Category: Travel Goals

Our Five Favorite Kid-Friendly Places in Turkey

by turknoys, posted in Travel Goals, Turkey

Turkey! Turkey! It’s great country to travel with kids!

Home sweet home adventures are the best! There is just pure joy in traveling in Turkey. This country is home for us. We don’t live here for now, but our hearts will always be thinking of family and awesome places in this majestic and historical country. To use Alexander The Great’s metaphor, The Capital of The World. (He’s referring to Constantinople, now Istanbul… but the entire Turkey for our family is, The Capital of The World.)

Since, we have been asked often what are the places to visit in Turkey, thought it would be a great idea to list our favourites, so far.  Places we actually visited with kids, where it is possible for the parents and kids to enjoy both at the same time, while learning from the adventures.

There are a lot of places  to visit in Turkey. This list is no way comprehensive (our five top favourite places!) and no way connected to any travel agencies.

1. Pamukkale – This means “Cotton Castle” in Turkish. Travertine thermal springs, pools and limestone walls can be enjoyed for several days in any season. We have visited the place  during winter and we still enjoyed the springs with much lesser crowd.  We also enjoyed the oldest swimming in the world.There are a lot of limestone fallen formation which makes the place look like a make-believe world. Discussions with kids can be focused on science or geography!

Pamukkale means Cotton Castles!

The Ancient City of Hierapolis is also adjacent to the city which  can be a huge playground for kids while studying archaeology and history.

This is number 1 on our list and seriously, an underrated tourist attraction in Turkey!      

2. Cappadocia – This place is also number 1 in our hearts! Lots of first for our family. First Hot Air Balloon Ride, stayed in an actual cave for several days, can hotel, that is, explored the underground city, definitely seemed like a make-believe world like Pamukkale.

Cappadoccia. – lots of firsts for our family!
3. Troia  – This maybe Brad Pitt influenced way more than Homer, but being the actual place of Troy, where the Trojan Horse maybe located for real, is just awesome baseline discussion about Homer with kids.

This is a personal choice for us and unless you really love history and archeology, this may be a bit of “tourist trap.” for those tourists who will get of their way to visit.

Troy, kids inside the Trojan Horse!

4.  Temple of Athena – The place is close to Izmir and Ephesus, but the view from the Temple defines serenity. Not necessarily recommended for travel with kids, but for those looking for solitude. We were just lucky, we managed to enjoy the view and serenity with kids. Great moments.

Temple of Athena and Mount Ida. – serenity !

5. The Capital of the World – Constantinople or modern day Istanbul – There are a lot of things to do. Full week exploring with kids may not be sufficient. The list just goes on.. Hagia Sofia, Blue Mosque, Topkapi Palace and Bhosporus Boat Trip!

Blue Mosque
Hagia Sofia

To stay in one continent and see the the other one from afar – this should be on everybody’s bucket list, don’t you think?! Visit Istanbul!

 

 

 

 

 

Atlas is a Myth! 

by turknoys, posted in Nepal, Qatar, Travel Goals

 Atlas wasn’t forced to hold up the world. He was convinced that if he didn’t, the world would fall.

Atlas is the Titan God of Astronomy and Endurance. Endurance? Who endures astronomy? Astronomy is an exploration, a fascination for all of us, the endless journey into the unknown and timeless magnificence.

Astronomy should be an endless and timeless exploration. Not an endless and timeless endurance.

Yet, somehow, Greek mythology managed to tame the wild and free souls of ancient people. As early as those ages, we are scared to have unlimited boundaries to explore, so we bury ourselves with the preconceived irony of life.

God of Astronomy and Endurance. Yes, you have the capacity to explore yet you should choose to stay put and hold up the world otherwise, if the world would fall then you are a failure at being god. You, Atlas, should endure the responsibility of the world! 

But, hey, it’s your choice! You are God of Astronomy, you can explore the universe. But remember. You are also God of Endurance! Don’t enjoy exploring too much that you forgot to endure and suffer with your responsibilities to the world.

See the ironic sense there? We do. It’s very obvious. We see it in all patterns in life.

Each of us have become our own version of “Atlas”. We hold the world in a certain standard because we were told to, expected to. Otherwise, the world would fall flat to our faces with shame and embarrassment. We all have responsibilities, we all need to hold up the world. Otherwise, the world would fall. The people around us would crumble.

We are all raised to conformance. Raised to follow a certain pattern in life set by our parents, by our religion, by school and by society. We get so molded by norms, rules, commandments, expectations that being a good person means full compliance. 

Being human, we all scream to be free, to be wild, yet we are tamed to conformance. We are tamed to follow order.

Yet, we are always reminded by the same institutions who mold us that we are free. That everything we are now is because of our choices!

And yes! Like Atlas, we all believe that we are free to choose the life we want. This seems like an immense illusion?

Yes but there is a bigger illusion. The real illusion is not the free choices we make in life, the bigger illusion is the world falling, people around us crumbling! The odds of those happening depends how we look at the illusion of our roles in carrying the world.

If Atlas only learn to let go of the world, the world would carry him and continue its rotation and revolution, playing its part in the Universe.

Nobody should carry the world on its shoulder. Nobody can.

Our existence in this world is important. It is. Because it is unique! Nobody is responsible for our existence but ourselves.

We are responsible for our own choices, for our own way of living life. If we screw it up, then we only have ourselves to blame.

See that highest peak in the world, Mt. Everest? It’s within anybody’s reach! Especially for this kid!

That is way more scary right? To be responsible for our own decisions? Then we have no one to blame? Can’t blame our parents, our religion, our school, our society? If we stood our ground and live the life we always wanted, and we fail, that is a huge slap to our faces.

Why risk those odds? Let’s just conform and be the majority. Let’s continue holding the world, because the world will not fall and we will be safe and conforming.

For our family and with our travel goals, Turknoy Travel 100, we choose to let go of the world and enjoy the view of the world’s rotation and revolution, as it should be.

We aim to travel. A lot.

We don’t send the kids to school because we believe in learning, not indoctrination.

We do not belong to any religion, we believe in God strongly.

Our ways and means of parenting are frown upon by elders and society, we listen, to them but we make our own decisions based on the uniqueness of our children.

Our children are unique individuals. Parents are happily together with similar goals in life yet we cherish the differences in our personalities. Who we evolved to be will be based on how each one of us wanted to evolve.

Everybody is unique. We can’t carry someone else’s responsibilities for themselves. Not family. Not school. Not religion. Nobody.

With eyes wide open, we love every moment of our lives. That very scary part, we are willing to face. If the world drops, which we believe it won’t, the blame is on us. That’s cool. Tell us, “We told you so.. “ and we will just say back, “It was worth our while!”

The world is there to be explored, not to stay on our shoulder and treat as a burden.

That is one mythology we are willing to tell to our kids.

 

“Make Voyages . Attempt Them. There’s Nothing Else. “

Just Go For It! 

by turknoys, posted in Sweden, Travel Goals

“I learn by going where I have to go.” – Theodore Roethke

The fun thing about life is we will never know what we are capable of doing and achieving  until we know better. 

And the very unfortunate thing in life is we will never know better until we just go for it… 

Ahhh, life is great! It makes taking risks less risky because we kinda know that we all don’t know what we are doing anyways! 

(If you don’t know this, then newsflash – we are all winging it in this life!)

So, why not throw all inhibitions out of the way and just GO FOR IT!

There is a big world out there to explore and to experience. Endless surprises awaits anybody who has the courage to ask for it. So, we always just say GO FOR IT! 

These are the most common phrases we hear ourselves say to why we should not travel with kids. Just change the “travel with kids” with any goals your hearts are crying out to achieve but scared to accomplish and we’re on the same page.

Since our goals are set already, we try to be hard on ourselves to kick our a$$ to action. Usually works for us. Hope this works for you, too.

1. “Uhmm, I don’t know….” – which actually means I’m too lame (or pathetic) to even source out information from Google and Wikipedia or talk to friends and colleagues who know about stuff! Don’t be lame, JUST GO FOR IT!
 

2. “I don’t have the resources,” similar to “I don’t have time” or “It’s expensive.” – Which actually means I’m too lame (or pathetic) to even source out information from Google and Wikipedia and other sources to work my way around lack of resources. So we say, “Don’t be lame, JUST GO FOR IT!”

 
3. “It’s complicated. I have so many considerations to make…” which actually means “I’m too lazy to move out of my comfort zone. So we say, “Don’t be lazy, JUST GO FOR IT!”

4. “I don’t think I can do that..” which actually means again that  I’m too lazy to move out of my comfort zone. So we say, “Don’t be lazy, JUST GO FOR IT!”
 

5. “I really want to do that..BUT…” which means “But, I really don’t want to.” So we say, If really want to, JUST GO FOR IT!  If you don’t really want to, let’s move on, quit it! 

Eye on the ball or drop the ball! It’s that simple. The first one requires a lot of balls working, though. That’s an awesome thing! 
Yes, just go for it and then we’ll know better. That’s life and living life.

Dreams. Goals. They can come true.

  

No filter required #turknoys #turknoytravels100 #country12 Lapland where we experienced Aurora borealis #northernlights for three consecutive nights! Family goals do come true! For real! #unicornvibes #travel #travelgoals #familytravel #travelwithkids #familygoals #travelblog #unschooling #homeeducation #sweden #lapland #abisko #kiruna #bucketlist

Life is Pilgrim for All, Kids Included

by turknoys, posted in France, Italy, Nepal, Travel Goals

“To journey without being changed is to be nomad; to change without journeying is to be a chameleon; to journey and be transformed by the journey is to be pilgrim.” – Mark Nepo

The picture of traveling with kids used to give me images of whining, crying, outbursts and lots of kicks at the backseat of the plane (oh that poor passenger!) Not to mention the screams of “I am tired.”, “My feet hurt really bad, we are walking for hours!” and “We are starving.”, shouts of suffering like we subjected them to the huge amounts of torture while traveling.

And yes, that look of fellow travelers, and locals in the area… The – “What are these parents thinking?”-look. And the “Some people should not be parents!”-look, joined with “Oh these poor starving, tired kids, being dragged by their parents to foreign, scary places.” – look.

Side note: We don’t like judging the people we meet on the road when our family travel but we like to judge ourselves through the eyes of these people. That is a bad habit and we are working on that.

But, yes. Traveling with kids are these images, looks and judgments. Not going to sugar-coat that. Traveling with kids is not easy. Traveling with kids is sometimes a form of torture to all family members and people surround us (especially that fellow airplane passenger.)

#turknoys #turknoytravels100 #country4 another rainy day at the Vatican City! “To journey without being changed, is to be a nomad. To change without journeying is to be a chameleon. To journey and to be transformed by the journeying is to be a pilgrim.”–Mark Nepo Cheers to all of us finding our pilgrim! 🦄🦄#unicornvibes #travel #travelblog #familygoals #travelgoals #travelwithkids #familytravel #unschooling

Yet, we are advocates of family travel. We are passionate about packing our bags times five not because it’s fun at all times (it is fun most of the time.) nor we like to torture ourselves (notice, how many times the word torture appears on this blog post!)

We like traveling with kids because of the golden moments.

Kids are pretty good at being in the moment, enjoying the moments.

Experience people, places and events in their wholeness. To be mindful of the moment. To be a child again with no worries. This is our golden take away from life’s experiences, what we always observe when we travel with our turknoy kids.

We constantly move places to evolve, to travel. Yet when we are in certain place, we let the place evolve us. Enjoying the place, the people in their wholeness, that is what makes traveling a pilgrim.

#turknoys #turknoytravels100 #nepal #country9 Getting cozy with the holy people! “One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.” – Henry Miller #unicornvibes #travel #travelblog #travelwithkids #travelgoals #familytravel

It’s so easy with kids to identify what they appreciate and what they don’t. When we take them to museums, their body languages tell us what they love to see. It doesn’t matter if it’s a famous painting or sculpture. They are not influenced by the preconceived notion or majority’s view of what is great and what is awesome. Their eyes know and seeing that spark every time they see something new for the first time, and they love it, that’s appreciating something in their wholeness.

What is not easy however, is for us, “molded” adults to let them choose and enjoy their own moments.

When all the kids didn’t like to be among the crowd who wanted to see Mona Lisa in the Louvre, Mom and Dad were like.. “Uhm, what the?! We took you to Paris and Louvre so you can see the magnificence of this painting, world-class, timeless masterpiece and.. you don’t want to wait your turn to take a picture with Mona Lisa?! Are you all kidding? (or in our mind – are you f*&%ing kidding us?!) A million kids would want to have your place and see this once in a lifetime opportunity and you want to pick your sister’s nose?! (True story!) – to which they replied: But, Mom, she has something in her nose!.. and it seems illogical at that time. And truly a waste of time and lots of euros!

These kids chose picking Kayra’s nose over oogling and admiring Mona Lisa. And when we forced them, they turned cranky and grumpy followed by a lot of whining!

Our younges Turknoy and Mona Lisa 😜😜

That doesn’t sound like a “pilgrim” to anyone. Well, it certainly didn’t sound like a pilgrim for us then and now. Just a making a point here. No judgment, remember?

The hardest part of traveling with kids, and parenting kids, in general is when we take them to certain places where we want them to look at what we think are awesome, magnificent masterpieces and they choose to look elsewhere, to what they think are awesome, magnificent, masterpieces.

Traveling with kids doesn’t not mean they are going with the flow and itinerary of the parents. Traveling with kids, as difficult and inflexible it may sound, means five different minds and hearts each finding their moments and wanting to be transformed by the journey.

After exploring several countries, we are slowly learning to let go and have the kids enjoy their own journey leading to their own pilgrims. It didn’t even bother us when they chose hanging out with the pilots instead of looking at how great and magnificent Mount Everest peak is. We had to emphasized to ourselves that the peak of the highest mountain in the world is magnificent for us, what is awesome for the kids are the pilot and co-pilot navigating the plane. There is nothing wrong there.

Our Turknoy enjoying hanging out with the plane co-pilot instead of enjoying the peak of Mt. Everest!

Kids are pretty good at being in the moment, enjoying the moments. Moments important for them, not by dictated by anyone or anything.

That’s how kids evolve. That’s how people evolve and learn from places and experiences.

Now, our picture of traveling with kids give us images of Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, images of three cheeky monkeys transforming into three awesome, strong willed adults equipped with passion and memories to change the world.

That’s an image worth the torture, uhhm….Yeah, I mean challenges when trading  with kids.

Why 100? 

by turknoys, posted in France, Travel Goals

 “All the pathos and irony of leaving one’s youth behind is thus implicit in every joyous moment of travel: one knows that the first joy can never be recovered, and the wise traveler learns not to repeat successes but tries new places all the time.” – Paul Fussell 

Our family’s first hot air balloon ride! First for all of us, exploring Cappadocia, Turkey! #turknoys #turknoytravels100 #travel #travelblog #travelwithkids #unicornvibes #travelgoals #turkey #cappadocia #hotairballoon

There are 196 independent countries in our world today. So, why 100 countries by 2023? 

Our primary reason why 100 countries is because we want to provide the kids our best milestones for our available resources in a limited time. 

Doing some simple math, that is more than 50% of the total countries. This means that if (when! – we are the optimistic bunch, right?!) we achieve our travel goals before the kids turn legal age, we have taken them for the first time to more countries than they will visit for the first time when they grow up.

Come to think of it, isn’t that how good parenting goes nowadays? We, parents, tend to give the children more resources than they would actually need to cope in their adult life? 

Pick up and drop to extracurricular activities, after school – don’t we know how that felt. Those swimming, soccer, choir practice, add in the dance, voice, musical instrument lessons.

Parents used to complain about this, in our family. When we pick up our kids from these classes or practice, we rant about how “Our parents never pick us up from swimming classes, or taken us to any classes… “ or how “My life is passing by right in front of us while waiting for you to practice choir…” or “My tombstone will read.. Here lies Mom and Dad, driver of the kids…” 

We can really get more creative whining and the complaining until the kids ears fell off.

Obviously, we  don’t like this particular task, but we perform  it diligently  anyways. And someday, our kids, for sure, will not consider this huge effort, that time when they strongly believe that we have ruined their lives for good for being the worst parents ever in the entire world!

Happens to the best of parent , we think! Our personal opinion. This is the cycle of parenthood: 

Parents try the very best within all the available resources. Children want more. Parents try harder. Children elevate their needs and desires. Parents unable to give more. Children blame parents. Children work for their own or they become parents themselves. The cycle carries on.

Indeed, the cycle can happen to any parent. It happened to our parents. And our parents’ parents. Well, remember our parents nagging how we have the better of things? 

Well, our parents did try our best to give us all the resources they could ever afford. None from any side, think it was enough. There is always something out there in a different generation to elevate the needs and wants.

Awareness and acknowledgement of this cycle made us set expectations with the children. Open discussions with little bit of negotiations work wonders all the time.

Especially for our travel goals.

“Your parents want to travel, want to come along?”

“Yes?”

“Okay. You can come to 100 countries we will go to as family.”
“Only until 2023. By then, if you want to see other countries with us, you will have to pay for your own travel expenses.”

Expectations set. No harm feelings, kiddos, we’re off to couple cruising in few years.

And this goes to not just traveling. In all aspects of parenting. 

We should give our children the resources we can give as parents, BUT (that’s a big B-U-T)  not to the point of disabling them to do greater things in life. 

And definitely not to the point of sacrificing everything we have parents as human beings so that we are left with no identity the minute our kids are adult enough to stand (preferably travel) on their own two feet. 

The secondary reason is just the number itself! 

We tend to associate the number 100 to perfection. To great and awesome exam grades, 100% effort in studying for exam, competing for something.
We want our turknoys to associate 100 to the 100% love and adventure we want to offer them. Then someday, to that 100 times we step on foreign soil and felt happy, scared, excited, all those rush of emotions while looking at each other’s’ reactions. One hundred times we felt happier than we ever could.
100 first times. 100 first steps. 100 milestones. 

God-willing.

Turknoy Family Trail

by turknoys, posted in Education, France, Italy, Travel Goals

“Do not follow where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Prior to being bitten by travel bugs, our family are advocates of customized education even when our kids were attending their early years of ‘education” in schools. We believe that every individual is unique and every kid has their own preference and phase of learning depending on their inherent talents and capabilities. We believe it so strongly that we even think it is commonsensical. Think evening gown, tailor made vs. store bought. Kind of obvious, right?
However, the Turknoy parents were educated in a traditional fashion. Our minds were molded to have the mindset that if we enroll our kids to the best school available, then we are doing what every parents should do. That we are good parents.

And we wanted to be good parents.

We paid exorbitant amount of tuitions for several school terms. Imagine this, one school term for one kid is equivalent to one parent’s lifetime education, including the graduate school, in our home countries. No worries, we used to say. We are trying our best to be good parents.

We picked up and dropped our school diligently to school, on time, every day. We got off work to attend parent-teacher meetings to discuss about the school curriculum which our kids probably learned at home already. We wanted to good parents.
We required our kids to do their tons of homework (starting at age 3!) and nagged the kids about studying hard and forced the kids to learn something they didn’t want to know, that some of them are not yet capable of learning, because of standard curriculum and have-to learning milestones. We wanted to be good parents.

We accepted explanations and letter of apologies from kid bullies who punched our natural-born leader kiddos so they can conform to the kids’ standards of friendship and compliance. We wanted to be good parents.

Settling into the routine of wanting to good parents, we booked a holiday, because that’s what some good parents do. They take their kids to holiday adventures. On a school term break, of course! 
We travel with three kids in tow to France and Italy. Our first two countries to explore together. Awesome magic happened. Imagine how they describe that first kiss, that first love? Multiply that by five thousand! That’s how the parents felt when they see the kids mingling with fellow tourists, talking to locals, enjoying the magnificent sceneries and landscapes, enjoying the art, the culture, the architecture of these fabulous countries.

Rain or shine, our family explore! #turknoys #turknoytravels100 “A rainy day is the perfect time to walk in the woods.” – Rachel Carson #unicornvibes #travel #travelgoals #travelwithkids #travelblog #france #nicefrance #country1
Family of five , 2 boys and 3 girls… crossing the travel bridge while ranting and raving to each other! #unicornvibes #travelgoals #turknoys #travelwithkids #turknoytravels100 #travelgoals #country2 #italy #florence

Things did not go to plan. We experienced being left behind by trains, we cancelled hotel bookings, we made impossible hotel re-bookings, we got lost, a lot of times, took the wrong train a lot of times, almost starved to death (using the kids’ words), a lot of times.. and we observed how the kids were more than just going along with the flow. They were discussing and making decisions with us. Yes, there are a lot of whining and complaining, but sorting things out with all family members, despite the helplessness of the situations, those moments are the eureka moments for us! We wanted to travel more together.

We wanted to travel more together so the parents can witness the shine and joy in the kids eyes every time they see something new for the first time. Every time they contribute to the travel decisions and get to say “See, Mom and Dad that was a nice call. Aren’t you glad we got down on this metro stop? ”

We wanted to travel more together so the kids can witness the shine and joy in their parents eyes every time they see their dreams realized. “Wow, Mommy, you are teary-eyed. How long have you wanted to see the Eiffel Tower? And then attempted to answer without sobbing too much… “All my life, babies. All my life.” We didn’t need to tell them that dreams do come true. We showed them what reactions we had when dreams do come true. 

We wanted to travel more together so we can share more awkward moments, like that time when we almost got thrown out of the hotel because of the noise the kids made and their parents handled that really diplomatically with the hotel receptionist. (At least, when in front of the kids!)

We wanted to travel more together so we can share more scary moments like that time when our baby almost got left behind in the airport (true story!) and survive to tell it!

All those moments, moody, grumpy, scary, fun!

Mum, remember that time when we were in Paris on top of the Eiffel Tower?… “ Of course, darling, I do remember, vividly. 

And the great part is, we will hear that kind of phrase for a long time since the kids started traveling now that they are still young.

We wanted to be good parents. We wanted to travel more together. You know that decision tree, when you are face with gain-gain choices, we choose the gain that feels right.

Traveling together feels right for our family. We took the kids out of school, stopped paying tuition fees, stopped waking up wee hours every school day, stopped stressing out the kids to finish their homework, said good byes to bullies and started enrollment to airline mileage points.
Baby steps. To a path with not so much trail.

Three days exploring the Louvre with kids and several years to get over the memories (maybe never! Hopefully never!)

Mother’s Own Dreams Can Come True, Too!

by turknoys, posted in Travel Goals

“Think for a minute, darling: in fairy tales it’s always the children who have the fine adventures. The mothers have to stay at home and wait for the children to fly in the window.”
― Audrey Niffenegger, The Time Traveler’s Wife

Well, isn’t that sad? No. No. No! As what my kids would say to everything I say.

NO. NO. NO!

As a working mother who is definitely a late bloomer in all aspect, I say NO to just waiting for my children to just fly in the window at our home and tell me about their explorations.

Call me a selfish mom. I know I am not. It’s not me. It’s our society’s preconceived notion that mothers need to sacrifice all of who they are for the sake of their children.

After all, these walking pieces of our hearts need to be nurtured 100% of the time, right? Wrong!

And who has time to explore their own innate desires? The correct answer to this rhetorical question – Mothers! Mothers should have time to explore their own innate desires, to follow their ambitions and to chase fine adventures in life. Alone or allow the kids to tag along.

desert mom
Ahh Mother’s Day! Those creatures with spines of steels amidst the desert heat and dust providing glorious shade and protection to the little people who are the walking pieces of her heart… every single day of their lives. Long live mothers! #turknoys #turknoytravels100 #travelgoals #travelblog #travelwithkids #unicornvibes #desert #qatar #qatar100 #mothersday

Why? Because we have more than an audience. We have followers. These children are our followers. We lead, they follow.

The big question now is where do we take these followers?

For a start, let’s take them to a not-so popular place where nobody is tired living a monotonous routine, a place where everybody is not scared to show their true colors and not be judged for who they really are.

I see this place whenever our family is together. It’s pure bliss when we are among those people not scared to show their true colors, their passion. These are the times that I show my family that I am like them also, human!

Yes, that’s who we really are. Human. Yes, we are “superheroes,” especially during Mother’s Day. Teacher. Doctor. Negotiator. Homemaker. Chef. Carpenter. Architect. Designer. Among all other things. But the most important trait that we almost fail to acknowledge is that mothers are also human. Allowed to have imperfections. Allowed to aim for more for themselves. Allowed to dream. Allowed to be the person they want to be …”when I grow up…”

Being a mother, it’s okay to show our kids, our followers, that we are human being, a person with mood swings, with imperfect emotions, lack of skills, not know-it, a person who needs privacy to use the toilet, a person who dreams for herself and wishes all her dreams for her and for her family to come true.

Now, back to me, the self-proclaimed dreamer, the late bloomer mom of three. I grew up in a village far far away where riding an airplane going to somewhere is a big dream back in those days. Several years on, I got pregnant, way before I could travel and enjoy the “adult” world. The end? Actually no! That is the start of my story.

Having kids made me want to become the person I want them to become. I say this a lot. I have strong belief about this. I’ve seen this work several times about me and to all the moms and kids around us.

burj khalifa
“Build yourself to be a woman that when your daughter sees you, she would know you as a woman who work for her goals.” Stand tall, mothers! It’s our day today! Happy Mother’s Day! #mothersday
I wanted my kids to love books, so I pretend to read whenever they are around me which eventually started me reading books about topics I enjoy.

I don’t want my kids to drink carbonated drinks so I don’t drink cola around them which eventually turned me into non-cola drinker because I am always around my kids that those few moments I can drink cola.. I didn’t want to.
I wanted my kids to be able to explore the huge world and learn not to discriminate anybody with their skin color and where they are from.
Well, I am working on the non-discrimination part. I am a work in progress. I am human, I was trained by society I grew up in to worship white skin color, even become a white skin colored woman. (But this is a different blog story.)

The traveling and exploring the world part, that we can set goals to achieve with the family members. This is what turknoytravels100.com is all about. It’s about the parents (mom and dad) becoming explorers and travelers and getting to know the world because we want our turknoys, the three kids to be explorers and travelers in their own ways when they grow up.

Will we achieve this goal? God knows. We are an optimistic bunch. But whatever happens, at the very least, we are trying and enjoying the “now.”

As any travel cliché would say, its all about the journey. And we intend to enjoy the journey together as family, as dreamers.

As long as we don’t forget our own selves along the way. Even us moms. Yes, mothers’ own dreams can come true , too!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Turknoy Travels 100 is a Lifestyle

by turknoys, posted in Travel Goals

Jumping out of the bed with excitement every day?  That is a great way to wake up every morning. Important question then is.. What could make us jump out of bed with excitement?

The answers won’t be that simple. That really varies for every individual.

For our family, mostly, it’s knowing that we had activities together all planned out for the day. It is not particularly important, where and what those activities are. As long as we are all together as a unit, as family. That is one great blessing we will always be grateful for.

The kids are growing way too fast for comfort and the parents are not growing any younger. To perform several activities require a lot of planning. Otherwise, everything will become monotonous and spending time together will eventually become Boring (with the capital B). The spark of our family wanting to be with each other all the time is too precious to not enjoy that as long as we can.

Hence, the travel goals.

We strongly believe that setting goals make things happen. Of course, goals need to me SMART. Both in business setting and in real life, no matter how personal it gets.

Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Time-bound.

The huge difference of setting goals in business setting versus personal life is the end game – what do we want to get out of  these goals, the ultimate end. Business goals end game is usually compensation, personal goals end game is more often than not, quality of living and personal happiness.

Turknoy Travels 100 is not only focused on travelling together to 100 countries by 2023, before the kids turn 18.

Well, it is really that and more.Travel and education are the two main focus of our family lifestyle.

As we already defined our travel strategy and it is an unpopular one, we intend to mix-and-match this normal-life-with-real-job-travel-when-we-can-with-kids with every day-is-a-travel-adventure lifestyle.

Really awesome and cool family world-school, they travel around the world continually for very long periods of time, supporting themselves and educating their children at the same time. Turknoys may not (honestly, just really can’t) afford that worldschooling lifestyle for now. It gets too tiring for us to travel and explore after more than three weeks.

That’s when we realize, we are more like short time adventurers, sometimes fancy, most of the time cheapo family travelers.

We look forward to living our residence country for month-long holiday and we also look forward to coming back to homebase.

We look forward to visiting our home countries, Turkey and Philippines, but we also look forward to coming back to expat life.

Best of all worlds, we want to believe that.

The heat of 55degC may bother a lot of people during Doha summer time, but we sometimes look forward to less traffic and quiet times in the region. The below zero temperature and enormous snow in the Arctic region may well be a great home but we are very satisfied experiencing the Northern Lights for three consecutive nights, no shoveling required, snow mobile fun for limited period and leave these all for the months of starless nights in the desert.

We appreciate the different culture, but for now, we are particularly fond of our own comfort zone. Someday, sooner or later, things will change; perspectives may blur and other ideals will become clear, but for now the following specific travel goals have been set, consistent with #turknoytravels100

1.   To travel 100 countries by 2023 with the following criteria:

  • All members of the family visited and explored the country at the same time. Home education trips without the five family members won’t be counted, although these adventures will be included in our blog.
  • Visited two cities of the country. We don’t just visit a country for touristic purposes. We aim to be travelers, not tourists.
  • Spent more than two days in the country. Although it’s not the number days but the quality of time spent traveling, it does help to stay more than two days in a certain country.To travel 100 countries by 2023 with the following criteria:
    100 countries distributed across seven continents, including Antartica. Chronologically, we wish to visit Asia (home sweet home), Europe (partly done), Africa (next!), South America, Antartica, Australia, North America
  • Home based adventures include Philippines, Turkey and Qatar. Not included in 100 countries.

2.   To explore 100 islands in the Philippines.

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The photo that started it all. The time when we realized how happy and satisfying family travel is. Our youngest is yet to be conceived in this time and we set goals after she was born. Exploring Pamukkale in one of our home countries #Turkey is very memorable to us as a couple, joined by love, commitment; heart, brain and feet! With a help of a little goal setting, #turknoytravels100 was set three years after – 2013. Yes, taking our sweet time.. It’s okay for us, traveling is something to savor; a lifestyle to enjoy, not just something to tick off the list!
3.    To visit 100 attractions in Turkey.

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It’s not going to be fair to the Turkish side of the family (mainly #turknoysdad ) if #familytravel will not include the islands of Philippines! The dad loves the gorgeous islands of Philippines. We intend to explore at least 100 islands, an easy goal compared to 7107 islands total, by 2023 as well! Home sweet home adventures is just pure awesome love!
4.    To enjoy every moment in Qatar by finding 100 favourite spots as part of home education

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he Singing Sand Dunes of Qatar! Our favorite family fun spot in Qatar! Definitely number one spot for us while exploring the country where we currently resides as #expatfamily 🦄😍 We also aim to explore places and areas in this country to appreciate day to day living when we are not visiting our countries! Because exploring is a lifestyle! And great lifestyle is great life!

Like any other SMART goal, these goals need to get SMARTER..

Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Time-bound. Evaluated. Revised.

Life happens. Life will happen. God-willing, we will be able to realise these goals. For whatever circumstances and these will not be realised, we will re-set and revise goals as the need arises.

No worries. Only excitement to wake up and jump out of the bed every beautiful morning!

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At Sacre Coeur Paris, France where we definitely enjoyed the rain, stairs with stroller, church and awesome city views. Priceless moments our youngest would not remember (and even our toddler then!) but the parents definitely would!

It’s Okay Not to Like to Travel!

by turknoys, posted in Travel Goals

 

If there is one thing we have mastered as a home-educating multicultural, expat, mixed (and a lot more adjectives we could not think of right now!) family of five is that every individual is unique. UNIQUE. ONE-OF-A-KIND. ORIGINAL.

All mass produced goodies are cheap and low quality. Thought bubble – Made in China in bulk! Education should not be mass produced, love cards and love emails should never be copied and pasted. With this similar principle, travel plans should not be made in bulk. Simply because…. we are all different! Different shades, unique fingerprints, different tastes, unique brain synapses, different agenda.

As a family traveler, we are not fond of arranged tours. We like to customize our travel plans based on our specific travel goals for the family. Satisfying all five family members at one travel location is not only difficult, but close to impossible. Yet we prefer it because, we have kids! Kids who we want to be decisive for themselves and not go to join the lot. And also because it’s way cheaper! We own our time, toilet breaks and transportation mode.  Perfect for a semi-introvert family!

What we miss though, on not joining tours, are the variety of travelers we meet. The solo traveler, the history buff, the been-to-all-you-guys-should-go-there-traveler, the I-can-never-travel-with kids traveler, cheapo-traveler, classy traveler, check-in-facebook-asap traveler, among others.

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Tuk-tuk around Colombo! ha!
There are other groups of people, though. The non-travelers. Those who seek the comfort and solitude of home, who get satisfaction from home-cooked meals, who think traveling is a waste of time and money, and those who think exploring Google Earth is the same as traveling.

We respect those people. They know what they do NOT want and focus on what they DO want.

The saddest part of people not wanting to travel, is when they do travel because the blogs, the Facebook posts, the chats focus on  having a travel bucket-list or travel goals and they are convinced that they have to have the list, too. Otherwise, they won’t be living their life too the fullest. It’s always sad to conform to society’s expectations against one’s own.

We are all unique. Traveling choices are unique to individual.

It’s okay not to have the desire to travel. It’s okay not to travel. It’s okay not to have any wanderlust.

And of course, similarly, it’s okay to have loads of wanderlust. It’s okay to want to travel. It’s okay to want to travel a lot. It’s perfectly okay to breathe travel.

Our choices. Our goals to live by.

 

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