How You Too Can Afford To Take Your Family On Holiday

To many people, going on holiday with their kids seems like an impossibility and don’t even mention going overseas.  Why?

Cost.

The fact that we’ve managed to go on holiday with our kids, overseas, twice in the past 10 months may cause some people to conclude that we are rich.  This is simply NOT TRUE.

So what’s our secret?

Our Cost of Living In Australia

When people hear about our year long travels with our 2 kids, almost immediately they jump to the conclusion that the trip was very expensive.  More and more, people are slowly coming to the conclusion that the cost of living in Australia is very high.  Without a doubt there was a price tag attached to our trip, yet relative to just staying at home, living day to day life in Australia, just how did it compare??

But How Did We Actually Pay For Our Year Away?

Ok, so we told you how much our year away backpacking with 2 kids in SEA cost us.  But how did we actually pay for it all??  We certainly didn’t win any lottery, nor did we actually save that amount of money. There were multiple factors that worked together which resulted in the actual net cost of the trip being only a fraction of that total expenditure figure. 

So How Much Did Our Trip Cost?

So the post that many of you have been waiting for:  How much did our year of traveling with 2 kids really cost?  Well the dust has finally settled enough for us to do the final number crunch (being the daughter of a Chartered Accountant, I can be a bit obsessive about number crunching).  The results surprised us.

Hong Kong-- Bright Lights, BIG City

In the scheme of things, the 6 nights/5 days that we spent in Hong Kong was a decent amount of time to spend in a city, especially with 2 kids in tow.  But for precisely that reason, we wish we had another 3x that amount in order to have really explored the city.  There is just so much to see and do there, that you don’t even know where to start.

That's A Wrap: India

Wow—so that’s it, we’ve just survived 3 months backpacking around South India with our 2 pre-schoolers, and relatively unscathed.  Before coming here, some people voiced their concerns about travelling to India with young children--one person even went so far as to say that India, as a destination, is only interesting for adults and that choosing to come here with children is selfish. 

Precariously Perched Varkala

When we first read about Varkala, on the southwest coast of India on the Arabian Sea—it sounded intriguing.  Yet it made us wary at the same time.  It was described as a ‘backpacker scene’, which usually can mean crowds, difficulty finding accommodation and in general, touristy.  But as it was only 30min by train from Trivandrum and on our way northward, we set aside 2 nights to check it out.  It turned out to be one of the most unique seaside places that we’ve ever experienced.

Not A Foreigner In Sight: Karaikal

Our choices regarding our itinerary in terms of destinations and activities sometimes tend to be on the ‘haphazardly researched’ end of the organisational continuum.  It’ll come down to how interesting it sounds (the destination/activity), how much effort is involved to make it happen (i.e., getting there, timing), and cost (re: cost to get there, cost of the activity).  We ended up at our latest destination based on this:  it was on our way south and the literature from the Puducherry Union of States tourism office said that it was possibly the best natural beach in Tamil Nadu.  So off we set from the new bus stand in Pondy, destination:  Karaikal.

Sri Lanka--That's A Wrap

Uppuveli Beach

Set in the Indian Ocean, south of India and a few degrees north of the equator, Sri Lanka was once a darling in tourism’s eyes.  Although relatively compact, the island offers a vast diversity in landscapes—from beautiful beaches fringed with coral, to national parks filled with such wildlife as elephants, leopards, crocodiles and bears,  to cool hill stations producing most of the world’s best known teas (Ceylon tea), to important religious sites pertaining to the Buddhist and Hindu religions.   But in the early 1980’s, Sri Lanka fell from grace when the conflict between the ‘Tamil Tigers’, who were fighting for their own independent state, and the Sri Lankan military began and turned into Asia’s longest-lasting war, only finally ending nearly 30yrs later. 

Philippines, That's A Wrap

The Philippines got included on our itinerary all because we got an amazing seat sale on the tickets.  While Jim and I were both curious about the country, we knew little about it until shortly before we arrived—which was nothing new for us!  But like Vietnam, we soon discovered that it’s a big country; a conglomeration of islands in fact—7101 according to Lonely Planet!  And it soon became very confusing to us to try to organise our itinerary for our mere 20 days here.  Most tourists to the Philippines usually end up at either the island of Boracay, Cebu or Palawan and we probably would have too were it not for logistics and budget considerations and also that it was typhoon season.   We thought we’d do the ‘simplest’ thing—to spend our time traveling only in the north of Luzon Island, where we’d arrive.  And it turned out to be a great plan, despite the often long and tough traveling that we had to do. Northern Luzon, we discovered, has so much to offer:  numerous World Heritage Sites, the Cordillera Mountains, beautiful beaches, and lots of history to experience.  We are really glad that we had a chance to taste this region of the Philippines.  So in our 20 days here, this is our list of:

We Survived SEA's Most Populated City, Manila

To say that we were wary about visiting Manila is a huge understatement—we avoided it when we first arrived, then hummed and haa-ad about it the entire time we’ve been in the Philippines.  To make matters worse, no matter who we spoke to about the place, be it other backpackers or locals, no one had a good thing to say about it.  Nevertheless everyone’s conclusion, including our own, was that we just had to experience it first-hand.  We braced ourselves for the worst and it was probably the best thing we could have done as when you do, then whatever does happen usually will pale in comparison.  

San Miguel by the Bay, Pasay, looking towards Manila

Turquoise Waters, Coconut Palms & Orange Sunsets: Pagudpud

The thing about independent traveling is that it can be hard work; it actually takes a lot of effort to organise your own transportation, accommodation, and even figuring out where and what you are going to eat.  Add young children into this scenario, and the effort level multiplies. Whenever you move/change locations, it means having to figure this out all over again.  For the past 7 weeks since leaving Sihanoukville in Cambodia, we haven’t been in one place longer than 3 days, so we were due to find a nice place somewhere here in the Philippines to ‘have a holiday’ from our supposed holiday.  And we did, in Pagudpud.

A Final Word On Vietnam

Having both never been to Vietnam, we were extremely surprised by the country’s diversity in landscape and topography--no two places were even remotely alike.  And the variety of activities on offer, especially for a family with young children, kept everyone busy and entertained yet was extremely light on the wallet.  As with all of our other destinations so far on this trip, we’ve enjoyed ourselves in Vietnam, although some aspects more than others.  Here’s our recap of our likes and dislikes from our 29 days there:

How We Moved Our Family From Point A To B In Vietnam

The logistics of traveling with a family are very different to when you are travelling on your own or with other able-bodied adults.  Young kids in particular can have attention span issues, motion sickness issues, and mobility issues.  It wasn’t until about 2 weeks before we were to arrive in Vietnam did we realise how BIG a country it actually is.  Apparently it is a similar size to Italy and has 3451km of coastline!  After we identified the ‘where’ part of our itinerary for Vietnam, we had to address the ‘how’-- as we had only allowed for a maximum of 30 days there, we were going to have some serious ground to cover in terms of getting between destinations as well as maximizing our time once we got there.

Saved the Best (and Worst) For Last: Halong Bay

It was hard to imagine at first whether it could live up to the hype.  We included it in our itinerary as it was simply ‘THE’ must-do while in Vietnam and hoped for the best.  We are happy to report that it did not disappoint.  The 4 days/3 nights that we spent in Halong Bay was simply our best experience in all of our time in Vietnam -- we managed to have saved the best for last.  

Cambodia--That's a Wrap

We’ve bid adieu to Cambodia after 28 days in the country.  We were a bit hesitant about it at first, but the verdict in case you haven’t noticed, is that we LOVED it!  Here’s our list of what we liked, disliked and were on the fence about:

The Good:

Beach Time in Sihanoukville

While it’s great to catch local festivals and holidays when you are travelling, it can also be a real pain in the a**.  Demand for transportation and accommodation increases, prices are raised and availability is severely hampered.  In Cambodia, it’s Khmer New Year time and we’re spending it here in Sihanoukville, on the Gulf of Thailand.

Occheuteal Beach, Sihanoukville

By-Products in Battambang

We arrived yesterday in Battambang after an incident free 4.5hr journey from Siem Reap.  Strange town, or should I say city actually as it is the second largest city in Cambodia with a population of approximately 140,000.  While most streets in the city centre are paved, they are strangely quiet although all lined with multi-storey mostly French-colonial style buildings.  There are again few cars interspersed with motor scooters, tuk tuks, bicycles, pedestrians and also the occasional pony and cart!  After 9pm, the city streets become deserted.  But beyond the city’s limits lay many Khmer Rouge- era legacies (or by-products) to pay respect to as well as a few pre-Angkorian era ruins to explore and that’s what we’re here to do. 

A Battambang Tuk Tuk

New Territory: Cambodia and Siem Reap

Angkor Wat, Cambodia

We’ve been looking forward to visiting Cambodia with our family, although with a bit of trepidation due to the fact that neither of us had visited before.  But from the moment that we stepped foot in this country (and even in the moments leading up to it), our minds were put to rest and good karma seemed to be finally on our side.  We’ve been so impressed with our time here so far, and feel very happy and relaxed.

We were doing a ‘land crossing’, independently of course, and the first of this trip.  After our last rabies shot at The Thai Travel Clinic in Bangkok, we took the 1:05pm 3rd class train  to Aryanya Pratchet, in southeastern Thailand.  We didn't arrive until 6:30pm so 
we spent the night before crossing over first thing after breakfast on foot to Poipet, Cambodia.

Amazing Thailand

It’s been an interesting time here in Thailand—we’ve spent 30 days, managing to visit Bangkok, Kanchanaburi, Ayutthaya, Chiang Mai, Pai, and Aranya Prathet.  While this is my second and it’s Jim’s 3^rd visit, each time it was under different circumstances:  travelling as a young twenty-something single (Jim), then as a couple in our early 30’s and now as a family in our 40’s with 2 young children.  These circumstances no doubt affect your perspective as well as your experience and type of interaction with others.  While we had been to all but Aranya Prathet on our travels before, we still managed to discover lots of new sights mostly as a result of travelling with children.