Team Spiers World Travels

A Canadian Family of Four… taking off one full year to bond, grow and live our extraordinary life. 

Go BIG or Go Home!

Kevin, Kim, Brendan & Aaron

REEEEALLY!?….How Come? Why? What happened?…

 Is there an echo in here, in here, here, here?…. The WHY question or a close variation of such, has been asked of us countless times since publicly declaring our intention to travel the world. As our plan details unfold people are even more stupefied that we would sell our house! Foster our beloved dog! Pull our kids from school! And leave “two perfectly good jobs”!!! HMmmm! Surely something must have happened that would make you do this? How could you get to the place where you would take such a risk? Wow, talk about your mid life crisis’… most people just buy a motorcycle!…  And the list goes on and on…

We have had our share of ups and downs, and expect we will continue to during and after the trip…but there was no tragedy or lottery won that pushed us to make this decision.  Hmmm, so why? I wish I could come up with some grandiose, poetic, perhaps noble response. But as deep as I dig the best I usually can come up with is a very sincere “WHY WOULDN’T WE?”. I wish I could point blank state that we are all discontent and disenchanted with everyday life, but on the contrary!  The thought of spending one year as a family, seeing all the wonder the world has to offer, nurturing love of other cultures and people,  strengthening our bond as family, etc. etc.…HUH? why wouldn’t we.  As Aaron so eloquently puts it “because we can(?)”.

Both intrigued by the big unknown world, neither Kevin or I had the opportunity to travel as young adults, and once the kids came, well, it just seemed impossible. But we would dream, and dream. One day a couple years ago I had this crazy idea that I would like to go to Africa as a family for maybe 2 months over the summer. Kevin lovingly declined. Are you nuts? But I must have planted the seed for some big travel in his mind, ‘cause the next thing I know Kevin is reading me an article about a local family who traveled the world, and began researching other families who had taken on similar outings. Go big or go home! If you know my hubby well,  he isn’t one who expresses a desire for much, so I jumped at the chance to encourage his dreaming, (only half believing it could come to be a reality.)

Then his dream became mine! Then our kids got involved, we talked about the possibilities of this wonderful adventure and made sure to discuss the sacrifices of our comfy lifestyle and the possible long term impacts on our lives (good and bad.) 

With all the conviction of a bride on her wedding day, cold footed, albeit truly in love, we made the unanimous decision to pursue our dream.