My curiosity of other lands and people began with my immigrant parents–my Japanese dad, my mom the daughter of German bakers. She’d tell us stories about St.Nicholas Day, feed us German pastries. We received packages from our Obasan in Japan covered with beautiful stamps, cryptic Japanese writing scrawled on brown paper. Inside we’d find with origami paper, seaweed, beanpaste. My parents were excited to see explore their new country and every free museum and National State Park it had to offer.
My Dad was a high school math teacher, which meant three things–we had our summers off to travel, we didn’t have much money to do so, and were drilled on our rote times tables while being potty trained. You’ve heard of glamping? Well we created a form of camping located on the opposite end of the spectrum, called schlamping. It’s characterized by schleping your kids and canned goods around the country in a car that keeps breaking down, and uncomfortably schleeping in any patch of the car that doesn’t have a person, dog, or gerbil already on it. The contortionists at Circ-du-Soleil could not have boasted a better training.
Here was our summer routine. On the last day of school we would pile our family of five, plus three dogs, one gerbil, boxes of educational summer reading, buckets of peanut butter and hardrolls, into the station wagon. We would choose a general direction, then see as much free stuff as the country had to offer, while living in our car. We slept in rest areas and on the side of roads, no hotels, no restaurants. We occasionally splurged on a campsite. When we had only enough gas money to get us back and a loaf of Wonderbread, we’d turn around and go home for our end-of-summer showers. This is where my nomadic tendencies infused with low expectations was born, and why I’m so easily pleased. Through these childhood travels we visited all of the continental states, parts of Canada, nearly all of the National Parks, and more museums than I can count. It was simple but amazing.
My first plane ride and cross-cultural experience was when I was 14 and we visited my dad’s family in Japan. International trips are all fun and games until someone loses an appendix, which is what I did. On the flight to Tokyo I was having some tummy troubles which I attributed to those new fangled green noodles I ate. But no, it was something else. My first international experience was that of a Japanese hospital in Tokyo where the surgeon kept telling me he’d done such fine work and I could wear my bikini. I wanted to respond, “Are you kidding? My mom’s Mennonite, I’ll never get close to a bikini not matter how stellar perfect your Asian skin stichery is,” but I didn’t have the words.
My second cross-cultural experience happened in Northern Indiana. In high school we had a choice to spend a week cycling in Florida or living with a local Amish family. My curiosity (and butt preservation tendencies) chose the later. Instead of having fun in the sand and sun with my friends, I rode in freezing buggies, couldn’t wash my hair (baths only happened on Saturdays), ate copious quantities of flavorless food, and shoveled manure. My friends came back with trimmer tanned bodies, and I bragged that I had learned how to pee in the dark while stamping my feet so bugs wouldn’t crawl on them. I also learned that cultural exchanges aren’t always shiny and fun. I went to Florida the next year.
My third cross-cultural experience happened in college. I did the required four month Study, Service Trimester (SST) in Haiti with 21 other students. It was in the poorest country in the Western hemisphere that I lived the most affluent
lifestyle I’d ever had, the opposite of the program’s purpose. The host family had a huge house with help. These women cooked our food and washed our clothes by hand. It was crazy to have these luxuries when part of the program objective is to expose you to poorer developing country.
Paul was in my group in Haiti. Our first date was skipping class and going to the Iron Market. Foreshadowing.
After college we got married and spent many years eating popcorn and paying off our student loans. The only traveling that was happening was in our car to visit family or camping. At the same time we were part of a company that did incentive trips to five star resorts. This is how we went to Hawaii five times, Puerto Rico, Boca Raton, the Vegas. We know what it’s like to be pampered beyond what is reasonable.
In our late twenties we started our family and over the next nine years had three girls. We were heavily committed to their extra-curriculars, so our time and resources were going there. We still managed a fair bit of extra fun. We camped (a kid favorite, not a paternal one), rented an rv and drove it all over Eastern Canada, then down along the New England coast. Spring breaks usual ski trips when we rent a chalet–our favorite spot, Quebec City. We’ve done seven different cruises, from Mediterranean to all corners of the Caribbean. We have traveled with friends, other families, taken our kids’ friends, our extended family. The most complicated traveling we’ve done were the family heritage treks which involved multiple families and generations, in multiple countries. It was only after the birth of our third daughter that our destinations became more international. That’s when it started to get interesting.
In 2002 we did our first trip to Europe, Cali was a newborn. We raced like stupid people all over that continent for five weeks, because we didn’t know if we could ever afford to come back. But the trip was so mind-blowing and Southern France was Paul’s new happy wine-place. We ended up returning repeatedly to the e.u.
In 2007 we did a family sabbatical in Panajachel, Guatemala for six months. Our oldest daughter- 12, clicked with the place and begged to do some high school there. We did another family sabbatical for six months the last half of her junior year, and then stayed for the next two years. Then our middle daughter wanted to do her first year of high school there. That’s how we were introduced to ex-pat living in a developing country. It wasn’t the original plan, but that’s what unfolded. We lived for a total of three years in Guatemala.
Next we tried an Out-of-country/in-country experience. Because our oldest had some troubles with her Guatemalan high school diploma, we decided to make it easier on kid-2 (and her parents) by getting her an indisputable one. We still wanted have a different cultural experience, keep up the Spanish, keep the warm climate, but maybe throw in some clean water? That’s how we ended up in Miami. This is the closest we’ve found to having an out of country in-country experience. We did that for three years. Now with kid 2’s diploma box checked, we’re on to the next thing.
In 2015, when a school option for Cali unexpectedly fell through, we decided to travel for the year instead. Our middle daughter did her first year of college classes online. We ended up traveling for 402 days and saw 33 countries. Cali did all of 8th grade and half of 9th grade, Madi did her first year of University online–a total of 17 online classes. Kier joined us for both summers and Christmas.
Summer of 2017 we took squeezed 70 days out of our summer to go to Southeast Asia.
What do my travel dreams of the future look like? In a few years when the kids are off doing their own thing, Paul and I dream of putting stuff back in storage and hitting the world hard, like we mean it.
