After 5 Months of Full-Time Travel, Do We Call It Quits?

After living in the gorgeous country of New Zealand for 2 years, we wanted to see more of the world! So we planned on traveling the world from January-June. Then we would settle back down in the United States, buy a home, get the kids enrolled in school, and continue on with life. After 5 months of full-time travel, do we call it quits? Do we put our suitcases in our closets and tuck our passports away for good??

Life is full of change. Life is full of choices and inspiration and unexpected turns. So even though we planned to travel full-time for only 5 months and then return to the daily grind and ideal American lifestyle, we have changed our minds. We have fallen in love with the learning, growing, and serving opportunities of traveling. We have loved getting to know new cultures, new people, new religions, new foods, new places. Our lives have been enriched beyond measure and we don’t feel like it’s time yet to settle down.

We are a strong praying family. We believe that God has a plan for each of us and that we can communicate with Him to guide us and direct us in our lives. So, we have been praying and praying to know what to do. Praying to know where we should settle down. Praying IF we should settle down. If we should travel. If we should put our kids in school. If we should homeschool. Oh boy. It’s been a heart wrenching and confusing and overwhelming decision to make for our family.

But, after much prayer and thought we have decided to not call it quits. We have decided that we still need to learn and grow and enrich our lives so we can become better from the experiences we have by traveling. We want to see more of the world. We want to meet more good people. We want to learn about more cultures. We want to serve more people. We want to make more memories. We want to grow even closer as a family.

Traveling for the last 5 months has been hard. Not gonna lie….traveling full-time is haaaard work. It’s a lot of packing, shuffling, planning, getting outside of your comfort zone, trying new things, keeping everyone safe and happy, making do with what you’ve got, waiting, waiting, and waiting. But all of that hard work is so worth it for us. Our family has grown so much closer. Our kids have been getting along better. Our hearts are growing larger for more people of all shapes, sizes, colors, religions, and social classes.

So even though we have one-way tickets to the States in June, that doesn’t mean we will stop there for good. We will be traveling around the States for the rest of the year and then head back out to the big world in 2019. We want to spend time with our extended family and catch up with friends and see the many wonderful places that the States has to offer.

But we want your help! We need suggestions of places to visit…in the States and out of the States. Throw them at us because we want to have more enriching and beautiful experiences. Contact us with your thoughts because we would love to hear from you!