Why Travel With Kids? – Page 7 – Turknoy Travels 100!

COUNTRY 11 – Maldives: An Indian Ocean Paradise

August 4, 2016 by turknoys, posted in Maldives, Travel Adventures, Why Travel With Kids?

The ocean stirs the heart, inspires the imagination and brings eternal joy to the soul. – Wyland

For a beach-lover family like us, Maldives is paradise! Fine, white beach, beautiful Indian Ocean! Two weeks of magical surreal days in this country did stir our hearts, inspired our imagination and brought eternal joy to the soul. Wyland articulated quite clearly what we got from the Indian Ocean!

Turknoys Exploring Maldives — Turknoys in Maldives

We stayed in a private island for five nights at Gangehi Island and needed to take the seaplane to and from Male. The sea plane ride is the attraction! Such experience to look down at the Indian Ocean and see clearly the deep blue sea, dolphins diving out from oxygen, spurts of water we can only assume from whales! Riding on sea plane, landing straight on the deep, blue Indian Ocean, we can always feel that euphoria when the wind blew our hair and we step out of the sea plane! Such a dream-like experience, the kids were shouting out with glee!

Snorkeling and swimming in the Indian Ocean, watching sunrise and sunset, enjoying our water villa, chasing wild terns and herons by the beach just in front of our private villa, running around in the white, pristine-like sand, the rain showers almost every hour all throughout the day, the sea breeze, the magnificent view. Such relaxing moments and memorable family bonding times, priceless!

Exploring the city of Male and the nearby beaches is also a paradise in itself- even better because most of the beaches are free! Public transportation are boat, not buses. Kinda like Venice with their water taxis, but hey, we’ve been to Venice and with the ocean adventure, we’ll pick Maldives over the City of Venice anytime. Seriously. We did claim we are beach-lover bunch!

Oh, how we love to come back again to the Indian Ocean! We intend to. When our youngest will be old enough to dive with us, we will dive the Indian Ocean together as family. Because we don’t live only once. We live every day! When one milestones is ticked off the bucket list, another wish is added, milestones to look forward to. We believe, it is not by accident that people are surrounded by bodies of water. Ocean makes us feel the life more, empowers us to live, not once, but every day!

COUNTRY 9: NEPAL – Mt. Everest, Hinduism and A Whole Lot of Kindness!

August 2, 2016August 2, 2016 by turknoys, posted in Education, Nepal, Travel Adventures, Why Travel With Kids?

“To travel, to experience and learn, that is to live.” – Tenzing Norgay
Nepal is beautiful country. With the country’s majestic landscape, the country has more to offer than any countries of Europe we’ve been to. Add in the Mt. Everest, nothing less than the tallest mountain in the world, to explore, to conquer, to use as magnificent backdrop, or to just admire the wonder of nature at its best! It is no surprise that there are a lot of tourists visiting the country, no matter the season.

Turknoys Exploring Nepal — our favorite landscape photo!

Nepal is different to our eyes. Instead of churches or mosques, there would be Hinduism temples. There are holy cows (no pun intended) freely roaming everywhere in the country. Holy people basking in the sun, conquering the feat of being holy. It is refreshing to see a new perspective on religion, while enjoying the Himalayas. It is humbling and interesting experience of all family members.

Ten days in the country left us in huge awe with lots of questions about our lives’ priorities. We didn’t see huge mansions or tall buildings yet most of the houses have open rooftops to be able to view the Himalayas freely, probably with a cup of coffee or tea. What a blessing it is to be able to look at the world’s highest peak any given time! Yes, there are no luxury cars, fancy houses or maybe even state of the art appliances and expensive furniture! But who really is richer? Uhhmm, that is a rhetorical question for someone who has wisdom. To experience nature is to live. To actually see beauty of nature in this purest form is to be alive happily! This makes traveling to Nepal worth everybody’s while.

We visited four major cities in the country, Kathmandu, Pokhara, Nagarkot and Patan.

Kathmandu – Three lovely days of Hinduism, Buddhism, Temples and Local Living

Going to Pokhara to Kathmandu, we followed the land route. We instantly regretted this when we saw two trucks falling off the road, and our local driver nodding it off like it’s the most normal event in the world – “The land route “normally” have two or three accidents daily.” Well, it was not in the tourist information! I don’t remember the kids huddled so closed together for the remaining four hours of our land journey!

Pokhara – Hello Annapurna for Two Days!

Nagarkot – Four beautiful days of enjoying the sunrise and sunset with Himalayas as backdrop

We feasted our eyes waking up the majestic nature scenery and marijuana plantation (we kid you, not!) We checked in a hostel in Nagarkot where we didn’t need any hotel amenities, the view in itself is the attraction.

Patan – One day exploring Patan plus our Mt. Everest Flight

The highlight of our trip, is of course, the Mt. Everest Flight. It was a great experience for the family. Seeing the Annapurna and peak of Mt. Everest from an airplane with fellow tourists – the oohss and the aahhhhs! It is an experience of the lifetime.

More memorable,though, will be how friendly the Nepalis are. Where we live, there are a lot of Nepalis working, expatriates like us. Their noble intention to not cause any harm to anyone or anything is just something that makes us want to convert to Hinduism (being overly simplistic here).

There may not be infrastructures, even the basic ones, in Nepal. The feel-good feeling over any luxuries in life, hearts over pockets – that we could use all of us, any day in our lives.
For our family. Nepal means kindness. To experience that fully from both ways is how we should live fully.

COUNTRY 8: Switzerland – All of It!

August 1, 2016 by turknoys, posted in Switzerland, Travel Adventures, Why Travel With Kids?

“It’s tough to find a place not to like in Switzerland. “ – Michelle Bachman

Our same sentiments really.

Well, if you like Toblerone, you will really not find a Toblerone flavor that is not worth your while. It’s the same thing as Switzerland!

Turknoys Exploring Switzerland — Turknoys love Toblerone

For our family, this is the most beautiful country, all the people included. When we first step at Zurich Central Station, we really looked for a film camera rolling. Everybody seemed to be so well dressed perfectly in their beautiful facial expressions. The women really looked like they just stepped out of Vogue and the men, GQ! Seriously.

And we voiced out loud our observation to each other and we came out of the conclusion that being ugly maybe illegal in Switzerland. That, or maybe when people are happy, everything looks perfect. And we were very blissful in Switzerland.

We really didn’t get to see touristic sites or joined any activities for children. We mainly stroll in the neighborhood, ride the train back and forth, went to the supermarket and drooled over the expensive chocolates and goodies! And yes, looked at all the passing people…. looked at them hard.. stared at them. It was like we were treated to a red carpet fashion show. When the country’s culture look so beautiful, it is beautiful from the outside.

This country is a different level of posh, the highest level possible. No one ever shout, or frown.

The memory of our first time in Switzerland is like a memory of a perfect kiss. Blissful. Sweet. Peaceful.

Need we say more?

COUNTRY 7: Liechtenstein: The Prince and Us!

July 31, 2016 by turknoys, posted in Education, Liechtenstein, Travel Adventures, Why Travel With Kids?

“I think it can be taught, but of course, to be successful, you have to be at least gifted to a certain extent. When I was a boy I was taught to play the piano. The teacher gave up soon because I was totally ungifted,” he says. “I think it’s the same with leadership. It’s still a little bit of a black art.”
– Hans-Adam II, Prince of Liechtenstein on Leadership

After our family’s visit to Monaco, a very small country, our family started to become fascinated with small monarch countries. It’s amazing how a small group of (very rich and powerful) people look up to their monarch leader and enjoy all the citizen’s benefits of a what-it-seems to be a powerful state.

Liechtenstein is a tiny alpine state nestled on a narrow strip of land between Switzerland and Austria. The landscape of this narrow strip of land is indeed magnificent and resembles mountain paradise.

We spent a full day of awe in Liechtenstein. We watched a marathon of healthy people, young and old, we ate at the healthy restaurant, we trekked the path leading to the Castle of Vaduz, where apparently, the Prince of Liechtenstein live.

Having that bold tourist attitude, after the long beautiful trek up the Castle, we knocked at the gate of the Castle of Vaduz and asked with lots of enthusiasm the heavily armed guards where the entrance to the Castle is. To which they replied with a polite laugh, that the Castle of Vaduz is not open for public as the Castle is where the Prince of Liechtenstein lives.

Ooopps!

We retreated to our family photo taking when the citizen running pass by and we asked him, again boldy, to take our family picture with the castle. Poor guy didn’t have any choice; we won’t let the moment pass by without that family photo.

And then the gate of the Castle of Vaduz opened! The BMW car drove out of the Castle, the Prince on the driver seat looking so ..”normal.”

We were not sure it was the Prince himself until another citizen, this time a beautiful woman passed by us and we asked her again to take a family photo of us (yeah, we know, tripod, right?!) and she asked: Did you see the Prince?

And husband replied, quite merrily: Yes!

Kids were curious and happy. The prince driving his own car, without a desperate princess running after him asking him to save her! A prince who is actually a real person living in a real life castle.

Just like that, our kids’ eyes were open to the “real world.” Which turned out to be more wonderful than what Disney fairy tales want us to believe!

It turns out the Prince Hans-Adam II really lived quite a great monarch example. One of the wealthiest monarch who saved his family’s business right after business studies like any other normal student. He then saved the country and built a name for it, hence, he is quite well-loved among all the citizens.

Prince Hans- Adam II will always be a great example of a leader for our family.

We feel very lucky spending one day in Liechtenstein. The Prince will never know how much his life gave so much impact to a traveling family like us. Yet, we will remember this as one of our fondest traveling moment.

COUNTRY 6: Austria’s Perfect Landscape Country With That 80-Year-Old Woman Biking Uphill Quite Passionately

July 27, 2016 by turknoys, posted in Austria, Travel Adventures, Why Travel With Kids?

“The chief danger in life is that you may take too many precautions.” – Alfred Adler, Austrian medical doctor and psychotherapist

As a travelling family, we never NOT get lost. Getting lost is part of our traveling strategy that IF, in rare circumstance, we didn’t get lost, there will be a lot of Oohhhhss and Wooowwws. We even started to enjoy getting lost!

When we travel, there is no rule but “hold hands when we cross the street.” We basically wing it all from there. A little bit of caution and disclaimer though, our free-range kids and relaxed parenting method while traveling is not for everyone! We have bruises and cuts to prove minor dangers in family travel.

Our main focus when we travel is curiosity. We believe that when we are driven by our desire to learn and explore, the risks mitigate themselves allowing us to enjoy the benefits of travel to the fullest.

Austria is a country where we never really went to any actual tourists-to-see list by purpose! We followed a rough itinerary of what we should see in Vienna and Innsbruck but we ended up just roaming around, observing people, eating, observing people and actually talking to them.

The beauty of Vienna is imbued with a perfect mixture of intellectual and emotional spirit. The architecture, the art, the people, it’s artistic, puzzling and electrifying all at the same time.

Turknoys Exploring Austria — The Oldest Working Ferris Wheel in the World

While Innsbruck! It’s true love between Innsbruck and the Turknoys really! Oh my, how our hearts crave to go back to Innsbrucker Nordkettenbahnen , the panorama and the funicular ride! As much as those things are memorable, we will always equate Innsbruck (and the country Austria in general) with that very agile and healthy grandmother who was biking uphill and passed us by in a flash (no exaggeration!) while we were panting, sweating and almost climbing the hill with our very healthy kids!

Our love for healthy lifestyle was sparked right there and then. We wanted to become that woman, when we are that old. We equated it to the activities and habits of the people in the country. Who wouldn’t be inspired to walk, bike, be active in such as a beautiful scenery, we wonder.

This we lesson is instilled in all of us – from Innsbruck, Austria:

Life is short indeed. However, we don’t have to make it shorter. Live to the fullest for longer beautiful years by being healthy and happy.

If there is a country perfect for wandering and getting lost, it is definitely Austria! Throw your precautions away, pack the bags and learn life’s lessons in a beautiful landscape. Who knows, you’ll find an inspiration to the old lady (or old man) who had lived their life to the fullest and by the looks of how healthy they are, is barely done living!

What do you first do when you learn to swim? You make mistakes, do you not? And what happens? You make other mistakes, and when you have made all the mistakes you possibly can without drowning – and some of them many times over – what do you find? That you can swim? Well – life is just the same as learning to swim! Do not be afraid of making mistakes, for there is no other way of learning how to live! – More from Alfred Adler

COUNTRY 5 – Germany, Castles of the Fairy Tale King, UNESCO Churches, German Sausages and Solo Travel

July 20, 2016July 27, 2016 by turknoys, posted in Family Satisfaction, Germany, Travel Adventures, Why Travel With Kids?

“Rund is die Welt, drum Brüder laßt uns reisen.” (The world is round, so let’s travel, brothers!)

Germany will always be that another world to explore for our family which we will consider very special to our hearts. This country is our first travel for almost free, no plane tickets, no guides, a lots of German sausages with pretzels and cheese as a meal.

That experience of waking up in a different country as a complete stranger is awesome! Well, not really a complete stranger, since we are family traveling. It’s even better. The kids looking up to us to see how we behave when everything else is new and strange, how we adapt to new challenges and environment spontaneously. The thought that those scenes will fill up their memory banks of us is scary, challenging and great fun.

Several months after our family adventure to the country, this country is also the first solo travel of our eldest kid explorer. She went to two cities of Germany with the Doha Youth Choir having their performance in Berlin and Hamburg. She had a great time exploring the cities despite being shy and awkward with the people with her. How different would she have reacted if she hasn’t been in the country before, we won’t really know. It wasn’t easier for the parents to be apart with her. We suppose, exploring together or not, it will always difficult for the mother hen to part with the chicks, so to speak.

How our first Turknoy enjoyed her Germany travel is her story to tell, if or when she wants it to be told. We, as family, had a blast in the Bavaria region. Our visit to the country is definitely a spur-of-the-moment decision for all of us. Two months after our first Europe trip, we were first so hung up with the beauty of Europe. It’s really hard to get over Europe once you’ve been there. So, our family didn’t even attempt to let the memory of Europe fade before we get on the next plane.

We spent our miles getting tickets to Munich and our first goal is to explore Bavaria! Following our Disneyland Paris trip, we wanted to check out the inspiration of the castle, the Schloss Neuschwanstein. The real castle is way more fabulous, of course! The architecture, the landscape around it. Truly, a magnificent infrastructure from the 19th century!

This started our non-fascination towards Disneyland and other commercialized Disney adventures. We all realized as a family that the world is too beautiful and too diverse to focus our travel goals toward making the greatest businessman in the world, richer!

We visited the Fairy Tale Castle of Neuschwanstein and supposedly enjoyed the breathtaking view from the Marienbridge to the castle, but the foggy weather didn’t allow us to enjoy the view.

Turknoys Exploring Germany — This is our reality of the view of Neuschwanstein Castle from the Marienbrücke Bridge, a family photo to treasure still

Here then we realized that being in an awesome and surreal place is always better than in pictures. I know it’s ironic but spending the day in and around the his castle in a foggy weather is indeed more amazing than in photos. Either than or we should bring a better camera than our smart phones. (We have yet to learn this bit of lesson as we still go explore countries armed only with our iPhones!)

One fun fact we learned during this trip is that King Ludwig II has the same birthday as our only Turknoy son. Known as the Real Fairy Tale King, we got interested in getting to know King Ludwig II as it may give us a glimpse of the future personality of our boy.

Not to be outdone, the Linderholf Castle is our favorite castle really. More so than the Neuschwanstein Castle. Here we really appreciated the weirdness and uniqueness of King Luwig II. It’s amazing how much we can tell about someone based on how he lived his last months or moments of his life. There’s that honesty and bluntlesss that they can’t really hide.

With our points of view about life and how to live about it, Kind Ludwig II will always have a place in our family discussions.

And hoops, the Bavarian cheese farm with lots of sausage platters with fresh baked bread. Plus that 360-view of the mountain is one for our books as well. Yeah, lots of memories to cherish as family!

We explored the Church of Wieskirch built in the 17th century, a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage and we enjoyed staring at the biggest and most beautiful bamboo organ inside the church. The same enjoyment we experienced when we went inside the St. Peter’s Church in Marienplatz and climb the gazillion steps (exaggeration, of course, but it was a long and challenging climb with three kids in tow!) to enjoy the view of Munich.
Last and definitely the least (in setting the good example for the kids), the beer! Oh my the beer! It was not Octoberfest but the overflowing fresh beer early morning is a memory the parents will cherish.

Someday, we wish to go back to Germany. There are lots of reasons to go back. Months or years of exploring the country may not be enough. The art, the culture, the food, the history, the local’s friendly yet formal attitude, the future possibilities. Hopefully, one of the kids will consider this as a country to live in. For now, we move on exploring.

Life’s An Opinion

June 9, 2016July 27, 2016 by turknoys, posted in Travel Goals, Why Travel With Kids?

“My life is your opinion, Mommy!” – said with conviction by our eldest Turknoy

One of the side benefits of traveling with kids is when there are idle time in between transportation schedules like waiting for the next plane schedule to the next city. During these times, open discussions with kids, whether parents are comfortable or not, is unavoidable.

We were talking about diverse topics such as religion, home education and how people influence one another knowingly or subconsciously. Out of nowhere, she said it.

“My life is your opinion, Mommy!”

Turknoys Exploring Belgium — her opinions are deeprooted to every atoms in her body! 😜 Gheez, Thanks Mommy!

And wow! Never did a statement hit the mark so accurately.
It’s true. In a good, bad, intense and very scary way.
Our kids are living the life based on our opinions. We do not go to church or mosque, we don’t send the kids to school, we make exploring a habit and a lifestyle.

These are our opinions and we live by these. Not a popular choice by majority, non-conventional. Scary choices yet we stand by these opinions.

Just to be so clear – we are not claiming we are right. Nor we want anybody’s approval either.

The Turknoy parents young age was so patterned with anyone else’s and we formed high opinions about it. We used to religiously go to church or mosque. We went to traditional schools and universities. We used to dream about high paying job with normal working hours and “settling down” to a nice cozy home with a garden.

Yes, we have strong opinions about how we used to live our lives. Our Turknoy kids lives are now based on these opinions.
An immense responsibility we are taking on to ourselves and not on to anybody else.
When Turknoy Mum was young, growing up in the village (it takes a village to raise a child, right?!), the teachers and neighbors would praise how smart she is, and how successful she would be being an accountant (uh, yeah, that specific because during those times, being Certified Public Accountant is synonymous to being successful.) Study hard, graduate from university and get a high paying job.

There are beautiful girls in the same village who were expected to be marry a rich man because they are “very beautiful.” Some of these beautiful girls turned into beautiful women waiting in vain for that rich men to come to their lives.

Well, Turknoy Mum is lucky she is smart and not that beautiful. She did finish her university and got a good job.

Opinions affect our lives. More than we allow it to. We are what we imagined but most of the times, we listen so much to what other people think should happen in our lives that it becomes our own imagination.

It is really important to hang out with the right people who will give us a good image of what we are capable of doing, of what future we deserve. Well-meaning people are usually parents, right? See, we are qualified to raise our kids based on our opinions! One of the reason we advocate strongly home education.

The other side of our family is not any different. When Turknoy Dad was growing up in his own village, he was raised to the very same ideals. Study hard, graduate from a university, get a job that would pay for his retirement, get married to a loving wife who will take care of him and kids in a very comfortable and clean (oh boy, do they clean their houses!) home.

Luckily, his inclinations to see the world prevailed and he didn’t marry a wife who will take care of his house. He did however, married a wife who can make him rich (not financially) beyond his dreams.

Yes, luckily, we were able to form opinions of our own so we can live out of our parents, our neighbors and society’s opinions.

We can still hear our eldest saying with conviction, “My life is your opinion, Mommy!

This we reply:

“Well, thank you, kids for living your life based on our opinions. For now. We sincerely hope that we are enabling you to make your own opinions and have the courage to live by these.”

Life is too short to live by somebody else’s opinions.

We are all winging how to live our lives. Nobody knows for sure, what is right. And what was right then, could be so wrong now.

Our lives, our opinions.

Your life, your opinion.

High respect and high five for that!

Turknoys Exploring Greece! — and she says: My life is my Mother’s opinion! Well, hope Mommy’s opinion is not as ancient as Parthenon!

Kids Can Fly Better

June 7, 2016July 27, 2016 by turknoys, posted in Travel Goals, Why Travel With Kids?

Understanding the principles of aerodynamics has nothing to do with the experience of flying. – Northrop Frye

Our Turknoy youngest was almost one-year old when we started flying together as family. We can all vividly and fondly remember the trouble of flying with stroller, baby bags with milk and bottles, changing nappies in the crampy airplane toilet and most loved of all, the crying and loud baby in the mid-flight when all passengers sleeping! Oh gracious!

We can hear what some of our fellow travelers and even family members think when we started traveling three years ago. It goes like – “These parents are insane, why do they subject these kids and their fellow travelers the agonies of carrying the kids to places to explore (traveling!). The kids won’t even remember these places they painstakingly took them to. Such trouble.”

Traveling with our little ones is one milestone we will definitely not regret or forget!

Oh, when we look at our now four-year old now! How at home she is at airplane and how she is very insistent to watch the safety flight video and stay at the window seat to look down below when the plane lands or takes off. The extreme joy of watching the clouds when we are 36,000-ft. like all the life’s secret will be revealed to her alone is just too priceless to watch. During long flights, she sleeps like a grownup scrunched in the seat with a smile on her face. Most of time.

Our six-year old son never fails to shriek with so much delight during landing and takeoff. Such loud moments when we take off… “And off we go….. “ he always shout and claps loud whenever we land.

On the other hand, the parents are scared-shit of all the things that could go wrong when we land or take off. Adults know that the most dangerous part of flying are the landing and takeoff. There we are sitting so uptight while our kids are having the momentous joys of their life!

Kids enjoy flights better than adults. They say ignorance is bliss, but we don’t think it’s the ignorance. It’s the enthusiasm to experience and explore something for all the senses, not mainly for the brain and intellect.

That carefree feeling, the abandonment of what should be but what is. Not the moments what kids can remember.

Exploring new places, experiencing new adventures – those are not for the intellect. It is definitely way much more than that. It’s the foundation of our being, the things we will build our future memories on.

Foundations are built to last, built to be strong.

Foundations can also be built while having fun and being happy.

Kids should learn to explore freely. Kids can fly and travel better.

Dreaming of France No More!

October 11, 2013August 21, 2016 by turknoys, posted in France, Travel Adventures, Why Travel With Kids?

I believe that everybody dreams of going to Paris, France and seeing the Eiffel Tower.

There are enough movies, soap operas, news, marketing publicities about France being the most romantic country in the world to make everyone wants to go there.

Including me. And to think that I came from a very (very) remote town of an archipelago country. I wanted to see the Eiffel Tower ever since I saw the movie French Kiss. I was almost 17. (I did tell you I am a remote country girl, right?)

To see the Eiffel Tower for me was one of those goals that you have to have in the list but totally okay not to achieve; right there in the group of “to marry my prince charming” list. These goals I thought would never actually happen.

Eventually, I did marry my prince charming and we did live happily ever after. Then it hit me – dreams could come true. Why not go to Paris?

But part of living happily ever after is having kids. We had three. Yes – prince charming can’t keep his hands off his princess.

Later on, my prince charming and I realized, that since we have kids, it would be almost impossible to travel. So they told us.

According to our happily-ever experts, there are a lot of reasons why we can’t travel. Period. Much more travel to France. The most popular one is that kids will not appreciate France and the baby won’t even remember. Bottom line, almost everyone around us thinks that it is not just worth it.

That same reason why we can’t travel to France just yet, fueled my desire to go to France more . We went to France March 2013. This is my happy-ever-after. This is not my kids’ dream. This is MY DREAM. I want to explore France. I want to travel with my family. I don’t want to wait until they are “older” to appreciate the place same as I would. I definitely don’t want to wait until we are retired and kids are all grown up.

My happy-ever -after is now.

For seven beautiful days we explored Paris, France. On top of that, we stayed in Disneyland, Paris for three awesome nights. We explored further and went to South of France: Nice and Provence France for additional week.

I am dreaming of France no more! I am happy; ready to move on to other dreams.

If the kids want to come back later on, it will be their dream to be conquered. I have achieved my life-long dream, they should follow their mother’s lead.

Have you been to France? Do you want to visit the country sometime? What’s keeping you?