Come fly with me
It’s August 2022 and the world has well and truly reopened. I know because my Insta feed told me so. I know because the legs of my travel bug are a bit crawly, and there is no denying a travel bug that wants to crawl.
Travel newsletters, sales, emails from airline CEOs, specials, increased routes, returning air lines, airport car park promotions… the list goes on. Everyone is leaving a stash of crumbs for my travel bug, and this little bug is huuuuuuuungry.
I’ve been very fortunate in the travel stakes, banking incredible memories and getting my adrenaline and photo albums all filled up with global adventures over the years. Mal knew when he met me that experiencing the world and its people and cultures was a values-position for me. A shaper, a principle, a total non-negotiable.
My stepkids and I have spent countless hours gathered around a little tub of foreign coins I’ve accumulated from around the world. They would ask me questions about the coins, and I’d be transported to country after country of fun, insane, precious, wild memories.
Their curiosity would always tickle my travel bug and take me back to hiking Kokoda, meeting incredible people, riding a wild buffalo in a paddock in Hoi An, and visiting as much of the globe as I could.
I wanted the kids to see it all too, and for us to create our own adventures. Before we had Mykenzie, Mal and I had managed to squeeze in dozens of week-long and weekend adventures when the kids were with their mum. We’d also swapped days around and taken longer when we could.
By the time Mykenzie was 10 months old, she had been to 14 countries. Her last international trip before the borders closed for what would become a global pandemic in 2020 saw us re-enter Australia with just 3 days between our arrival and the borders closing.
Travelling with Mykenzie was easy – so far as making arrangements goes; I’m not flippant enough to say that a round-the-world trip with an 8-month-old was easy… but we had all the say in how long Mykenzie could be overseas for and where she could go.
Travelling with my stepchildren was a little (lot) more difficult. Prior to first jetting off overseas together, it was obvious these kids were keen to take to the skies. Realising the kids’ interest in travel was not any level of effort. The process for approvals was, well, a process.
I wonder sometimes if I’d been considering the logistics of travel for a family of 7 and not considered the process that leads to being able to book a flight with a blended family. Quite frankly, I think after all the solo miles, I just had a groove. I knew you only travel peacefully if you are willing to LET GO of expectations and roll with the punches. Travel enough and you will experience cancelled flights, lost baggage, jet lag, possessions left behind, bags opened, fear-for-your-life flights, strange behaviours, and all sorts of crazy stuff. It happens.
In the moments of sitting around the tub of foreign currency, I’d been asked if I’d ever missed a flight, if I’d ever had bags go missing, if I’d ever lost my passport. I’d been through the “have you ever” of travel, kid style. I had shared with the kids the “it happens” of travel, when all the while, I wasn’t considering the prospect that actually, “you, dear Stepmother, do not have any control at all in whether your stepchildren ever step foot on foreign soil”. You may purchase a ticket, book the hotels, organise an itinerary, get excited even, and it may be for nothing.
What I learnt in becoming a stepmum who still yearned for travel was that the “it happens” of travel now extended to a process of seeking approvals. Previously, the “it happens” attitude had only ever impacted me. The one thing I have total control over.
What became obvious very quickly was that:
Applying for passports required bio mum’s approval – and rightly so! There is obviously good reason for parental consent. Even if children want to travel and there are willing parents ready to make it happen, taking kids out of a country and travelling overseas is a big deal. It’s easy to be blasé about it when you’ve done it, but when it’s your kids on the plane and you’re not with them, I get that it’s a big deal. And when your kids are making new memories and experiencing “firsts” that you’re not there for, it can cause spiteful (re)actions.
We had travel windows, based around the days my stepchildren were with us. For a long time, we had a week-long limit, that moved in time to 10 days. For one break, bio mum had a holiday planned that exceeded the previously 10-day maximum and we were able to plan a family trip to the US. I felt like my clipped wings had grown back!
Having a travel window dictates the type of holiday you can truly achieve. When the window is 7-10 days, and you live in Australia, you really have to think about the impact on little people (and big ones too), what can be enjoyed in the window of time you have and what isn’t more ‘travel’ than it is ‘holiday’.
Planning to travel is less about finding the best time of year to be in the continent of your choosing and more about planning around two unblended households.
I used to get excited at the mere prospect of a holiday. I have since learnt to hold the excitement until all agreements and plans are in place.
Fast forward and we did get on a plane. We’ve since been on plenty of adventures, and there will be many more yet. Including a completely different chapter, with Madi preparing for her first parent-free international adventure. It was an immense privilege to sit with her and her friends to work out the travel arrangements and a total understatement to say I am excited for them to start their independent adventures. I know they will contribute meaningfully to the places they visit and grow from the experiences they have.
As we continue to ponder the realm of travel in our not quite nuclear family, there is one sharp barb that beckons, and I think its teeth have grown in the world we currently live in. The COVID life has us all a bit more YOLO than ever and I know more and more people who are packing up life and moving to their dream destinations or packing up the car/van/camper/life and setting off on the road for a while.
It reminds me that as a family, that’s not an experience we will have. And let’s be honest, maybe eliminating anything that looks like “woohoo! I can go full tilt and spontaneously hit the road” hasn’t been a terrible shift in my life…
Here’s what I know about what I do have:
The humorous experience of traveling as a big family. I still find it (childishly) amusing for Mal to lead us onto a flight, me at the back, silently basking in the pleasure of watching the already-seated passengers count the kids and then stare at their fellow travellers with total dismay (and twinges of horror).
Memories galore and the ability to create worldwide experiences for people I love. I didn’t know my stepchildren when I was travelling, and I hadn’t done anything I did in the hope that one day I’d have storytelling rights around a tub of foreign currency. But I guess you just never know who you might influence in the life you lead…
Wholeness. I was a whole person with views and values before meeting Mal and the kids and that doesn’t change because I became their stepmum. All of it comes with me, into our new “together” world. Even my hungry travel bug.
Gratitude. Holidays require effort in blended families. Depending on the situation between the families, it can be a lot of effort. For some families, it can be a never-never. I’m not even sure what I would’ve done if never-never family travel was our reality. Truthfully. I don’t know. I’m extremely grateful to bio mum that it’s never come to that. Because when our micro family sets off on adventures without my stepchildren, a piece of my heart really hurts knowing they aren’t there.
A truckload of memories made at home. In the last couple of years, we’ve had far more staycations than ever before, and we have made some incredible memories at home. It’s been a nice reminder of something I’ve long since known: it should never matter where you are, but rather who you are sharing your time and adventures with.
The kids will be adults before I’ll ever have the same decide>book>squeal process of excitedly booking a holiday. But by then, my prayer is that they will be well on their way to accumulating their own tub of foreign currency – or equivalent – and unknowingly creating a memory fountain to influence someone else’s adventures in life.
Until then, my little travel bug will be fed based on the blended family life of “fortnightly” calendars and school holiday breaks and I will be eternally grateful knowing how fortunate my bug and I are to even be fed.