A family travel blog meant to track our family goals and to inspire the world that anyone with vision backed with SMART goals are meant to have their dreams come to a reality!
Dogs cannot make dreams come true — people must do that. – Lithuanian Proverb
Well, we’ll, well.. Our traveling family has a dog. We kind of know that our dog didn’t make us travel to a lot of awesome countries and made us realize our travel goals. We are avid advocate of the necessity of goal setting. Set goals. Live the life you imagined.
We’re glad to have made it to Lithuania. Positively surprising, this country indeed is. We visited two cities, Vilnius (the capital city) and Kaunas. We walked around these cities and for whatever reasons, the kids were very playful and carefree. Even the traveling parents has lots of time for romance, in between churches, museums and monuments.
Full Day City Tour in Vilnius means kids playing half the time!We celebrated our youngest traveller’s 5th birthday in a very petite ice cream and cake shop.
She celebrated her 5th birthday in Lithuania 🇱🇹! She says this a lot 😕Basketball and Trampoline, that’s a great way to celebrate 5th birthday, right?Of course, we had fun exploring a new city for another year of our little explorer’s adventures.
Read books and drink coffee. Those words are music to our ears when we had a long day exploring. The locals and residents are still heavy on reading in this country, cafes are so beautiful to observe and to just relax and enjoy a good cup of coffee and books. We took with us a lot of books home, too. Beautiful City, Books and Coffee
Exploring another city in Lithuania, Kaunas is the second-largest city, former citadel of Russian Empire, temporary capital of Lithuania during the interwar period, point of intersection of all main roads. In addition to all historic infrastructure, plazas and monuments, the landscape is magnificent.
Kaunas is seriously gorgeous!Walking around Kaunas, there were a lot of stops to appreciate the landscapeOh, the Ant and the Grasshopper story, it may look like. But did you know that Vladislavas Starevicius is the first to creat masterpieces in puppet animation?! She learned that while eating a bag of fresh strawberries we got for less than a euro.If this country is a person, Lithuania is beautiful inside and outside. Do you agree?
“He who does not jump into water will not learn to swim.” – Estonian Proverb
Tallinn, Estonia
Our family stayed right in the middle of Tallinn’s Old Town. Needless to say, we were deeply fascinated. We can almost hear and feel the stories of Tallinn’s Old Town, one of the best preserved medieval cities in Europe and, it seems like another super awesome tick in our UNESCO World Heritage Sites family bucketlist.
Tallinn Old Town is captivating like our little lady traveller
Ghost stories, medieval history lessons, perfect view, another day well spent with kids… *swooonnnnn*
Of course,we will not walkthrough our family travel blog readers with options on how to explore Old Town of this fantastic city. When it comes to travel and to life, one family’s logic is another family’s crazy.
We would, however, highlight what makes our family travel memorable. After all, this blog, at the very least, is a testament that we can travel to places we’ve never imagined if we set our goals together as family.
When we travel, we are inclined to be biased to cities or countries who have the culture of reading. Reading is a symptom of desire to learn and innovate. That’s really important to develop anyone or any place.
So, guess what we think of Tallinn, Estonia. We stayed one full day at the Estonian Children Literature Centre, with lots of reading and creative activities for our kids, for free! Yes, not every kid can travel like our kids do (that’s why our kids are very grateful day in, day out… gratitude is our top family value, right next to faith.) But, every kid should have access to this kind of learning environment. How we wish every city, province, state or territory would provide this to every kid, free read, free to play, free to imagine! The world would be a way better place.
I guess, what we are saying, check out what this Literature Centre is about.
Estonian Children Literature Centre, Free, Fun, Fabulous
Tartu, Estonia
After having stimulating medieval lessons in Tallinn, we had quite an impression of Estonia. Much more when we visited Tartu, the second largest city of the country and known as the intellectual centre of the country!
We breezed through walking around Old Town, University of Tartu, Toomemagi Park among others. It’s not another town in Europe for us. We enjoyed staring at famous people’s statues and reading the history behind them.
Again for us, our family travel adventure highlight is the modern Science Centre AHHAA, full hands-on exhibits and the 4D cinema.
Science Centre AHHAA: This is the way to build a wall – take that D Trump.With science, nothing is possible. Lift up a car, why don’t we?!
Epic Estonia has been viewed by the some travel blogs to be the worst tourism slogan because of how the small the country is. But hey, we’ve been to Estonia and it’s not the country’s size which decides how epic the country could be. He possibilities, the intellectual and creative opportunities, exactly epic! How did we bring “Epic” home with us?!! Books about Estonia!
“A frog living at the bottom of the well thinks that the sky is as small as a cooking pot lid.” – Vietnamese Proverb
Ho Chi Min City
After exploring The Kingdom of Cambodia, off our family rode a bus crossing border to the Vietnam’s capital Ho Chi Min City, popularly known as Saigon. Arriving by land to the country’s capital, we need not wonder what’s the most common of transportation in the country!
The gazillion motorcycle aside, there’s something about Vietnam that we can’t quite pinpoint. It’s in the air, the food and the accommodating smiles and nods of the locals. Our travellers’ hearts and feet felt at home in a strange yet very familiar land.
As part of our worldschooling and our love for city tours, we happily stayed in the crowded city for few days exploring the country’s war museum. Most of the tourists are Americans. We maybe politically wrong here, but we felt that they are not so proud of what happened during the Vietnam War. In the eyes of our traveling kids, war will always be wrong and exerting violence on anyone or any country is an unfair, if not futile, use of resources.
We have lots of thoughts on our museum visits, some of them include words like “barbaric,” “horrid,” “bullies,” and we’d rather not articulate our sentiments in this Vietnam blog. (We will, of course… in a separate blog.)
Worldschooling at War Remnants Museum – not a fun topic but made interesting by all senses involvement in the museumTHE PERFECT TRAVELING DAD, we kid you not! Who else can have a serious father-and-son discussion while baby-wearing the youngest traveller!
After we had enough of wars and museums, of course, Vietnam culinary journey galore. Oh we did eat a lot of Pho! Yuummm! Street food, restaurant, hotel, airport… burp! Night Market in Vietnam Means Culinary Journey
Ha Long Bay
UNESCO World Heritage Natural Wonder, Ha Long Bay is a spectacular, almost surreal experience for our family. We stayed in a cruise for two days and one night in Ha Long Bay surrounded by natural wonder of almost 1,600 limestone islands and islets covering an area of over 1,500 square kilometers. Extraordinary experience waking up to beauty, watching both sunrise and sunset. Majestic scenery we only used to see in movies (Bond… James Bond! among others, of course.) Experiencing Ha Long Bay Cruise Style!A Well Deserved Beer With A ViewExploring Ha Long Bay Islets And Caves With Kids – We’re thereTai Chi Before BreakfastSerenity! This kid is wild and free, like all kids should beTomb Raider!One of our favorite family photo – inside Sung Sot Cave! Gotta love exploring cave with kids. Those stalactite and stalagmite gets more excitingThis view is worth the steps! All thousands of them.
Hanoi
With heavy heart and heavy feet, we left Ha Long Bay to Hanoi, The Paris of SouthEast. It’s true! The city is very posh, classy, cosmopolitan like Paris. Yeah, yeah, we feel that we know Paris… We are not dreaming of Paris anymore. Only the places we’ve never been to, and the places we’ve been to. Basically, dreaming of the world, exploring in our dreams.
Now, back to Hanoi. We experienced living like local. Waking up 5AM, we felt we were really early but we were so wrong. Seemed that everybody was already up and exercising, mostly tai chi and ballroom dancing in the park! What an experience! Imagine, if this is the lifestyle that everybody gets embedded in the deepest of mind’s molds. Happy, healthy and disciplined people and an awesome world to thrive in.
Tai Chi and Dancing in the Park at 5AMCOOLEST TRAVELING DAD! 😘😘😘Probably one of the strongest coffee we’ve ever tasted! Step aside Turkish Coffee, there’s no going back from Vietnamese CoffeeStuffing ourselves with fresh fruits and food during our last night in Hanoi!Vietnam is in our hearts! Definitely a precious pearl of the orient with its unique charm and glory. We’ll be back, we know, we barely explored this country and we are craving for more!
Let’s all go to Vietnam! After all, we believe that life is a pilgrim, kids included, and Vietnam is good start to find ourselves.
“Don’t take the straight path or the winding path. Take the path your ancestors have taken.” – Khmer Proverb
The proverb made us think and ponder about the ambiance all throughout the country when we visited. What we felt as family is that the country has been living out the glory of their ancestors, mainly from Angkor Wat legacy. From flag symbol to beer labels, Angkor Wat is very prominent in all the places we’ve visited in the country.
Is that a good or bad thing? Well, we think it depends. Do they improve of what was and capitalize on growing at the rate what it was like during “ancestors” period, then yes. However, if there’s no significant growth and milestones since the past, and the present got stuck with the thinking of the ‘great old days” then, it’s definitely a NO for us. This is coming from our family, who are strong advocates of goal setting based on own family ideals – it takes courage.
CROSSING THAILAND CAMBODIA-BORDER
Straight from our family adventures in Amazing Thailand, we walked to the Kingdom of Cambodia by foot. Ain’t that cool? Crossing the borders by walking, yes definitely.
Good
Crossing Thailand- Cambodia Border with these kids happy exploring feetWalking from one country to another – yes, this deserves a family groupie photo ❤️
SIEM REAP
Exploring this vibrant city Siem Reap means visiting the UNESCO World Heritage Angkor Wat and discussing at length the wonders of one of the largest temple of the world.
Our October visit to Angkor Wat may be the best weather to go. It was hot and definitely humid. With kids, hyper and cranky at the same time, serious discussion about different belief system in ancient culture mixed with the region’s histories of empire was very challenging! There were a lot of whining and a lot of playing,too! Add in a lot of tourists.
The mere wide area of the temple already fascinated us and our youngest reactions to temple, terrorised us. Her view of temple at five years old is not favorable, although quite amusing for the rest of the family members.
Angkor Wat With Kids in OctoberThe best view of Angkor Wat With Kids Playing and Running AroundDon’t forget to be blessed by Buddhist Monk inside the Angkor WatStanding On The Very Center of TempleAngkor Wat With Kids is Quite Educational and Great Fun… Really!From A Hindu Temple to A Buddhist Temple – Can you Explain that to this Muslim/ Christian Family Please?! Oh, we get it!
OVERNIGHT BUS WITH KIDS FROM SIEM REAP TO SIHANOUKVILLE
Although, we love tropical weather over desert weather, we really rather be at the beach or any body of water when in a tropical country like our dear country home.
From Siem Reap to Sihanoukville, we took an overnight bus thinking we’ll save a night in a hotel plus save time to be able to explore more of the Kingdom of Cambodia. Did we? Oh yes, we did! We do NOT recommend it to family with kids, though. It’s not safe,not to mention, not convenient nor hygienic. The bus has not toilet. There are pit stops every few hours of bus speeding recklessly in the night, passengers coming and going at every busy stop. It was pretty stressful for us parents, while the kids sleep beside each other with dirty blankets. We needed to use the blankets as the bus air conditioning was on full blast.
Yeah, the things we subject ourselves into when we travel with kids. This is definitely under the list of “why did we do that?” category of our travel “Remember when?!” conversations.
Cambodia Backpacker Style – Waiting for the Overnight Bus
Our Overnight Bus – Oh Dear Lord, Not Again For Kids!Siem Reap to Sihanoukville Overnight Bus
SIHANOUKVILLE
The beach stay in Sihanoukville is almost worth the bus ride. The beach is fantastic, although the water is more on the lukewarm side than refreshing.
The Gulf of Thailand Beach SunsetNothing Like The Sea to Take a Break from Temples
KOH RUNG ISLAND
Somehow, we don’t often hear Cambodia and beach in the same sentence together. Yet Koh Rung Island, the second biggest island in Cambodia is said to be one of the best in SouthEast Asia. So, off we went.
What do we think of the Koh Rung? It’s a good beach island, yes. The best? We’ve seen better in Philippines, of course. We were also expecting the same convenience we had during our Maldives trip so a little bit disappointed when we learned that there’s no electricity in the island during certain period of the day. We also got a tree house with no air conditioning with little to non facilities. Koh Rung is a little still developing island, based on our opinion.
Overall, the beach is fantastic and one of a kind. Beachlovers would definitely be awed if they do visit.
This island is fantastic! Fine white sand and fine gold sand in the same shore! Plus treehouse stay is fabulousFine Gold Sand Beach adjacent to Fine White Sand Beach – Kao Rung!
Life is awesome by the beachLife is the beach ❤️
PHNOM PENH
We explored this quite crowded city in two days. As a worldschooling family, we spent a great deal in the Angkor Wat museum and Royal Palace. As usual, the kids enjoyed running around and parents wishing that they are learning something.
😃
Royal Palace
The Kingdom of Cambodia is a fascinating country with resources that are diverse, culture that is rich in history and legacy. The people definitely are one of the nicest in the world. We wouldn’t mind going back to Cambodia with kids if they do request!
Have your family been to Cambodia? Explored temples or beaches? Do tell.
“It is a question of discipline. When you’ve finished your own toilet in the morning, then it is time to attend to the toilet of your planet, just so, with the greatest care. You must see to it that you pull up regularly all the baobabs, at the very first moment when they can be distinguished from the rose-bushes which they resemble so closely in their earliest youth…” (5.16). The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint Exupery
In addition to traveling together as family, we are avid fans of reading aloud to kids. We collect classic books and one of our favorite is The Little Prince. Hence, our fascination to Baobab trees.
Baobab trees are the Africa’s iconic ” Tree of Life.” Kinda like our Asia’s Coconut Tree – we call our high rising coconut trees as Tree of Life as well.
Fun facts about Baobabs:
Baobab trees grow in 32 African countries.
They can live for up to 5,000 years, reach up to 30 metres high and up to an enormous 50 metres in circumference.
Baobab trees can provide shelter, food and water for animals and humans. A lot of savannah communities have made their homes near Baobab trees.
Baobab bears fruit! And based on what we’ve read so far, Baobab fruit is one of the most nutrient-dense foods in the world. Hey, that’s what we say to our coconut!
Soon, we’ll be visiting baobabs in Africa, we know it would be a fantastic experience and family travel bucketlist to tick and enjoy. We also know that we’ll bring our worn out Little Prince book with us. Every time we read that book, there are a lot of realizations in life thay suddenly sparks our minds. Just like traveling.
For the meantime, a more interesting information about baobab tree….
Drum rolls please!!!
Did you know that there are baobab trees in Aspire Park, Doha, Qatar? To touch a real love baobab tree is like meeting Little Prince in person. There’s always a lot of reason to explore Qatar. Or any nearby neighborhood, for that matter. With curious eyes and wandering feet, we’ll never know what we can discover.
Our very own Little Princes and Baobab Tree with The Torch Doha in the Background 💜💙❤️
“Why fit in when you were born to stand out? ‘ – Dr.Seuss
Oh the places we find together, we even managed to find Dr.Seuss House! Or at least, that’s what we call Hotel Galeria! A unique hotel very close to the Main Train Station in Bratislava, Slovakia (our 29th Country! )
Look, what our Little Lady Backpacker ran into while exploring Eastern Europe ❤️Congratulations, today is YOUR day!!
The facade of the Hotel Galeria is full of colors, screaming for admiration. The irregular shape and architecture is quite pleasing to watch from afar, much more in a closer view. This is the hotel lobby! Don’t you just love all the colors?!
The view from the inside of the hotel also never disappoints. The lobby looks like an artist hard-at-work and all wall and table covers look like abstract colorful painting!Her bed and the colors! Including colorful towels. What a wonderful way to introduce the kids to backpacking in Europe 💞This is not a sponsored post. We were just in awe having to experience a hotel like this that our eldest traveller described the hotel in her IG account as “one of the best hotels she has stayed at.” We book our hotel reservation one day before heading to Slovakia from Hungary. It was a reasonable rate for a 2-star hotel.
Yes, it’s a 2-star hotel. We could recommend a lot of improvements on facilities, yes, but we always get what we paid for, right? With this hotel, plus lots of color, art and good customer service! Waking up to art in Hotel Galeria ❤️ What would you do when you see this Hotel? Do you dare check in? Would you? 😊
Hoops, the name of the hotel is Hotel Galleria. However, this hotel will always be Dr. Seuss House for our family. It’s a really unique concept worth benchmarking anywhere. Don’t you agree?
It’s easy to make travel wishlists, bucket lists of places we want to go, destinations we dream of! Even those creatures under the rock would want to visit some places they have never been. But most of the time, they do stay under the rock, left in wonderment of what’s like outside their world.
May these three global kids find their hearts passion amidst life challenges and comfort zones ❤️💚💙
Why wouldn’t they, staying under the rock, is comfortable. It’s easier to just keep wishing to explore the world than actually travel. Similarly, it’s way easier to make the Eiffel Tower photo (or other places!) the desktop screensaver than actually book a ticket and go to Paris.
But bucket lists are meant to be ticked off, and not to remain list forever.
The secret to realizing going to these destinations are actually pretty straight forward.
1. Faith and Vision go together. A strong vision is backed up my breakdown of goals, yes, but more importantly, it’s main support and foundation is a belief system, a strong faith about something. It could be Jesus Christ for devote Christians, it could The Force for Star Wars Fanatic, it could be the unicorn for people who believe in the unknown, the extraordinary, the unseen. We believe in fate, God’s blessings and positivity. Those are the foundation of our Vision, family values, you may say. The thing is, Vision is something we strive for long term, hence, our faith, values and passion should support our own desire for the future.
2. Visualize. Visualize. Visualize. And Visualize Some More. Have you seen the movie Jumper? If yes, you know that it’s about a young man with a teleportation abilities, his travel adventures mixed with family drama and young love action. Making our travel dreams come true is similar to how he used his teleportation abilities. Focus on that one.. Did you notice that he can only go to a place if he can imagine it? Pictures of different places all around his room. If he doesn’t know what Rome looks like, he can never teleport there. It’s simple and actually neuro-science worthy!
3. Don’t be just SMART. Be SMART-ER. Our family is more of an advocate of setting vision and goals than travel addicts. Well, we are travel addicts, but all of our travels are part of our bigger plan… to travel more! Seriously now, we believe that setting goals is necessary for everybody!
Everybody Has A Someday, DO TELL US YOURS?
Everybody has this “SOMEDAY!” Here’s the big open secret to getting to our “someday.” Not only we need to be SMART, but what really works is if we are SMARTER! This good, (very) old acronym works!
Specific
Measurable (no-brainier KPI)
Attainable (in life, all goals are!)
Realistic (make sense to YOU!)
Time bound (w/ deadline set)
Evaluated (periodically!)
Reviewed (evolving YOU!) .
Write down goals, most preferably, uninfluenced, own personal goals which echoes your deep inner desires and passions, and evaluate it periodically, make necessary adjustments (to yourself, to the lifestyle or to the goals!) Of course, you can change goals in life. Life is….life. Sometimes, there are changes in life which we can’t control. When we say, our family aim to travel to 100 countries together, we are declaring and sending our thoughts on how we want to live our lives. If, for whatever circumstances, the Universe, God or Energy have other megaplans for us and the world, then we will adjust our goals. Revision of goals is not non-achievement of living life. It’s driving the car and changing routes when a particular road is blocked.
We can see this in every work employee. They are almost always afraid to set high goals at work because they may not achieve it, get punished for non-achievement and be embarrassed about it. But such is not the case about life – setting goals and being open about these goal, means the intent to maximize one’s life potential and God given resources.
When you set goals, you set the tone of your day-to-day lifestyle, like ours – Turknoy Travels 100 is A Lifestyle and it’s pretty amazing, so far!
With a little bit of name dropping, here’s a proof that this traveling parents know what they are talking about when it comes to setting life’s goals – David Norton, no less. Ask us who he is 🤓
4. Positive Can-Do Attitude. The glass is not half full nor half empty. Oh the places we travel with that glass!
The reality in life – positive attracts positive. Positive multiplies positive is enormous positive potential. We are the sum or total of the positive influence we surround ourselves it. That may be the universal requirement for goal achievement.
We are the average of the stuff toys we hang out with! Choose Turtle and Unicorns for Positivity!
5. Be Spontaneous and Just Leave. Action cures fear! The beginning of a thousand miles is a single step! Take the first bite is how you eat the entire cow.
A little trivia about our family? We started traveling right after our Traveling Dad lost his day job. That’s when we know for sure that life is off to good start the moment we say…”What the heck!! Let’s just go.”
Lighted Candles In Memory of All The Could-Have-Been Realities , But It’s Never Too Late To Just Go!
“Ang kabataan ang pag-asa ng ating bayan.” – Dr.Jose P. Rizal, Pambansang Bayani ng Pilipinas
Translation: The youth is the hope of our nation, – Dr. Jose P.Rizal, Philippine National HeroAng kabayan ang Pag Asa Ng Bayan – how do you want them to lead the future of our Country?!
Well, the world changed a lot since that Dr. Jose P. Rizal made that quote infamous. There is still a ring of truth into that quote at this day and age, that we believe. Despite the fact that how many generations of youth have let down Dr. Jose P. Rizal? Well, we are not an authority on Philippine History, much more an expert on interpreting Philippine current events based on history. Although, proudly we say, our family is raising three global citizens exploring the world (Turknoy Travels 100 , now 30/100) using their Philippine passports.
So, from one Pinoy family to another, we encourage you to travel with kids and we have three persuading reasons:
Pinoys are World Class, Traveling Magnifies Opportunities For Pinoy Kids to be World Class. Bragging aside, we know how Filipinos contribute to international workforce, arts, science and new discoveries. Monkey see, monkey do. When kids see Filipinos all over the world, doing what they like best and being admired for it by almost all nationalities, that fire of passion will burn until they accomplish something similar.
A lame comparison, albeit common, would be to be so excited about having a Filipino Restaurant in a certain city in any country! We will definitely be tempted to visit and chat with the owner about how that success came to be.
Don’t even get us started about Filipinos winning in international competition, mainly in singing or in fashion. Don’t we all feel that same old “Proud to be Pinoy” sentiments? Speaking of which… “Uyy, there’s a Pinoy winner in Project Runway.” or that Isn’t Bruno Mars Filipino by blood line?!
There’s fire burning in every adult Filipino to succeed in international scene. When that fire started kindling at an early age, there’s no amount of life’s fire extinguisher can void that.
The World is Beautiful. There’s More to Life Than SM.
Disclaimer alert, these statements are written from a village Filipino perspective, as our family came from a far away village with happily-ever-after endings. Yes, a remote, small village where everybody knows everybody’s names and sadly and happily, depends on how you look at it, everybody’s business.
Way way back, do you know where our family go to entertain guests? Where we think, we would go for an adventure? SM! Yes, those big, gigantic, enormous buildings, apparently the biggest malls in Asia or in the world. molding the minds of millions of Filipinos to buy their hard earned dollars, euros, pesos or any denomination because they are SM! Imagine how small scale entrepreneurs and small scale real estate agents would prosper without these gigantic commercial monopoly.
Okay, got a little carried away there. The point is, the Philippines has lots of magnificent islands, mountains, seas, waterfalls to explore. Thanks to a gazillion of tourists who got viral attention in the internet because they showcase the beauty of our motherland, The Philippines.And yes, we know that Pinoy millennial have been traveling the world and the country quite extensively, like no other generation has ever done. Why not Pinoy kids, follow millennial lead?
Going farther, when we travel with kids, we get to see that other countries have a lifestyle, not necessary like our country that works. In Europe, there are no big malls, yet the tourists and locals visit Old Towns patronising small shops earning their living for centuries! Okay, maybe for decades. But that’s the point. Business can run for decades because they have the sense of heritage.
It’s a beautiful world, not in a supermall, megamall kind of way! The earlier the kids learn this, the better for the country!
If you are not exploring the Philippines by boat, you are doing it wrong!
That Colonial Mentality (Hey Joe!)
Most – Hey Joe! You American?
Some: Not all white people are Americans! Some of them are Brits!
Obviously pun intended. But hey, not Filipinos fault! Our gorgeous archipelago has been colonized for centuries and the school textbooks are yet to be revised to include stories about other countries (you know, like what are Bohemians?! – seriously, hope we are wrong for thinking this, do educate us!)
Every country is different. Each one has different history and culture. White, black, brown, yellow, pink. If we are not open to this understanding and keen on generalizing skin colors, we might as well be uneducated. Europe has 50 countries, each one of the countries have diverse backgrounds and most of them, black, white, yellow, pink and every color in between. Africa is not country, the continent has 54 countries and no, not all of their inhabitants are black! Add in the other 4 continents, and we have almost 200 nationalities. We know how it feels to be stereotype as ” You Asian looks the same with your small eyes and like rice so much!” Ggrr
I guess, our point is, travel with kids for them to introduce diversity!
These are our three personal reasons why we travel with our Pinoy kids. There are more, like appreciation of world religion, which we elaborated on our Singapore blog post and our worldschooling ideas. We intend to share more as we go on more adventure with our family goals.
Do you have a burning reason why Pinoy kids should travel the world?There are different ways to take a shower, yet, using Tabo is the best!
“Every time we visit a new country or a new place or do new activity together as family, we always have that feeling of vigor, of expanding our horizon, of being reborn (in a non-radical-religious-kinda-way!)”
That’s every single time. Insert music, tale as old as time…
Family travel offers a tremendous potential to learn – learn from local people and fellow travellers, learn from history.
For us, learning from history is one of the best way to learn. History is never boring when we visit actual places where certain events actually happened. We get to see or even touch artifacts and memorabilia. We get to breathe the same air (almost!) of people involved in the events of the past. We get to feel the eeriness , of solemness , of the haunted or happy past.
Ain’t that the truth, even on personal level, learning from people’s history gives us enormous potential to self check if we are walking on the same path, doing the same mistakes and gives us the chance to correct our wrongdoing. That is a mark of a matured individual, however. And yeah, there are lots of mature people out there.
In a way, we get to see the full picture of the past and how it’s domino effect is reflecting in the present.
Exploring Europe with kids gives opportunities to see the beauty of the industrialized circulations, almost ancient countries enjoying the technologies and way of life for hundreds of years, magnificent buildings, spectacular way of living (even third world countries in Asia and Africa are yet catch up.)
On the other side, exploring Europe with kids? for us, also pave the way of magnified “narcissism” or worse “psychopath” tendencies of world leaders.
It’s not easy to explain to kids how the magnificent Neuschwanstein Castle is where the “unfit to rule” King Ludwig II was arrested and how the history has declared him “certified insane” despite of all his inclination to beauty, good architecture and love for landscapes.
Walking in his castles, it’s difficult to imagine, how can someone be lonely with all the extravagance and beauty of God’s creations.
Exploring the Danube River on the Pest side of the beautiful city Budapest, the kids learned about horrific Shoes on the Danube Bank. We stand on the very side where at least 500 people where asked to take off their shoes and got shot at the edge of the river.
Somehow, Beauty is always accompanied by The BeastIt’s a serious topic for a serious walkThe beauty of Europe is, yes, beyond stunning. On the other side, the humanity which created the civilization is almost always beyond words.
Not just millions of names engraved on leaves, so much horror.. in Memoriam
How do we explain to kids the horror of wars and wrongdoings of world leaders of the past?
For now, we focus on lessons. On people and government (kinds, queens, world leaders) to not repeating the same horrors of history.
Turknoy Travels 100! 