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A few weeks ago, I was appreciating insights from Mali’s extremely
long trip to the UK, and I commented that I would write our travel tips. Her post and writing down my own made me realize that how we travel (what is important to us when we go somewhere) is so personal that what works for one person probably won’t work for another. But in case this helps anyone:

• We have a master packing list that we use for every trip. It has everything we need for a weekend at the beach or three weeks in France. When we’re going on a trip, I hit duplicate and delete things off the list that we don’t need, such as a passport at the beach. It’s a streamlined list, so I never overpack or forget anything. I used every piece of clothing on this trip, but I also fit all in a carry-on.
• Speaking of which, we pack all clothes and non-liquid toiletries in carry-on bags. Then we pack a duffle bag inside a suitcase and check it. Our plane tickets often come with one checked bag each. The checked bag has our meals (see below) and toiletries. During the trip, the large suitcase collects dirty laundry, and when we pop out the duffle bag at the last stop, it gives us an extra bag for things we bring back with us.
• No matter where we go, we bring breakfast, coffee, and lunch with us. Those meals don’t matter to us, and we save a ton of money and time that way. I have a scoop of peanut butter and VIA coffee in the room, and usually a kind bar for an early lunch. Then we get a snack and dinner out.
• We also sometimes do what the kids call grocery dinners. Instead of getting takeaway, we go to the grocery store and get veggies and yogurt and crackers or prepared foods. Can you tell that meals don’t really matter to us unless it’s a favourite restaurant?
• We record a family audio journal every night. We started doing this when the twins were eight (when I first got a recording device), and we only do it for longer trips (vs. a weekend at the beach). By talking through the day for 10 – 15 minutes every night, we capture all the details and everyone’s memories, and we go back and listen to them and remember things we’ve forgotten all the time. We weren’t great about getting everything down in a written journal, but the audio journal has been a low-lift with a big pay off.

What are your best travel tips?

25 years ago, I ate the best picnic on my friend’s living room floor of Linda McCartney sausages, toast, and tea. We can’t get them in the US. Whenever we’re in a country that carries them, we don’t have a kitchen to prepare them. So the most I’ve gotten to do for the past 25 years is go to grocery stores and stare at the box in the freezer section.

But Josh got us an aparthotel in York with a full kitchen. We headed out to the grocery store, purchased everything we’d need to remake the meal, and I fried up vegan sausages for the family.

They were just as good as I remembered 25 years ago. Even better because we were sitting at a table, and I wasn’t jet-lagged. Well worth the wait.

We were supposed to go to Spain for winter break this year, but we put off purchasing tickets during the flooding, and the day after the election, Josh commented that we needed a trip that felt like a hug. We had a family meeting that night and decided to switch plans and go to the UK.

We wanted to end up in London, staying in our favourite hotel and going to our favourite restaurant and doing our favourite things. But we also wanted to add in a few places we haven’t been before, so we dropped in Devon, Suffolk, Norfolk, Yorkshire, County Durham, and Oxfordshire; visiting a few towns in each county.

I loved spending time with the kids in a place we enjoyed and watching all of us relax for a few weeks. The ChickieNob walked us through the architecture of every cathedral and the history of each town. The Wolvog photographed each space so we could look back on it once we were home.

We ate cake pretty much every day, and one time, the Wolvog convinced us that it would be an excellent idea to eat a second round of scones. (Spoiler alert: It was not.) We saw two plays, had two sessions in rare book rooms, went back to Buckingham Palace for the East Wing tour (which took you into the room with the famous balcony), bought a lot of books, fell in love with two churches, walked on the beach in Southwold, and saw the earliest mermaid carving in England in Durham Castle (around 1078).

A story: Before we left Bury St. Edmunds, we returned to the abbey gardens to walk through one last time on the way back to the bus. A man sat on the ground by the front gate, surrounded by 30 – 40 pigeons. Some of the pigeons had lined up in front of him, and they took turns jumping into his lap where he would pick them up, cuddle them for a moment, nuzzle the top of their head with his cheek, and then open his hands to release them. They would fly a few feet away, and the next pigeon would hop into his lap for its cuddle. One, it was incredible to see the patience and organization on the part of the birds. Two, the moment filled me with hope for the world. There are people out there who spend their afternoon cuddling birds, and they are just as real as the people out there set to do damage. The key is remembering that.

I am not writing my blog right now because I want to spend time with the twins before they return to college. I scheduled these posts so the blog wouldn’t be empty and I could have space to best use the end of their break. A cop-out, but forgive me. Having them go is really, really hard. I need mental space to feel what I am feeling, help the kids through the transition, and sit in the quiet for a moment on the other side.

On Thursday evening, Josh bought the ChickieNob her first cherry chapstick. She had been coveting one for a while and he was at the grocery store, so he picked one up to surprise her. Needless to say, she instantly fell in love with her lip balm. So much so that when I took her brother to his guitar lesson, she brought it along just to hold it in her hand because she didn’t want to leave it back in the house.

And then she visited the school of chapstick hardknocks.

She did what ever single person has done at some point in her life, that quintessential moment of childhood when you absentmindedly (or in some cases purposefully) twist the bottom gear until the chapstick is up as high as it will go. For a few moments, she marveled at the red brick of waxy lip balm. And then she was taught the lesson every child learns the hard way: that twisting the gear to its limit brings about instant chapstick death.

Read the whole post here.

I am not writing my blog right now because I want to spend time with the twins before they return to college. I scheduled these posts so the blog wouldn’t be empty and I could have space to best use the end of their break. A cop-out, but forgive me. Having them go is really, really hard. I need mental space to feel what I am feeling, help the kids through the transition, and sit in the quiet for a moment on the other side.

1. I love long names–the twins each have two middle names for a total of four names each.
2. I have a mortal fear of mayonnaise.
3. I hate surprises so no surprise parties; but I also hate surprises so much that I rarely see a film unless someone else has already seen it and told me everything that will happen. Even with non-scary/sad films. I also made Josh give me a three month window for when he was planning to propose so that I could prepare myself for it.
4. I also don’t like receiving flowers. Seeing them outside the house is great. Inside the house, not so much.
5. When I travel, I carry a picture of myself taken in the Galilee after our boat broke down.

Read the whole post here.

P.S. Though I often wear scarves, so that one is no longer true.