We’re now in the ninth month of our Big Adventure and so far it’s been great. Of course it wasn’t always easy and there have been challenges, but we’re loving life on the road. If we could find a way to make enough money while traveling I think it would suit all three of us really well to travel indefinitely.
However, due to the declining health of my mother in law, who’s was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease a few years ago, we’ve had to make the difficult decision to cut our trip short. Unfortunately, our health is not something we have control over and we feel it’s more important for Mau to be home, to spend time with his mom and to help his dad and his brother where possible. And for Jace to spend time with his grandmother. So we’re now looking into booking tickets back to Holland at the beginning of February, two months earlier than planned.
From the beginning, we said we wanted to stay away for a full year if our budget would allow it. So far we’ve spent much more than planned, but financially we could have made it until the end of March 2016. That’s what we always had in mind. So going home two months early feels like we’re leaving before the end, like our trip isn’t really finished yet. We still had so many plans and things we wanted to see. Also, neither of us is looking forward to being back in cold and wet Holland again and we were really hoping to skip the winter. Let’s just hope that Jace can adjust to life back in Holland as easily as he’s been soaking up all new experiences these past months. And that we can adjust again too, which might prove even more difficult.
Since we’ve only had so much ‘work’ time while we were traveling, we still have tons of things to write about and millions of photo’s to sort through, so FlipFlopGlobetrotters will continue! Also, hopefully, continuing to write about our experiences will work therapeutically and help us keep the traveling feeling alive even when we’re back in Holland again. Of course, we’ll still continue to travel, even if in the foreseeable future we’ll most likely not go away again for such a long time. So you’ll hear more about traveling to European destinations and things to do in our hometown Haarlem. And about how we’re coping with being back home again after such a long journey. Even a bit closer to home there’s still so much to discover! And traveling with a toddler is never dull 🙂
Lijkt me eens lastige keuze je hebt toch een bepaald plaatje in je hoofd van een jaar weg. Maar 10 maanden is ook geweldig en zoals je zegt helaas kan je gezondheid niet bepalen en die maanden thuis weet je waarvoor je het doet.
Een hele lastige keuze! We waren zo gewend aan het idee dat we echt een jaar lang weg zouden blijven. Maar flexibiliteit hoort ook bij reizen… We gaan ons best doen om deze laatste maand extra te genieten! 🙂