If you have told me last March that we would be having a picnic in front of the Eiffel Tower soon, I’d probably laugh at you. Unlike most families we get to watch on YouTube who go travel the world for a living (oh well, maybe if you support our YouTube Channel😁), our family of four does what most families do (have normal jobs), live in Singapore, and relying on a single income, I’m a SAHM. So the chances of us doing this is quite slim given the high cost of living here. Yet, life is truly full of surprises and incredibly unpredictable, you just have to hold your breathe at times, be grateful, and to pinch yourself into reality!
I grew up with my parents working abroad. They made sure though to make up with quality time every school vacation. So you can imagine our anticipation whenever March comes nearer (school year in the Philippines starts June and ends in March) so we can go fly to Japan to visit our parents. Let’s just say, I got that love for travel because of my parents. Riding our mini-van, we would do convoy trips with my aunts and uncle who are on their own mini-vans as well with our cousins around the mountains of Japan. Those memories are really memorable ones that I wouldn’t forget and a topic we could talk about the whole day laughing without fail.
Being a parent myself now, I for sure would love to have those kind of memories with our children as well. So equipped with a grateful heart for any opportunity that may came our way, hard work from the hubs, and a watchful eye on our finances, we didn’t have any second thoughts when the chance for our family to go on a Europe trip arise.
Taking one hiccup at a time that came our way, we managed to pull off the most epic trip our family have gone to to-date! I guess I’ll make another blog post on all the hiccups we’ve managed to find a solution with. For now, here’s the details of our Europe travel:
- Flew from Singapore to Greece via Scoot Airline
- Flew from Greece to Netherlands via Aegean Airline
- Travelled by train from Netherlands to France passing through Belgium via Eurail
- Travelled by train from France to Italy passing through Switzerlands via Eurail
- Flew from Italy to Singapore passing through Finland via FinnAir
All in all, that’s a staggering 30hrs 90mins on air(on a plane) and 1 day 17hrs on a train in a total of 18 days. Isn’t that amazing!!! That may be a long time but since did stayed most of those days in Greece and Netherlands and only started our train travel on the last 8 days our trip, I must say, we’re all happy to be back home in Singapore to have a good rest by the end of our trip. haha…
So why would I still encourage parents to go on an epic adventure travelling with their kids? Here’s the reasons why:
- You want it. If you love travelling like me, that love for travelling isn’t removed from your identity no matter how many kids you have nor no matter what age your children may be at the time being. If you have the means (time and money) to do so, do it!
- You need it. Being a parent comes with tons of responsibilities. We are all humans and needed a break once in a while. A change in scenery, gaining new experiences, and adding up some family memories can’t be exchanged with any material thing.
- You get to save. Being both from the field of Finance, we can’t deny how much conscious we are when it comes to our expenses when we travel. That’s why, one thing we love about travelling with our kids is we get to save from fare. From either travelling for FREE or HALF-PRICE on airfare to totally FREE on trains such as SHINKANSEN (when we travelled in Japan back in 2019) or EURAIL (when we travelled now in 2022).
- You’ll remember it. One phrase parents always get from others when they travel with their young is this, “Travel when your kids are older so they’ll remember it too“. Well, I’ve got only 3 things to say to them, “I’ll surely remember the trip and would document it with tons of photos so my kids would get to see it when they’re older” , “We’ll go back again when they are older if it’s worth visiting again“, and lastly, “Appreciate your opinion but we think we’re doing great with out parenting, thank you, you can go ahead and mind your own business.” haha…okay, that last ones can be pretty harsh and personally I haven’t used that but given in our society today where everyone seems to know too well of everything on everything, you have my blessing to use it if the need arises.😉
- You only get to do it now. Life is short. Yesterday has already gone and we can’t be sure of tomorrow. Our only guarantee is today, so always make the most of it. Once your kids have gone bigger, you might not have the time or resources (money) to go on a trip, or your kids may rather go on trips on their own. Now is the time you get to spend with them, so go ahead and do it!
Okay, I know this blog post can be too optimistic and blindsided by the cons of travelling with kids, so let me do another blog post on that just so you can get to prepare from all of them as well. One thing’s for sure though, it may be difficult, hard, and tiring but with a few tips and tricks on how your trip can be made easier for you and your child, I guarantee you, IT WOULD BE ALL WORTH IT!
Are you going on a family trip soon? I’d love to hear where you’re heading or where you’ve been to!Let’s share ideas, tips, places to travel, etc. and do what moms do best at…SUPPORTING EACH OTHER!
Cheers to EPIC FAMILY TRIPS!