It is rare for us to enter the New Year without any concrete plans for the coming months. As a rule, we have 2-3 trips planned ahead with specifics whether in the form of airline tickets or booked accommodation. This time, however, is different…
This time we just marked on the calendar where and when we would like to go, booked vacations and…. we’ll see what comes out of it. Because for now the most important journey ahead of us is…. The one to the delivery room! ;)
Year 2018 we have already summarized, but we have been extremely economical with words when it comes to our plans for 2019…. Because this year, on the one hand, will be one big unknown for us, and on the other hand, we already have so many ideas, dreams and desires for it that it’s hard for us not to talk about them out loud!
We can already reveal that our plans extend to January 2020! Maybe it sounds unrealistic for the time being, even for us, but we don’t just look at cheap airline bargains, but more at destinations, determine where, when to go, well, and it turns out that we have to postpone some of it to the winter season 2019/2020 as not further!
Table of contents
The beginning of the year
The first quarter of the year is the time when we expect to expand our family, and as we know with this kind of thing, it’s not quite possible to plan everything. Looking at our experience so far, it’s a good idea to postpone trips until a month before your due date ;)
But we still have almost a full month left during which we might be able to get away for at least a weekend (although we still plan to give a few lectures before the birth). Of course, flying by plane is already out, longer trips by car as well, but remember that we have the comfort of living in the center of Poland and having really good road connections. So from Lodz in 2 or 3 hours we can get to many interesting places, and we intend to take advantage of this, as long as pregnancy health and well-being is good. So we rely on spontaneous trips, looking for interesting last-minute accommodations to still enjoy our time together as a family of three.
You can read more about traveling while pregnant in these posts:
- How, when and what is the best way to travel while pregnant?
- Where to travel while pregnant?
- 7 reasons why it’s fun to travel while pregnant
- Airplane flight “for free”, that is, with a child under 2 years of age
- Pros and cons of traveling with a child in the off-season
- Traveling with a baby through the eyes of a dad
- …and much more in our traveling with a child section.
However, somewhere deep inside we are already mainly focused on one desire: to hug that little traveler or traveler and start another exciting journey together! :)
When are the first trips for the four of us?
While the first child is a great unknown, turning everything upside down, the second one seems to us some simpler to handle ;) Of course, each child is different, has a different character and personality, develops differently, but nevertheless we already know what to expect more or less, when it is easier to travel and this time we will already more consciously choose the dates and directions of trips. We already know what mistakes not to make, how to pack better and how to simply not go crazy on the trip.
With Olive, every trip was a big question mark. We didn’t know if Sicily or China (mainly Beijing) with a toddler was a good destination, but we tried, learned together and discovered different aspects of parenting while traveling.
Of course, it won’t be sugar-coated, after all, remember that we won’t be traveling with three, but with four! We realize that it will be even harder to have moments when one of the parents has a break to take a photo, find the right route, objects, or even the most ordinary rest in the world, but we believe we can do it! After all, we’re not the first in the world to want to travel with two, right? :)
So when is your first trip together? As soon as we make a proof or passport ;) And seriously, we are planning our first trip by plane in April or May, and among the destinations that are on our short-list are: Italy, Greece or Ukraine. Before that, we hope to get away for a few weekends, by car or train, of course.
All we want is for good health and to be able to spend as much time together, the four of us, as soon as possible.
What further plans do we have for this year?
First of all, loosen up! Chill out when it comes to ambitious trips, full of sightseeing from dawn to dusk, planned every single day. Even now, when the three of us travel, we make the most of our time on trips and often return from them more tired than if we went to work ;)
This year is supposed to be calmer and we want to devote ourselves fully to our family. We want to always put the children and their needs first.
If we go somewhere and don’t feel like exploring, we let go and stay at the beach, pool, forest or playground.
If we are in the most picturesque place, but the toddlers don’t even want to take a picture together then it won’t happen.
If we plan to dine at a recommended restaurant, but on the way grow ice cream or waffles that turn out to be the most important thing at the moment, that’s what our dinner will be.
If we don’t manage to see or do something on some trip there will always be a reason to return.
So much.
Enjoy our time together, whether we spend it at home, away, in a hotel or on the beach. Just be together. Such #familyfirst:)
Of course, we will always bet on relaxing away from home, whether on shorter, weekend trips or those completely distant, exotic ones. It will simply be even more spontaneous and without a plan on the trip itself.
However, the trips themselves need to be planned, if only to buy tickets or book accommodation. So what are we planning beyond the aforementioned first trips for the four of us? During the vacations, a bit of a tradition with us, we want to move in a cooler, northern direction, and then for autumn and winter to bask in exotic climes, in addition to fulfilling Olive’s biggest dream (unfortunately, we can not write about it here, because she may read and there will be no surprise ;) ).
And our dream is to never stop doing what we love and do it together! We want to show children the world, to travel together, to teach, to get them interested in discovering new places, even the closer ones. We believe that by traveling together, we will be able to instill new passions and curiosity about the world from an early age. Many people say that there is no point in traveling with toddlers, because they get nothing out of these trips anyway. However, our experience shows otherwise. Olive incredibly loves traveling, tolerates it well, loves animals, enjoys exploring new places, has no problems with adaptation or jet lag….
And what’s on the blog?
Since this blog is our third child we have no intention of neglecting it (do you get 500+ for such children too? ;-)).
The blog as it was so it will be, although we do not promise that we will write more, more beautiful, and our photos will be like from National Geographic (although there already appeared! :)). Rather, we are realists, and although we are constantly educating, reading and training our workshop, we know that time will be increasingly scarce. However, we do not want to chip away at the quality of the content and materials created. We prefer to publish less often, but better, than more often, but not enough.
Here we will continue to post trip reports, practical tips, advice and…. willy-nilly there will be more content related to traveling with children! We have a few more reports of trips we took in 2018 in store, as we discovered many interesting places that we hope will inspire you to travel as well.
We will try not to slow down, but as we mentioned a few paragraphs above, however, it is the growing family that will determine how much such a pace can be maintained and devote the same amount of time to content creation. We will do our best, but nevertheless it is the two little ones who will always come first!
Summary
Seemingly without a plan, yet with dreams and desires, we enter 2019. It’s going to be a special year no matter how far you manage to travel, because remember that you don’t have to fly to the other side of the world to discover new places!
Many wonderful memories and discovered places we wish you in 2019!
If you haven’t read it yet, we recommend our summary of 2018:)