1 year. 7 backpacks. 25+ countries. Let’s go.

In a couple months we are trading living in our Oklahoma home for 12 months of living out of carry-on sized backpacks around the globe. Let’s go!!

Corbett was a toddler when we first began dreaming of taking a year to travel the world as a family. The dream almost immediately became a plan. And if you know me – once I have a plan very little can distract me…even if it takes 17 years! 

June 2022 was always the launch date. It seemed a million years away as I had babies, adopted, raised kids, and counted down in my heart. We picked the date for practical reasons – we needed our youngest to be as old as possible and our oldest to still be living in our home. Corbett graduates this year. Our youngest will be 11. We’ve got one shot at a year away before we begin a new season – the one where instead of raising kids in our home, we began cheering them on as they leave.

Our Tortuga backpacks arrived last summer – and for the first time the trip actually felt very real. They’ve been sitting in my room under a map of the world and we are very slowly and very intentionally filling them.

I know you will have a ton of questions. Why? How? Where? Your house? Dog? Cars? Jobs? School? etc. I’m going to put together a blog post or two to answer most of those. I’ll also answer some of those on IG over time too. As I begin that process…what questions do you have on this side of our trip? I’ll do my best to answer them 

For all questions related to travel restrictions – my answer is, “Yes, things are harder and more complicated now. Yes, it changes daily. Yes, it differs country by country. Google is the best resource if you are planning a trip.” And that is all I will be saying on that topic.

Looking at these pictures my first thought was, “My kids are huge!” I said that out loud and Hudson corrected me. Evidently, my kids are not huge in comparison to their friends, but to their mom – huge. Also…moms of little guys that refuse to wear pants in the winter – I don’t think they out grow that phase. At least not in middle school or high school. Boys are weird.