Pinay Travel Junkie: family travel

Day two of 2013 found us driving interstate in Australia. We were merrily cruising in a supermini car that we hired for five bucks a day. Yes, five Aussie dollars. But under the condition that we drive it from Sydney to Brisbane within five days. A time frame that certainly is more than enough to cover a thousand kilometers.

Our supposed final destination was an "intentional community" in a peaceful bushland near hippie suburbs Mullumbimby and Byron Bay, where we planned to stay for a month. Though we're kicking off another year as a technically homeless family, hubby and I are thrilled at the idea of schooling (Or shall I say unschooling?) ourselves again in far-flung foreign lands. Never mind we spend all our earnings as we go, so long as we live in "the now".

The long drive on the Pacific Highway made us fondly reminisce about how we traveled like it's the end of the world in 2012. Twelve countries. We're probably never gonna top that. But it doesn't matter because it ain't a goal of ours. What we do intend to accomplish this 2013 is to live in different places, in the Philippines and beyond, on longer periods. In a way it shall prepare us for normalcy. Next year, our daughter will start preschool education which will surely anchor us somewhere. Where exactly? We don't know.

I feel as though we've started counting down to the end of our carefree days. A prison with cells made of conventional rules and routines awaits around the corner. It saddens us quite bit, but who are we to whinge? For four years that the hubby and I have been together, all our memories revolved around travel. Packing and unpacking. Checking in and checkin out. Departure and arrival.

Like I said a while back, the universe spoiled us to bits. We really couldn't ask for anything more. Can hardly wait to know what 2013 got up its sleeve! And you know what? I'm spreading the good vibe around via a giveaway!

Left: Lonely Planet's Best in Travel 2012 and 2013 bundle. Right: The Travel Blogging Calendar 2013, Women's. Can you spot the Pinay Travel Junkie?

Prizes at stake (one winner for each prize):

Lonely Planet's Best In Travel 2012 and 2013 bundle. Jumpstart your 2013 reading about the best travel experiences the past year and for the year ahead!

Travel Blogging Calendar 2013, Women's. 24 fearless travel bloggers from around the world posed nearly naked (Okay, mostly the men.) and purred for the camera... For charity! All these sizzling hot snapshots are printed on a 2013 calendar (Thanks to Uprinting.), and all proceeds from the sales will be donated to Mitrata Nepal and VSO Bahaginan Philippines. If you don't win this one, please consider buying. $25 each.

Punchdrunk Panda's "Stamp Collector" SLR camera strap by Jennifer Horn. Get your travel groove on by embellishing your DSLR with this fun strap!

Punchdrunk Panda "Stamp Collector" SLR camera strap by Jennifer Horn. DSLR not included.

What you gotta do... Just "like" a bunch of pages and share the news to others. Let Rafflecopter lead the way.

a Rafflecopter giveaway
Open to Philippine residents. Contest will run from January 13 to January 31. Winners will be announced on February 1. Prizes will be sent within the month of February.

Good luck, fellow travel junkies! Now share us your travel plans for 2013.

This is my entry to Pinoy Travel Bloggers' Blog Carnival "New Beginnings" for the month of January, hosted by Roj Braga of Adventuroj.

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A surprise guest post by Pinay Travel Junkie's backpacking buddy-slash-life partner. A post he wrote while I was slumbering and while he was doing an all-nighter watch on our sick daughter. Something he was able to do for my Blogger's constantly logged on... I obviously just added this part after he published the article.

Isla Cantuta floating Island, Lake Titicaca (at 3,800 meters above sea level), Peru. One of the few family photos (with all three of us) we got for this round-the-world trip.
Firstly to my wife Gay, I'd like to say Happy Valentines Day! We're in the middle of our big round-the-world trip with our 16 months old baby, which kinda started in Australia for 5 months (where I grew up) then went to USA for 1 month (San Francisco), Mexico for 1 month (Mexico City, Puebla, Oaxaca, Merida, Palenque & Cancun), Peru for 1 month (Lima, Paracas, Nasca, Arequipa, Puno, Cusco), and now Brazil (currently in Cabo Frio). It's definitely been a hectic journey, travelling long-term as both a couple and with a baby! It goes without saying that it's been difficult in many occasions and amazing in many more occasions!

Back in 2009 we already backpacked South-East Asia on a shoestring as a couple, which pushed us to our limits (mainly due to bed bugs from Borneo!), but we endured it together and came out with great experiences, and it was during that trip that I realized that if we can handle an intense 6-week backpacking trip together then we can handle almost anything! So that was when I decided I truly wanted to marry Gay and spend the rest of my life with her, and several months later I did propose to her and for some reason she said yes!

Unfortunately, we were really exhausted from that trip, and 3 years later we still haven't had much chance to relax since then! First we had a very rushed wedding within 3 months because the peak wedding season was about to start, and between the wedding and our honeymoon we used up pretty much all our money. Then within weeks after getting hitched we found out she was pregnant, and we went through 9 months of her pregnancy amidst family stresses while I also got an RSI injury from overworking, all of which resulted in us becoming really exhausted, and barely getting a few hours sleep each night.

Then our baby Luna was born, and we literally survived on roughly 1-hour sleep each night for several months, that REALLY pushed us to our limits! Plus we went through months of constant stress to arrange Gay's visa to Australia, and because of visa delays we ended up getting to Australia at the start of winter, which was about 20 degrees colder than what we were used to! Add to that some more family stresses, and the 2 years of continuous events had really gotten to us. It was the obvious time for us to finally settle down and buy a house and live the same routine every week. But instead of settling down, we seemed to think we still had some crazy left in us so we decided to take our baby on a 9 month round-the-world trip before settling down! Some would say we're crazy. others would say we're extremely crazy, but at least we think it's cool!

Travelling with a baby really is hard work, and the lack of good sleep makes it that much tougher, and obviously there are a lot of things we don't do on our trip since we have our baby with us. But it's also been great to travel the world just the 3 of us, and with our baby by our side, every day brings new adventures, whether we go outside the hostel or not! There's gotta be more people jealous of Luna than any other baby I know of! She learnt to blush at a boy while getting off a flight, she learnt to say her first word using a language that neither of us are fluent in, she learnt to walk when at 3800 meters above sea level altitude where it's hard even for us to walk! So our baby Luna has been having a great time on this trip, but we are the ones dealing with the daily stresses of travelling the world with a baby.

Things as simple as catching an overnight bus or flight can easily become a nightmare of 2 days without sleep, which then becomes dangerous if you are both too sleepy to take care of the baby! Or running low on drinking water in the middle of the night, which suddenly becomes a big deal because if our daughter doesn't drink enough during the night then she will be screaming till morning! So travelling with a baby is guaranteed to put lots of pressure on any relationship, especially in tough moments such as when your baby is sick and you don't even know how to say "doctor" let alone find a reliable one, or something in the trip does not work to your original plan (which obviously happens a lot!) so you invariably start blaming each other for anything that is stressing you at the time.

And one of the hardest aspects is not being able to have a family member or trustworthy babysitter to take care of your baby every once in a while, so you literally need to be taking care of your baby 24-hours a day, every day during your trip. So it doesn't leave any time whatsoever for just the two of us to spend time together, which is particularly annoying in our case since we had a baby so soon after our wedding!

It certainly requires a hell of a lot of patience and a really strong relationship to handle travelling new countries & new cultures with a baby, but in the end we're obviously going to have a lot of great memories of the 3 of us together! And which baby doesn't want to spend 24-hours a day with both their parents? Anyway, I wish I had more time to spend alone with my wife and without all these stresses but I guess we're just gonna have to wait until we finally settle down before that happens!

Cheers,
Sherv.

This is Pinay Travel Junkie's entry to the Pinoy Travel Bloggers' February 2012 Blog Carnival themed "Why You Should Date a Traveler" (or in this case, why you should marry a traveler).

Hosted by the awesome Lauren of Epic Potato.

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