3~ 2008/09 itinerary
Broad Itinerary is tentatively:
October 2008 – March 2009 = South East Asia
March 2009 – April 2009 = Mongolia and across to the UK
May 2009 – June 2009 = The GREAT Britain Pilgrimage (towing a caravan)
July 2009 – September 2009 = Europe on a Shoestring (still in the caravan)
Slightly more detailed would be:
Singapore
Malaysia (Melaka, Kuala Lumpur, Ipoh, Penang)
Thailand (Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai)
Laos (Luang Prabang, Vientianne)
Thailand (Bangkok)
Cambodia (Siem Reap?, Phnom Penh, Kampot, PP)
Vietnam (Ho Chi Minh……Hanoi, Halong Bay)
China, including Hong Kong (Nanning, Guangzhou, HK, Xian, Shanghai, Beijing)
Mongolia (UB and Anak Ranch)
Russia (Moscow, St Petersburg)
Estonia (Tallinn)
Sweden (Stockholm)
Denmark (Copenhagen, Esbjerg)
England (Norwich, London – taking in South Bank Walk, Tate Modern, Globe Theatre, Tower of London, Big Ben, National Gallery Art Museum, Trafalgar Square, Picadilly Circus, Harrods, Westminster Abbey, St Pauls, British Museum, Buskingham Palace, Hyde Park, Hampton Court Palace, Science Museum – Oxford Canal, Salisbury, Devon, Cornwall, Weston-super-Mare with side trips to Bath, Chippenham, Wookey Hole, Cheddar Gorge, Clifton Suspension Bridge…Stratford-on-Avon, Warwick, Ironbridge Gorge, Wroxeter)
Wales (Menai Suspension Bridge, Holyhead, Ty Mawr stone huts, Beaumaris Castle, Conwy Castle, drive by Caernafon Castle, Harlech Castel, Criccieth Castle, Flint Castle, Denbigh Castle..enough castles everyone?)
England (Windermere to search for Swallows and Amazons, Rach wants to wander round Ambleside, the castle boys think they’ll still be keen on seeing Caerlaverock Castel, Cardoness Castle, MacLellan’s Castle and Orchardton Tower – that last one’s free so they might be in luck!)
Scotland (Glasgow, Oban, Coll, Castle Campbell, Craigmillar Castle, Doune Castle, Edinburgh)
England (Lindisfarne – we’d better not be *over* castles at this point because we all want to see this one!, Hadrian’s wall, Harrogate, Leeds, Yorkshire Dales or North Yorkshire Moors and coast – Whitby, Filey, Robin Hood’s Bay…..Sherwood Forest, Cambridge, and the plan runs out!)
Europe….no details at all! (we’ll plan it when we’re sitting in Mongolia)
OTHER POSSIBLITIES
(that Rach is really keen on, Rob not so sure about – actually, he IS sure….he’s sure he just wants to come home and go back to work…..Rach is struggling to understand that!):
September 2009 – May 2010
Poland (get a job!!!)
June – December 2010
Central/Southern Europe, maybe even Egypt (put that caravan back on the road)
Then do we just fly home (we may have had enough by then – will have to wait and see) or do we keep dragging the caravan on to Africa? Or India? Or Australia? OK, so that’s probably all a bit ambitious unless we find a generous benefactor to put petrol in the van and food in our tummies…but we would if we could! Serious.
February 2011
Start that stable job again.
Or if there’s no job, our dream to become self-sufficient would take on a new meaning! We’d *have to* swap our house in the suburbs for a piece of land to grow our own food, build an eco-friendly house with composting toilet…….
Save for five years and take the family to America. Write a book called “Eight Kids and an 84 year old Bike Across America” Sign up for your pre-order copy now!
Alternatively, we could take one of those high-powered-make-lotsa-dosh-jobs in Japan for two years to fund the American Adventure in 2013…Grandpa would be in his eighties so the book title would still work! Just so you know the likelihood of this option, Rob’s eyes glazed over about four lines ago and he mutters things about marrying a romantic idealist with no sense of reality…on the other hand, noone ever thought we’d take eight kids out of the country, so maybe the story isn’t over.
Added in 2012….oh how it all changed. We couldn’t all travel in one vehicle in Europe and so bought two motorhomes instead; we never got to London because the vans were old diesels; we missed booking the ferry to Coll so skipped Scotland altogether (besides it was pouring in the north of England)…and ended up with wonderful sunny times in France and Italy and Greece and and and instead; we didn’t come home in September, but stayed on till the very end of the year.
And now we’re going back. One week in Paris. Three weeks walking part of the Camino de Santiago. One week in London. One week on a canal up to Oxford. The pilgrimage continues, the dreams are being fulfilled.
rayres
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Rach, I spent 3 hours last night/his morning reading your website after I got the farewell email! I will be reading very regularly and praying even more often! I am totally inspired!! Thank you for sharing, for being a romantic, for not losing sight of your goal 🙂 God uses everything. I look forward to hearing about the flight. I have shared the story with my kids and their faces lit up and dreams of “we could …” and “what if we …” . Blessings to you and yours.
i believe i found your blog through kate of the 5 kiwis. i am absolutely addicted. i can’t wait to read about your journey and everyone’s perspective.
we recently (8 months ago) moved to chiang mai, thailand from the states – it has been one of the most amazing things we have done.
God bless you guys. and when you are in chiang mai i would love the opportunity to meet your family. if that’s not too weird. if it is too weird, no problems.
Hi there Robert, Rachel and kids
Just thought I’d drop you a note while my exeperinece of driving around in the UK is fresh in my mind- last wek I drove a fully loaded Ford Transit van from Shrewsbury (west midlands) to Bexhill (SE coast) to Notts (east midlands) and then back to S’bury. Where, incidentally, the sign saying that the first Shrewsbury biscuits were made in a shop next to the library in 15 something has disappeared.
So, driving notes, probbaly nothing here you couldn’t have thought of yourself:
1. motorways are of course fast but – man!- SO boring and if I was a kid I’d whine and nag while on them. Also there are several toll motorways such as the one near Birmingham (M5) which the parsimonious Brits avoid mostly but you need to pay attention or you’ll find yourself being shunted into the toll gates and they cost something like L 4.50 (NZ $ 8) and maybe more for campervans/ towing. The only exeception to my no motorways rule if driving around and actually wanting to see the place would be the M25 which circles London and the (toll) Deptford Tunnel (about L 4 I think) which bypasses London to the East.
2. London and other large cities. DO NOT even THINK of driving into them. Even quite small towns such as Shrewsbury have a “park n ride” facility which is very handy although I have to say most people still drive their cars thru the medieval scale donkey-sized streets. Inside the M25 in London is the ‘congestion charging zone” so you have to buy a pricy ticket to drive in plus what I saw was that the traffic was exactly the same as before. Maybe this is not true in Pall Mall on a Sunday morning but didn’t go there so can not say.
3 Ok enuff bad news, here is the good news. Driving around on A and B roads is GREAT FUN because there is something to look at or stop and do every few minutes. In fact if I was doing what you will be, would probaby travel at about 10 miles a fortnight. EG: driving from bexhill (horrid town E Sussex), about 20 mins to town of Battle- yep, place where King Harold bought it with an arrow in the eye. An abbey was built on the spot then Henry VIII caused it to be oulled down etc. You get to explore the remnants, walk round the battlefield with an audio guide (NB no kiwi farmer would tolerate those weeds in his paddock for a moment) and find out that what the French (Normans) said was a REALLY big hill to charge up (le grand montagne) is actually a very mild little slope. Kids will enjoy. And BTW join English Heritage, you get cheap entry to tons and tons of places. Get a copy of “1066”and all that” to read too. (it’s a comic history book, good for those aged maybe 9 and up)
Another great thing is the farmers’ markets and little food shops where you can get yummy things to eat, always very local.
However, of course rain is constant and English people get very excited about the “lovely day” when a faint sun is just visible through the mist.
Hope all is going really well with you all, all the best.
Sarah
Hope all is going
Hey Rob and Rach,
What a crazy wonderful adventure you guys are on! Hoping you are still in Saigon as Sarah and I are here staying with some friends for a couple of weeks. Would love to catch up with you and for Sarah to meet you.
blessings,
carlton (and sarah)
Wow–you guys are great! We live abroad with our 3 kids changing country every few years, but you do it much faster and with many more kiddos than we have the stamina to do. Way to go–thanks for living our dream!
If you happen to find yourself hankering to go through Belarus, we’d love to help you out and show you around. It’s a very unique and amazing country. I hardly knew anything about this place less than a year ago, and now we call it home.
Good luck and I’ll keep reading!
Joy
PS–forgot to tell you I actually stumbled on your great website through Google Alerts on Belarus. It was Dan O’Huiginn’s blog on Irish Dancing and mentioned Belarusian dancers. Don’t know Dan, either, but something made me click on it, skim through, and then click on your link. Isn’t the net amazing?
Wonderful to see your blog & we have happy memories of your visit. Enjoy your travells & enjoy your life!
Mike is 70 today & can’t believe it – he wants to live to 750yrs old & keep travelling!
We went to Tamworth Castle which was wonderful.
Safe travells!
Helen, Mike & Adam
Hello and Happy Friday!
I wanted to congratulate you on your treks. It is an amazing story made even richer that you have 8 kids doing it with you. I am also a travel enthusiast. I have been stalled because of a tree accident in late September, but I am continuing to blog about the travel items that I can. I assume that my recovery will be complete in early 2010. I have taken the opportunity to add Kiwi Family to my blog roll. I would be delighted to be added to your World Travellers area as well. My link is http://www.mstravelingpants.travel/
Have a wonderful weekend!
Ciao
Ms Traveling Pants