A turmoil of emotions before our departure and who we are...

So here we are... we've dreamt of our voyage... we've finally decided to do it... we've acted on it and booked the tickets... we've got our bags, our camping gear and our passports ready.
So what's this feeling of slight panic hovering over us from time to time? Well I guess it's normal. Leaving our daily routine, our comfort zone, our friends and family is not going to be easy...

As the departure date approches, we find ourselves caught in a turmoil of emotions, ranging from panic and fear to absolute excitement

Our children are mostly excited.... Well that's what I think... they have their personal blogs, let's see if they concur...

Our family:

Kalan
Our eldest child has always dreamt of traveling, exploring and experiencing the world. He's always been fascinated by sciences, history and geography. For him, this trip is a dream come true.

Born in India, Kalan spent the first 2 years of his life in this highly diverse country and I believe that shaped him up for life. When we left India, we traveled to South Africa for a couple of months and then, when he was 3 years old, we flew to China (with baby Zephyr) for a wonderful two months period. Our extended travels as a family ended when Kalan started compulsory school but Kalan was born a world traveler...

Zephyr
Zephyr, on the other hand, is happy at home, in his comfortable room, reading a book. He explores the world through stories he either reads or invents himself. Gifted with a very sensitive and imaginative mind, Zeph brings the whole world within the four walls of his bedroom. He doesn't understand the need for us to travel around the globe when fantastic adventures can happen in the pages of a book. However, after much deliberation, he agreed to plunge into the family adventure, thank you, Zeph! We are aware we're asking a lot from you and we'll do our best to accommodate you.

Zephyr loves to read, as I mentioned already, but he also enjoys writing stories and he aspires to become a professional writer one day. His blog is going to be a good opportunity for him to exercise his writing skills. Zephyr's blog will be printed and displayed in our local library, thanks to Luciana, Zephyr's beloved librarian friend. Merci Luciana!

Anokhi
​Anokhi, our little whirlwind girl, is difficult to keep in place at the best of times. So yes, she's ready! In fact, she's always been ready to take on the world. Ready to see new places, ready to experience new things but most of all, Anokhi is ready to meet people and talk to them. Beware, whoever crosses our path, Anokhi has a lot of things to say and if she can't talk to you because of the language barrier, well that won't stop her talking to you anyway or trying to connect somehow with you.

Anokhi is very expressive, she draws beautifully, she's very talented in crafts and she loves dancing. She's passionate about theatre and music but mostly about life itself... She's a little tornado, full of laughter, mischief and energy!

Kean and I
We've traveled a lot but not enough yet... We are both children of bi-national families. Between the two of us, we cover 3 continents and, actually, if we look at our family histories, we probably cover more.
Kean and I have also lived in different countries and traveled for long periods in others. We lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for 3 years, in India for 2 years and traveled for extended periods to China and South Africa. Our round-the-world trip will also be a chance for us to introduce our children to our friends and family around the world.

Kean enjoyed the richness of different cultural backgrounds during his childhood. When he finished university, he worked in a variety of jobs for a multi-national company and managed worldwide teams, which meant he had to travel regularly around the globe. Kean thoroughly enjoyed his professional trips and now looks forward to travelling privately - and in a much more basic fashion - with our children.

As for myself, well, my parents probably transmitted the passion of travel to me when I was in my mother's womb already... As far as I can remember, my parents have always talked about the next places they wanted to travel to. They often had a gigantic edition of the National Geographic Atlas open on their coffee table or books about exotic flora & fauna and the beautiful wonders of the world. 
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When I graduated from school, I naturally decided to study languages and humanities and then moved on to study English, social psychology, ethnology and cultural anthropology for 3 years at university. We moved abroad at the end of my third year, therefor my degree was left unfinished. On the other hand, moving abroad allowed me to apply theory to practice. It was a great experience which taught me a lot of things one couldn't learn on university benches.

In one sentence, if I had to sum things up, I would say that the world fascinates us and we look forward to discovering more of it with our children!
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​We are ready... are our kids ready?  (I think so)... so let's go!

Blog post written by Celia