltdown in a crowded train station, Maya’s sick in a country where we don’t speak the language, and Olivia dramatically announces she hates traveling and wants her old life back. So… like every third Tuesday. But then we watch the sunset from some random beach we never would’ve found otherwise, and we remember exactly why we’re doing this impossible, beautiful, ridiculous thing.
So we set out to Show Our Kids the World; we’re actually Learning From Them; and now we know this is the Scariest, Most Irresponsible, Best Decision We’ve Ever Made.
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