It's time for the part of the trip most feared by A9 and G6. Four travel vaccinations each to keep us as healthy as possible while we travel Asia. Possibly, if had just been the dutchman and I, we wouldn't have had as many as we did, but we feel more responsibility to the children to avoid avoidable illness! After a very informative meeting at the travel clinic in Christchurch, I came home with a list of essential vaccinations and a price estimate equivalent to 2 months of our travel budget??!! ($3220!). Luckily having done my homework, I knew that the medical centres in Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur can provide all these jabs at a fraction of the cost. Queen Saovabha Memorial Institute is well known and respected by travellers worldwide. It is close to Lumpini Park and Silom. There is a snake farm on site, which we enjoyed strolling around. It includes displays on how they extract venom for antidotes. We saw a huge king cobra and a massive Burmese python, amongst many others. It was like 'where's wally' trying to find them in each enclosure! What did we need? After much discussion, we chose for the little ones to get Hep A, Typhoid, and Japanese encephalitis. The dutchman and I both needed Typhoid vaccine as well as boosters for tetanus and Hep A. We also decided to add Japanese encephalitis vaccine as we were making the children get them and it only seemed fair! Prices: in NZ in Thailand Hepatitis A $100 1400 baht (NZ$56) Typhoid $ 65 400 baht (NZ$15) Tetanus $ 30 80 baht (NZ$3) Japanese encephalitis $ 610 460 baht (NZ$18) (THB 9,360) TOTAL for 4 of us NZ $3220 (NZ$365) (US$ 2256) (US$ 265)
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The decision to leave jobs and take children out of school for a year was not made overnight nor lightly. It was, in fact, dreamed up many moons ago (prior to getting married in 2005), with a hugely optimistic view of what life would have in store for us. It was just a matter to decide 'where' and 'when'! The 'where' initially could have been anywhere, but over time has had to adapt to 'where we can afford'. Our budget for the family is just NZ$50 per day (...roughly what we spend on groceries at home each week). This has drastically narrowed our options to South East Asia and Central America. The cheap flights into and around Asia as well as the spectacular food made our choice easy. This book provided plenty of incentive! It is available on Amazon and shows you rough prices for many locations worldwide. The 'when' just seemed to make sense. The children are in the 'not too old' and 'not too young' bracket. Young enough that they are still quite happy to come with us, and old enough that they have a reasonable grounding at school. We were also of the belief that you will never find a perfect time for such an adventure and this may be as good as it gets. Both the dutchman and I have a genuine love of travelling and were always off globe trotting prior to the cherubs joining us. This was curbed financially for a while, but we still managed the odd little trip with pre-schoolers. Then in 2014 , we took 10 weeks to travel to Thailand, Denmark, France, Austria, Germany, Slovenia, Italy and Singapore. The kids suprised us with how well they travelled, and never complained about being on the move. As a family we were so close after this trip and our children remain best buddies even now. In 2016, we tried backpacking in Indonesia for 3 weeks as a tester and decided were finally ready for the 12 month adventure we had long dreamed of. "I don't want to get to the end of my life and find that I just lived the length of it...I want to live the width of it as well" We have a unique opportunity to choose what we teach our children based on what we find on our journey. Of course, there is a place for curricular subjects, but these will be interwoven into life experiences in culture, cuisine, language and wildlife. everyday is a new adventure.... this would help our children buy more books for their kindles ;)
Flights are booked, travel insurance sorted, and we even have a tenant confirmed to move into our house 3 days before we leave. Where are we off to? ....well, in honesty we haven't completely decided??!! We are off to explore Asia for one year with our two fabulous kids. The plan for 2017 is to have no plans and to be able to make the most of opportunities as they arise. A situation which seems impossible in the hustle and bustle of everyday family life. In the 'crazy' of getting kids out the door to school, activities, and work, it's easy to forget to stop, breathe and live each moment. Childhood these days is worlds apart from what we were lucky enough to enjoy in the 70's and 80's. Our children have less freedom, responsibilty, and more pressure on outcomes. There seems to be more fear and greater insecurities in children these days. We can't wait to world school our children for one amazing year, giving them a taste of a simple life on a tight budget. We want them to feel bored from time to time, and learn to appreciate and understand other cultures and lifestyles. We would rather own little and see the world, than to own the world and see little of it ! In the meantime, we countdown our last 8 weeks til freedom. My advice to get you through the end of year, and christmas season : ' inhale, exhale, repeat....' |
finding freedom with four backpacks
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