Family Gap Year, Familymoon or Sabbatical – the concept of taking time away to travel and explore new destinations as a family goes by many names and is certainly not new. What is unique, however, are the families that undertake them, their expectations, and experiences on the journey.
Our decision to keep a blog is driven mainly by the desire for us and the kids to have a record of our travels, but also to help others plan their own journeys and to keep family and friends abreast of our whereabouts.
In planning and researching our sabbatical, we came across a number of resources that was of great help. There was no need to figure things out from scratch, but what we did find was that a lot of the advice was from American, Australian or British families. As South Africans, we sometimes have a different perspective. We are spoilt with the natural beauty, culinary and cultural experiences right on our doorstep, and we measure the rest of the world against that! As Saffas we also have a number of challenges, not least our geographical remoteness and cost of flights from the southern-most tip of Africa, traveling on Rands, having a SA passport and an Afrikaans accent others tend to get lost in.
I suspect that this blog will also serve to remind us, as we constantly update and revise it, that some of our ideas and plans were naïve or just plain stupid. Buy hey, we’re off!
OUR PATH TO PACKING OUR BAGS
My wife and I have always looked for opportunities to travel, both of us worked abroad after completing our studies and as a married couple we tried to take time off from work to tick off bucket list items as and when possible, usually one or two week-long trips per year. As a working couple with two young boys making their way from pre-school into primary school, these opportunities seemed to be harder to come by.
I can’t recall exactly when or why we first started talking about a sabbatical. I think it was somewhere around 2019 that I stumbled across an article on social media about a family couch-surfing through Europe. As these things go, once we started discussing it, the more information seemed to find their way to us but work, life (and yes, Covid) always seemed to keep it just out of reach.
Over time an outline of how it could work started to emerge and we broke it down into a number of steps: WHY do it, CAN we do it, and WHERE to go?
Decide WHY you want to do it. We have a brilliant life, with family and friends all within shouting distance for a braai. Uprooting our family and leaving our comfortable beds behind had to be worth it. We made a list of what we wanted to ‘get out of it’ and kept it simple:
- Be travelers, not tourists. Take the opportunity to discover places and have experiences that we would not have if we were pressed for time.
- Mental and physical well-being. Wherever we went, has to lend itself to positive experiences, with the focus on outdoors activities such as hiking, diving and snorkeling.
- Food. We’re Saffas, and we love good food and wine.
- Fun, especially for the kids.
- Learn about new cultures
The next question was, CAN we do it? In August 2021 we got serious and gave ourselves two months to make the call whether it is possible to pursue.
I began by setting aside time every day to do research, which basically entailed making lists, including:
- Costings. This was the most important, as you have to have a clear budget and determine affordability
- Work requirements
- any and all items of administration that would be required, for example canceling subscriptions, sending out notifications and any deadlines for steps in the process.
The conversations about work requirements changed a lot over the time that we explored our options. Today’s white-collar staff are living through a radical transformation of professional life. The conventional wisdom that your career determines how you live in your 30’s/40’s and even your 50’s and 60's has changed. While the clues were there before the pandemic struck, the pandemic has changed the nature of work, and the way work gets done. This could mean changing how you perceive a ‘work week’ or slowing down your rat-race pace so that you can pursue a fulfilling career well past retirement age. Once we came to the conclusion that both of us see ourselves pursuing our professional interests and careers in one form or another well past retirement age, it was easy to 'justify' spending more time traveling now as a family.
WHERE would we want to go?
We made a list (yes, another one) of the pros and cons of different places that we have always wanted to learn more about. We researched the travel routes, weather, basic costings and read reviews of each and an itinerary started to take shape.
Given our desire for outdoors activities, and the practicalities of having to carry both our own luggage as well as those of the kids, we decided to focus on a swallow itinerary, i.e. follow the sun and leave the coats at home.
Our first draft listed the countries or territories, by the time of year that were suited to our plans. This list has since been chopped and changed many times (either by choice, or by necessity!) but I include it here as a reminder to ourselves that plans can, and will, change.
- February: Bali, Malaysia
- March: Vietnam (March is good for whole country North to South), Phuket / Kaoh Lak / Similan islands (diving)
- April: Singapore, Koh Samui, Cambodia
- May: Sri Lanka, Israel, Turkey
- June: Egypt
- July: Spain / Portugal, Italy, France
- August: Greece, Croatia
- September: USD East Coast - New York / Washington / Georgia / Florida (Disney World), Florida Keys
- October: Costa Rica, Brazil
- November: Panama, Argentina, Chile, Peru
- December: Australia
- January: New Zealand, Fiji