As 2018 is starting to
run to its end, it’s always good to look back a little.
For us 2018 was a special year. The year when we decided to start our journey
and actually did it.
But it’s not just a long vacation for us. It’s an adventure with a deeper meaning.
Obviously a journey like this should be enjoyable, but doing this with 3 kids, as parent, we hope to give them an experience that normal education will never give them.
So even though our journey only just started, what did we (yes we as the whole family, not just the kids) learn so far.
Flexibility
From the 2 and a half months we have been on our journey now, we have spend over a month preparing the RV. This meant that while I was working on it, Laura and the kids were just waiting for me to finish up. They have spend day after day sitting in the office of the garage. We even slept in the RV inside the garage. But they understood that it was necessary and they accepted it.
Next, living in a “small” space with 3 big kids requires flexibility as well. Even though it’s a big enough rig, there is little private space. Especially when the weather doesn’t allow us to build camp outside.
But it all depends how you look at things. At the moment when I’m writing this, we are traveling through the Panhandle of Florida. There where Hurricane Michael has hit hard. While we are using our RV to travel, here many people lost their houses and live in tents and rv´s because they have no other option.
Its devastating to see what happened here and I hope those families will soon recover their losses. But it also puts things in perspective for us. I can only hope that my kids learn that even though flexibility is asked from them, it’s still out of free will.
Other Cultures
Come on, this is the United States. Not Africa or Asia, you might think. What cultural differences can there be for a Dutch Family that is used to live in a foreign country (Spain).
Well actually there is a lot to learn. You have to understand that we only know the American way of life from the TV. I don’t care what you think about that way of life, I’m not here to judge. But I have seen now with my own eyes, that this way of life came with a high price.
Visiting cultural and historical musea and cities and villages, showed us that this way of life has a price. And that freedom is paid with life’s. (And I’m not talking about wars but about the men and women who lost their lives doing hard manual labor building the country)
Now this will be the same in every country, other generations suffered under hard labor. But how often do you stop and think about that? And more important, how often do we educate our kids about that?
Every place we visit in the world, there are cultural differences we can learn from. Even when those cultural differences seem small.
Respect For The Wildlife
The world is on our feet with internet these days. Or better said, on our screens.
We can look up everything we want, but there is nothing better than seeing them for real.
The wild life is spectacular here! But as spectacular as it is, its WILD life!
We already have seen and learned so much about animals we only knew from pictures. Manatees, snakes, armadillos, pelicans, alligators, black bears, vultures and even mosquitoes and ants……
While camping we need to understand we are invading their habitat. We need to respect the animals and respect the rules about their habitat.
Talking to people and reading on the internet has kept us save so far.
2019
Our adventure will continue in 2019 and so will we learn more and more about other cultures, history, wildlife and ourselves.
We wish everybody a happy New Year!
Roy, Laura, Jochem, Lars, Merel Bonté
