Why & How We Travel

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Just in case someone might read this who doesn't know us ... we're a family living in Cary, North Carolina. Our kids are Andrea and Benjamin (ages 12 and 9 as of fall 2009).

By 1996 Melody & I had been to London and Australia mostly on business. That fall we took our first real international vacation, when we used frequent flier miles from our business trips to fly around the world for about six weeks. We ended up visiting Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, China, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Germany, and France. It was on that trip that we developed a style of travel that we’ve used since, with our children, on trips to: Turkey in 1999 and 2001, Hawaii in 2004, California in 2005, Yucatan, Mexico in 2006, and Malaysia in 2009.

On these trips our goals are to visit sites that interest us, to learn about life in a different place, and to meet local folks to the extent practical. We schedule the trip to avoid high season, both to save money, and even more importantly to avoid being turned away for anything. Homeschooling our children helps make that possible. (Note how in our photographs, you rarely see other tourists.)

We look for destinations that have these qualities:

• Interesting for nature, history, and/or current events
• Not too terribly expensive to get to (airfare)
• Inexpensive to travel in, good public transportation
• Decent tourist infrastructure, but not overrun with tourists (especially Americans)
• English or Spanish spoken widely
• Reasonably safe
• Within those constraints, as “exotic” and "foreign" as possible

In preparation, we borrow from the library all available guidebooks on the area. After reading them, we buy one or two to carry with us. (Our favorites have been Lonely Planet, Moon, and Rough Guide.) We also look for online resources and read the LP Thorn Tree. Then we discuss and pencil in a travel schedule: how long and where we will go during the trip. Then we buy the plane tickets, for dates that will get us the best deal.

We commit to as little as possible in advance, to retain flexibility during the trip (again, never at high season). We book accommodations from home for the first night only, and afterward look for budget rooms that aren't too terribly seedy. We avoid guided tours.

Once “in country”, we work at keeping costs low. This has two benefits: it allows us to stay longer, and keeps us out of the “tourist bubble”. We typically stay in cheaper hotels and eat in cheaper restaurants. Sometimes we splurge a little, and other times we wish we had spent a little more (which can generate some of our favorite stories and memories). We try to travel with the locals on trains and buses. The trip itself … especially the time taken from our lives at home … is the big splurge.

What’s the bottom line? Our goal is to get the best possible airfare (flexible days help) and spend something like $100 per day on the ground. In Malaysia in 2009 we spent about $75/day all in for the family. Our few days in Singapore cost about twice that. In the final accounting, for a 3-week trip we spent $3,200 on airfare and $2,000 on the ground. Not bad for for a family of four in southeast Asia for three weeks.

One editorial note: I like to carry a travel journal, the old fashioned paper kind. This blog is subjected to post-trip editing, on the old-fashioned theory that immediacy in writing has some drawbacks.

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