Round the world summer 2020 flights finally booked. London - Malaysia- Australia-Hawaii- San Francisco- London flights came in just over £800 each all in. A superb feeling :-)
I haven’t left Bangor for 15 weekends, you read that correct. Up early this morning we took ourselves to Belfast by train and hunted down some street art, I can only fit in 4 photos so here is a taster
What a year of travelling it has been
Poland twice
USA twice
England twice
Holland
Belgium
Finland
Canada
Estonia
Latvia
Czech Republic / Czechia
Scotland
We are finishing up 2019 with a visit to Spain and Andorra over Christmas :-) Amazing memories creates.
#travel
It has been my dream to travel long term and things have always stopped it. 2023 was a challenging year and delayed the dream a bit longer, but here we go on a really tight budget, plan to return in 8 months. Here we go!
#longterm
#familytravel
Just sitting thinking about when Megan was born (pretty rough day), couple days later someone said "That'll be the end of your trips then, can't do it with a child." 6 years later Megan has 22 countries under her belt ranging from Panama to Thailand and a host in between. :-)
I honestly can't believe in 4 months we will be jumping on a plane to India as a family. Removing Megan from school, giving up well paid jobs and just going for it. I am really excited to see what it brings.
#Familytravel
In the heart of
@VisitDerry
there is a small area known as the
@thecraftvillage
.The 18th century street and 19th century square are majestically filled with craft shops, book stores, coffee shops and restaurants. Well worth a nose around
#derry
#londonderry
Just finished booking our first trip of 2020, and to bash away the January blues we are spending a few days in
#Marrakech
. Love that
@easyjet
fly from
#Belfast
direct, saves a bus to Dublin.
I’m not going to lie I got a bit emotional visiting the Taj Mahal. No idea why I walked around the corner thought WOW! Then had to gather myself together. We went first thing in the morning, it is freezing (bring a coat) but so worth it.
#TajMahal
#agra
#india
#whereareweofftonow
Reading people talking about international travel being back by June/July. I think this is very optimistic, can you really see the likes of NZ and Australia whose numbers are very low letting loads of people in who possibly have the virus?
We have
#Barcelona
coming up over the Christmas break and I’ve started plan. La Sagrada Familia, Nou camp, Telefèric de Montjuïc, Gothic Quarter and Park Güell are all on the list. Anyone else any recommendations?
#travel
#familytravel
Not everyone’s cup of tea. They have cancelled and changed some of our flights in the past. However, they get us around Europe for very little as long as we play by their rules. They really are a bit like marmite.
Geoff behaved brilliant on his first
@Translink_NI
journey ever between Bangor West and Carnalea. Megan absolutely loved it and wants to take him somewhere every weekend
#FamilyFunTime
Tickets purchased to go watch some football in
#Lima
on Sunday night. Really looking forward to this, it looks a class stadium and only about £3 per ticket.
#Universitario
#Peru
Only the
#Vatican
to visit and I’ve done the microstates of Europe.
Andorra, Monaco, San Marino, Liechtenstein, and Malta. San Marino and Malta, my favourite and Monaco would be my least.
Anyone else nervously watching on with Thomas cook developments? Tbf mine is just s trip to Tunisia which isn’t fully paid yet but I know people with Florida and further afield booked for coming months!
Big news, excited and it has been an itch I need to scratch. On the 29th November '23 we have a one way flight to India booked and a plan to travel until August '24 around the world.
#WorldTravellers
#familytravel
Will we, won't we, can we afford it, can we not afford it.... Fuck it Australia July 2020 here we come :-) this has been a long time in the making.
#Excited
Went for a walk around a big park in
#Bangkok
a policeman stopped us as we were passing a ball around on the path. He happily showed us an indoor/outdoor court to go kick ball around. Lovely 2 parks
#familytravel
#whereareweofftonow
#Thailand
Summer 2021 booked, Dublin - Lisbon - San Francisco - LA - Vegas - Belize - Guatemala- Belize - Mexico - Toronto - London - Dublin. Fingers and toes crossed on this one...
Morocco has been our only family trip of 2020. It feels like a life time ago now. However, I’m so glad we do this and the memories will always be there no matter how tough times get.
Lots of people head for Halong Bay, but we visited Lan Hay Bay beside it and it was simply stunning. We done a day trip which including boat tour, kayaking, snorkeling, lunch and watching sunset. Absolutely stunning!
#familytravel
#whereareweofftonow
#vietnam
#catba
Where is the strangest place you have ever spent the night while travelling? Last night we spent the evening in a bunker in
#Brno
. Megan I don’t think will forget this place in a hurry lol
#10ZBunker
I was so excited to visit
#Prague
castle, but the queues on a Sunday mid October really dampened my experience. 2 hr waiting to visit the Cathedral wasn’t for us. Difficult writing a blog post when I’ve so much mixed views on it. :-(
#praha
Just writing a blog post about one day in Bristol, it really wasn’t enough time and as soon as we can we will hop on a plane from Belfast and get back to visit everything we missed.
@visitbristol
#Bristol
#England
@VisitEngland
WOW WOW WOW. Just visited the Golden temple in Amritsar, simply amazing and you could see how much it meant to everyone visiting. My photos will never do the place justice. The smiles on the faces of the two in my photo when they entered :-)
#goldentemple
#india
#amritsar
Megan wants to do an interview on YT. For those who don’t know Megan, she is 11 and she is in her 50th country (Bolivia) she loves football (playing/watching), travelling and watching YT. Do you have any questions you would like to ask her? 10 question limit
#whereareweofftonow
Every day we see Blackhead lighthouse from the other side of Belfast Lough. Today we decided to make the journey to
#Whitehead
and make the walk to the lighthouse. An absolutely stunning walk and would recommend to anyone.
#familytravel
#northernireland
Megan was off school yday sick. She wanted to write her Granda a letter and so she made one and drew a stamp on it. Nervously i watched her put it in the postbox. Guess what arrived with her Granda today :-0 thank you
@RoyalMail
#thankyou
Things are becoming a bit rubbish on our long travels, we are going through a spell of bad luck, where everything is going wrong and not the dream you see from many on instagram and twitter. Latest Airbnb has no heating and no hot water as advertised 1/n
Brilliant evening at Magic Water Circuit of the Reserve Park in
#Lima
spent 2 hrs in the gardens for 4 sol about 90p.. photos won’t do it justice
#whereareweofftonow
#familytravel
A few more from our walk around Belfast this morning. The DJ I think is brilliant, the city one feels like youre transported and the 3D one apparently works.
Do people frequently buy those gimmicky photo things from tourist attractions, the ones you stand in front of a green screen and you collect at the end?
What do I love about travelling with my daughter? Easy, the smile on her face when she buys something that has caught her eye, that inquisitive look when we pass by something that interests her, the countless questions and the fun at the pool.
#familytravel
#whereareweofftonow
How can you be bothered travelling so much? How can you be bothered changing planes with layovers? Why don't you just go to normal places? I do it all, because this is what Megan gets from it
#familytravel
Had nothing booked so we spent the day walking around Vang Vieng. Seen a historic airfield, a night market, a beautiful sunset and had a great chat with older Dutch fellas by the river who really inspired me.
#vangvieng
#laos
#familytravel
#whereareweofftonow
Hanoi is a great city to visit in Vietnam. Easy to see and do everything in 24 hrs or so. We got on a non stop tour bus around the city to give us a good idea of what we wanted to see in more details.
#Vietnam
#Hanoi
#Whereareweofftonow
#familytravel
🧵Trip coming to an end, so let’s talk finances for this 8 months since November for a family of 3.
- we left the uk with 13k in either our bank or access too
- we had the first 6 weeks paid for
- since February we had one income bringing in $300 a week. 1/n
#whereareweofftonow
Had a lovely chat with some young backpackers, one just approached us and said “we have been talking about you and absolutely love what you are doing.” Really nice for people to notice us and hopefully it inspires them when they have kids.
#familytravel
#whereareweofftonow
We love to travel and constantly get asked how we can afford it. Rumour was we had won a prize to travel for free until Megan is 18..... We wish.. There are a few things we do to try and cut back when away and help us travel more often.
#familytravel
Won a huge toy dog in Drayton Manor, I had one of go on the basketball shot and won. Everyone cheered and I thought, how am I getting this back to Northern Ireland. 20 bin bags, 2 rolls of duct tape, and £25 he made it home. Say hello to Puggy!
Bangor -Belfast -Dublin - Stansted - London Shoreditch leave Bangor at 6am and arrive at my hotel hopefully at 3pm. Saved £150 by doing this instead of Belfast to stansted direct. However, did I really I didn’t really need to go.
So last full day in Brooklyn going to visit
@BrooklynBrewery
, have a couple pints and chill out! This week have been so full on and non stop! Big thank you to the residents of
#parkslope
for making us welcome and to
@WattWhereHow
for their ideas! Cheers Daddy!
Went for a short dander along the beautiful beach in Nha Trang and got 20k steps in easily. Entire walk is shaded by palm trees and loads of exercise machines to get fitness up! The beach bar is really cheap, my new local
#NhaTrang
#Vietnam
#familytravel
#whereareweofftonos
In little over 6 months, we are leaving the UK and going to travel the world long term. Starting to put stuff into containers and bin rubbish. Think I might (along with Megan, obviously!) build a container fort.
Megan got to experience some hospitality on Friday night she literally love the dream. Watch out for these stickers appearing on our world trip later this year!
Weather wasn’t great this morning on Copacabana beach, so we decided to give Christ the Redeemer a miss until tomorrow as it was clouded over. Sun eventually came out and I smiled the length of the beach :-)
#whereareweofftonow
#familytravel
#Brazil
#country51
A strong positive in
#Laos
is the beauty of it. Blue Lagoon 2 is simply stunning, until it gets busy lol the drive to it is crazy.
#VangVieng
I do regret not doing a buggy they looked class, but our tuk driver was good fun as well.
#bluelagoon
#whereareweofftonow
#familytravel
Roll on 10pm and we can follow the Bangor game via Twitter again this time from Vietnam. Only she thinks beer is minging or I would be worried as she hold that beer too well.
#bangor
#no15
#whereareweofftonow
#beers
Enjoyed a walk around Copacabana beach area this evening, bit weird needing a passport to get popcorn, but there you go. Got some exercise in
#whereareweofftonow
#familytravel
#brazil