Special needs travel – Page 2

Changing the World Family Matters Travel

Why National Geographic Is To Blame For All Of This

by Jenn & Chris on November 3, 2016

& How we are using Nat Geo as our best tool on the road

One of the most vivid, core memories I have as a child is running down the hallway of my grandparents house. Their dark blue, psychedelic carpet and powder blue bathroom sink stamped forever in my brain.

As my cousins and I play hide and go seek, I head to my favourite place to hide. A waist-high closet you had to crawl up in to at the end of the hall.

As I pop open the closet door, a secret world reveals itself to me. Stacks upon stacks of yellow bordered magazines sit at the base of the closet and I suck in my breath out of sheer wonder of it all .

National Geographic.

I’m not sure if my grandparents realized the gift they bestowed on us. Years of a National Geographic magazine subscription opened so many doors to discovery. Different cultures, natural phenomenons, extraordinary animals and a global group of people & their ways of life kept me company for hours. I was hooked. Every time I stayed over at their house I would sit in the closet, eagerly devouring so many incredible stories of our world.

Our love as a family for National Geographic runs deep.

For my husband and I, it feels as much a part of our youth as pet rocks and smelly stickers.

For our children, the legacy has continued both traditionally and in an entirely new way.

For them, this whole wealth of information was introduced through a series of National Geographic Kids books on everything from ocean life, blue whales, sea turtles and Weird but True facts. These books are phenomenal and I can’t express enough how good they are for learning with your kids. We weren’t able to take the books on the road (*ahem*: 2 backpacks people..2 backpacks only for 8 months) but when we do have wifi, we are in fact tuning in from the road to the National Geographic Weird But True TV series that recently launched as both kids continue to love these quirky facts & are making it a game in searching their own on the trip.

How often do you find a real shrunken head in a museum along with directions on how to shrink them? Found at Solar Intinan beside Mitad del Mundo

Why blame National Geographic?

A beautiful piece of Autism is to become so deeply enamoured with a subject matter that you can’t hardly talk about anything else. Through the years of managing Autism with our son, we have seen many an obsession. When he started exploring those National Geographic Kids books, it created a love so deep for our oceans, for Blue Whales and for those “cool facts”, it became his go-to topic of discussion. It was a phenomenon to witness and one that we were happy to support his exploration of.

DYK: The highest density of Blue Whales is off the coast of Sri Lanka?

Neither did we. Until we heard about it for many, many months.

When the dialogue started about this round the world trip, that fact, was one of the first parts of the conversation. “What if we could take Spence to Sri Lanka to SEE the Blue Whales first hand? Can you imagine?” “How can we utilize both kids love of animals as a way to connect and engage with them?” “What if ….”

And so it began.

Nothing better to talk through volcanos and tectonic plates than by trekking up one on horseback. 4100m on Pinchincha

The New Way

If you want to get creative and engage kids, I can’t recommend enough following National Geographic on Instagram and SnapChat. Living and working in social media, I have to say their social engagement is some of some of the most impressive brand work I have ever seen in the social stratosphere. I started showing our daughter the incredible imagery & stories they post daily. As a 9 year old who is nowhere close to having an Instagram account (but thinks it’s wicked cool), it has become a way for us to get her engaged and create meaningful dialogue on different elements of the world.

I was lucky to meet the team from National Geographic at the Mom 2.0 Summit conference last year. In sharing stories of our plan for this Global adventure, we had the incredible fortune of being named one of this year’s National Geographic Kids Ambassadors. This role is a cornerstone in our global adventure and in fact has made far more of an impact than we ever thought possible.

These lovely creatures are native to the Galapagos but are being watched do to invasive species affecting their mortality rates. It's been hard to know that we, as humans are directly responsible for the demise of so many incredible animals. — These lovely creatures are native to the Galapagos but are being watched do to invasive species affecting their mortality rates. It’s been hard to know that we, as humans are directly responsible for the demise of so many incredible animals.

We have already begun to change.

The only way I can describe it is noticing that everybody is pregnant when you become pregnant. I sense us already far more AWARE of the impact we as humans can have. Everything from how we travel, cultures, environment, climate, mother nature & more, we are discussing it often. Exciting and uncomfortable all at the same time, it feels like a necessary part of our journey to feel this discomfort in order to learn how we might be able to make a difference.

I jokingly blame National Geographic for all of this but I couldn’t be more grateful. Somehow connecting with them this early in the trip has opened our eyes to a more significant and deeper experience. So yeah, I blame you, National Geographic and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Real Life Travel

Countdown to Departure on our Round the World Trip

by Jenn & Chris on October 5, 2016

All The Feels

Mom Says:

People have been asking us often how we feel about our upcoming trip. If truth be told, for the past number of months, my mental image has been one of those windy, twisty, scary-as-f*&K roller coasters. We buckled in for the ride when we decided to do this round the world trip over Christmas holidays last year. Over the past 8 months, through selling our house, having surgery, getting vaccines, connecting deeply with friends, and putting our whole life in storage we have been climbing that trek to the top.

A couple of weeks ago, I could feel us in that moment.

You know, that split-second, moment of pause at the very top right before you tip over the other side, dive down a 60 degree slope, careen around corners, turn upside down and finish the ride with all sorts of vomit-inducing adrenaline tricks.

THAT.

via GIPHY

I wanted to puke.

When we left our house and moved into 2 bedrooms at a nearby friends, we transcended the hump. The universe gave us a gift in providing a landing pad that feels more like the world’s friendliest hostel rather than an inconvenient couch-surf. Props to Izzy and Angus, (2 recent college graduates) for being so chill and fun when they got way more than they bargained for by having 4 Powells thrust upon them for a month.

Today, at T-minus 3 weeks out, we can feel that thrill as we start our deep dive into our global adventure.

There is no escaping it now (not that we want to). We are all in. #TeamPowell is ready to rock this. The kids are excited and talking a LOT about the “When we go on our world trip” while Chris and I are running around frantically getting all of those “things” you never think about or usually put off done before we leave.

Our mantra: Nobody ever said they regret moving forward. Sure, you get stuck in the moments where it’s actually the change that is uncomfortable. Once you get to the other side of the discomfort, the world truly feels FULL of life and opportunity.

Someone asked me the other day if I was stoned. I’m not stoned. I’m just at peace.

I have been working hard at mindful living. Making effort to take notice of the little things (hot showers, cushy beds, abundant food, kind people, Kraft dinner, smells, tastes, you name it) as I know so much of what we take for granted here will be absent in our world over the next many months.

We are finally organized. Our 2 backpacks that will house a family of 4 for 7 months proudly weighing in at 30lbs a piece. Most of our life is now in storage and we have started our goodbyes.

I can feel the shift in all of us.

That fear of the roller coaster gone and replaced by the thrill of the ride.

And what a ride it’s going to be.

Dad says:

Stoked. Absolutely stoked. I have never used that word before outside trying to seem cool on a double black run with the kids, and that was a total fake. I was not stoked at that time, I think I pee’d a little, truth be told.

But I am now. We are closer to departing than ever, and have arranged some arrangements for our first destination…The Galapagos! Oh yeah, out of the gate with a bullet! Now, if it was just me/just Jenn and I, it would be done differently. We would arrive as the sun is setting, having no plan or destination or place to stay for that matter. Generally, that works out in the end, but I will admit there is a chance of failure and sleeping on a park bench. Only happened once, but proof positive if you know what I mean…

With the kids, it seems like a good idea to wade into this adventure, slowly until the tender bits are past the point of no return. They are generally as excited as I am, but there are bouts of uncertainty that I need to acknowledge and address. They are 10, give or take, and we are stealing them away from friends and schoolmates to grow as people, dammit, and I guess we should appreciate that they might have some misgivings. Sleeping in the great outdoors night 1 might be a bit off putting, if you know what I mean.

BUT: the bags are packed, we could leave now honestly. And not so secretly, that would be ok…

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Real Life Travel

How Did We Get Here?

by Jenn & Chris on April 28, 2016

How we made the choice to travel the world with our kids.

Mom Says:

We have a kind of quirky approach to getting shit done.

For days/weeks/months we noodle. We say things like “yeahhhhh, we should do that” or ” we are going to have to get that done soon”. We discuss, we let it roll around our tongues, we check out how it feels.

Then one day, without any prompts we JUST DO IT. Not in an organized, excel spreadsheet, plan of action kind of way (wouldn’t that be amazing). No, we just go and let the day takes us where it may.

In the history of our relationship this has included buying a condo, buying cars, furniture, booking trips, selling our house and and now we can include travelling the globe.

Without a real plan, we just decide that today is the day we go for it. In that moment, we take the step in a new direction to our next part of this journey.

As we start socializing this plan of ours, we are experiencing polar opposite reactions depending on the person we are sharing the information with. Amidst the “That’s so awesome”, “You will never regret this” and “This is the best gift you can give your children”, we have discovered a collection of people who’s own anxieties and fears give them cause to say things like “Well, we would never do this” , “Aren’t you worried about the safety of your kids/missing school/getting out of real estate/living with your spouse 24/7 and so on” and the best one “That is the stupidest idea I have ever heard”.

For a tiny while, when those fear mongers set their panic light to on, I let it become my panic. For a second it threw me & I got caught up in feeling negligent on not having a plan. But I took a step back and looked again at our resolve: the universe will give you what you need.

For us, our fear of NOT actually taking this opportunity is far GREATER than what might happen on the trip.

Part of this adventure is that it will get messy. We will likely miss flights, end up in a crappy hotel rooms, go over budget or even get so frustrated with each other we walk out for a “break”. But its the messy we are most looking forward to. To teaching the kids how to bounce back when shit hits the fan and how to adapt when things don’t go anywhere near as planned. We believe THAT is the greatest thing we can teach our kids. And we believe that the connection this will bring us as a family is probably the best part of why we’re heading out.

Dad says:

The devil is in the details, or so they say. And who wants to live with the devils of this world anyhow? You can overthink anything to the point of paralysis, and then nothing gets done. Ever. I have sat in meetings where the only thing that was accomplished was to set the timing for the next meeting, and even that was hotly debated. If all you do is wait, looking before you leap, you don’t go anywhere. ever. And who wants that? Why, not me, I say!

With that in mind, I seem to react badly to the naysayers of the world. We haven’t made this decision without any study, or consideration of what might be the effect on our family. And in the end, the decision is ours. I find it odd that the unsolicited comments seem to stream forward without any thought as to whether they were wanted, or if they might have an unintended effect. Maybe this is one of those times where I would love to hear “that is super incredible!”, whether you think it is incredibly stupid or wow adventurous. Just sit back, let me fill in the blanks thus far, and then try and fall asleep figuring out if we are crazy after all…

So. Go forth, be bold, live with the consequences occasionally. But sometimes, you won’t have to, because it all works out in the end. And even if it doesn’t, well, oh the stories we will tell. N’est pas?