Archive for the ‘Family Travel Masters’ Category

I’ve been online friends with Jenn Miller since about 2008. At that time she and her family were biking across Europe and Africa – an awe-inspiring feat.

This last year their family spent the summer in Guatemala, beneath the shadow of a volcano on the shores of Lake Atitlan.

While we’ve never met in person, I know we will one day in some exotic locale around the world.

Every time I learn more about their family I gain a greater admiration for who they are and what they are about. Down-to-earth, yet wildly passionate and on purpose, the Miller family is an incredible example of a family who has designed the family lifestyle of their dreams.

As I read through their ‘interview’, I couldn’t help think ‘YES!’ this is the LIFE philosophy I’m talking about.

Doing something that I would consider to be ‘impossible’ – biking for 12 months around North and Central America – Heidi and Rueben of Pedal Powered Family are not only doing it, but they’re doing it with two small toddlers in tow.

On a Big Adventure from their home in Hamilton Ontario, across the U.S., down the Pacific Coast through Mexico and Central America, then from Panama City on a ferry to Florida and up the East Coast – what they have planned is a monumental, challenging, and ultra-exciting adventure.

Learning more about this family, I’ve been powerfully inspired by their world-view and mission for living and traveling.

While many of their words could have come from my own lips – because they’re values that I hold dear – Heidi and Rueben’s commitment to living simply, giving generously and pursuing dreams courageously are a guiding light to ‘unconventional’ family living.

You can learn more about this amazing family and their upcoming adventure at www.PedalPoweredFamily.com as well as on Facebook and Twitter @pedalpoweredfam

1. Who are you? (Names, ages of your family members, and something unique about you)

Heidi (30), Reuben (28), Eden (3), and Harper (16m). We’re a young family who aims to explore the world and live life together before we get trapped in the normative expectations of our culture.

2.How does your family travel? What adventure are you pursuing? (Living abroad, by plane, boat, country hopping, road trip, bike trip, etc.)

Slow travel by bicycle is our method of choice, and we are leaving on a 12 month trip around North and Central America on May 21st, 2011.

Over the next year we hope to connect with other cycling families and individuals along our route.

3. What is your family vision/mission? Why do you do what you do?

We strive to live simply, give generously and travel slowly.

Simplicity: The act of family bicycle travel demands simplicity — from being limited in how much stuff you can take with you, to streamlining daily routines and getting away from the mindless materialism of our culture.

Generosity: Travelers can often be on the receiving end of hospitality. We want to be on the lookout for what contributions we can make to people we encounter and to learn from the experience.

Slow travel: The most important mission we have is to simply take it slow (this won’t be too hard given we will be traveling under our own power).

This world spins much too fast, especially in North American culture, and taking a year off to grow closer as a family and spend more time with our kids is a journey that will allow us to put our lives in perspective.

4. What challenges have you overcome to do what you’re doing?

A number of years ago, before we had kids or planned for this adventure, we began dramatically simplifying our lives.

Through this process we have been able to reduce our list of ‘needs’ and ‘wants’ shed debt, and above all, find ways to give more of our time and resources to those who have greater needs than us.

In short, it has helped us begin to overcome a lot of our own greed and selfishness (a struggle we still face daily). We have also been able to allocate additional funds and time away from work to make our journey possible.

We intend our bicycle adventure to act as an ultimate simple living training session, cementing principles and practices in our routine that will help us live with less, so we can give away more and further align our life with our values.

Many people see travel as a self indulgent act, something that can only be done if you have the disposable time and income — but it can be much more than that.

This unconventional way of living can cause you to re-evaluate your actions and enable you to offer more of yourself up to others.

5. What would you tell others who want to live an unconventional family life?

For us, we lived the ‘normal’ life before kids. Went to college, got jobs, bought a house, accumulated stuff.

It wasn’t until we started a family that we began to really realize that what were doing didn’t fit with our values — mainly how we wanted to spend our time and money.

Having children makes you think about what you are teaching them, and the best way to illustrate our principles to our children was to live them out.

When many people hear about our plans, they say to us, “I wish I could afford to do that.”

They don’t see the chain of choices we’ve made in order to take this adventure — and the norms we’ll continue to forgo in order to live out this unconventional dream.

They also don’t realize that they can make similar choices to change the way they are currently living.

Take a look at your goals for your life. Take a look at your values.

Are you living them out or is there a contradiction between what you value and how you are currently living?

If you value family time or travel – are you making time or saving money to do it?

Perhaps you value family time, but right now you’re sacrificing time with your family in order to achieve something else.

Sit down and evaluate your wants and desires for your life and then come up with goals to help realize them.

Confront your fear of the unknown or your reluctance to break out of the cookie cutter mold in whatever culture you are a part of.

Think outside of the box – what memories do you want to have – what do you want to teach your kids about the world you live in – how can you best communicate your values to your children?

Begin to answer these questions and you are already living unconventionally.

“Freedom fighters in the revolution to free the masses of the insidious “average life”, Heidi and Sean Marshall are an inspiring family that seem to be lots and lots of fun!

Wanting to ‘blast free of the ordinary life’, the Marshalls started making plans to liquidate their stuff and go ‘a walkabout’.

While in the midst of their planning, Sean was unexpectedly laid off from his job. After the initial shock, they both realized that instead of a setback, this was an opportunity for them to move ahead with their big dreams.

Selling their home, they took to the road with their two little girls where they have been exploring the Western United States .

Full of fun, adventure and enthusiasm for living and ‘being real’, you can learn more about them at www.FamilyRocketship.com

The Marshalls in San Francisco

1. Who are you? (Names, ages of your family members, and something unique about you).

Heidi & Sean Marshall (both 33 years old), Abigail (4) and Adrianna (2).

Heidi always wanted to marry a guy with curly hair. She got her wish and now both her daughters also have super curly hair.

2.How does your family travel? What adventure are you pursuing? (Living abroad, by plane, boat, country hopping, road trip, bike trip, etc.)

Most of our travel with the the girls so far has been road trips around the Western U.S. We’re gearing up for a big trip around the country before starting our international adventures.

We’re excited because while we have both spent time outside the U.S. we’ve never taken our girls out of the country.

3. What is your family vision/mission? Why do you do what you do?

Our family mission is to “free the masses from the insidious average life”.  There’s no better way to shake up your life and see what’s truly important to you than by selling everything you own and exploring the world.

We feel strongly that everyone should live a big, bold life. Our overall message is that life should be awesome. Let go of what you think others expect of you and realize that deep down, most people are really waiting for you to let your light shine.

4. What challenges have you overcome to do what you’re doing?

Our first challenge was being able to let go of so called “normal life”. We’d been living a certain way for a long time and it took a while for our dreams to become more important than the life we thought we were supposed to be living.

The next challenge was letting go of our stuff. It started slowly but once we got going, it was fun and liberating! The biggest challenge is making sure we have enough money to travel and continue to generate income while being mobile.

Fortunately Sean has a background in online marketing and has been able to work with a number of clients all while staying mobile. Our next challenge now lies in making preparations to leave the country for a while.

5. What would you tell others who want to live an unconventional family life?

First, really take some time to reflect of what you want to get out of life.

What do you want to achieve? What do you want to trade the minutes of your life for? What do you want to leave behind as your legacy?

It’s important to take time to think about these things and then even more importantly, take steps to actually doing them!

For us, we realized that in the end, nothing was more important than family, making sure our life was full of adventure, and helping as many others as possible along the way. This will probably hold true for most people out there. It’s just a matter of actually doing it!

Those who say it can’t be done
should get out of the way of those who are doing it.

It’s only a few more kilometers until John and Nancy Vogel reach their destination, which they may do today (barring unforeseen weather or other conditions).

They began this journey over 2 1/2 years ago in June 2008.

On that date they were in the arctic, the tippity-top of the world, the land of the midnight sun.

Now they find themselves on the opposite end of the earth, the ‘land of fire’ Tierra del Fuego, the southern most point in South America.

And how did they get from there to here you ask?

On bicycle.

(Oh, and they have two boys in tow.)

Pretty amazing boys at that. Twins Daryl and Davy who were just 11 years old when their odyssey began.

They will enter the Guinness Book of World Records as the youngest people to accomplish this Homeric voyage from Alaska to Argentina on bicycle.

An inspirational story that portrays the possibility of doing the impossible.

Not just the impossibility of doing something that’s difficult to do – like traversing two continents on pedal power

- but of having a dream and believing you can accomplish it.

Of finding the courage to do something unconventional and discovering the determination to make it happen.

At a time when many Americans were entering a recession, the Vogel family created a different reality for themselves.

They refused to live within the expectations established by society, or to find excuses for why living their dream would be impossible.

While some were ‘downsizing’ just to make ends meet, the Vogel’s were undertaking a family expedition that would bond, bind and build their family - and for less per month than most Americans spend on their mortgage- proving that an unconventional life-changing adventure doesn’t require bucoo bucks, but only a shift in values.

You can learn more about the Vogel Family on their website, www.FamilyonBikes.org

1. Who are you? (Names, ages of your family members, and something unique about you)

We are 56-year-old John (aka Dad), 50-year-old Nancy (aka Mom), and 13-year-old twins Davy and Daryl.

John and I are now old foagies who refuse to give in to Mother Nature and the boys are the most incredible young men on earth.

2.How does your family travel? What adventure are you pursuing?
(Living abroad, by plane, boat, country hopping, road trip, bike trip, etc.)

We are now in the final days of a nearly-three-year adventure cycling from the tippy top of North America in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska to the pointy end of South America in Ushuaia.

3. What is your family vision/mission? Why do you do what you do?

Our vision has been to cycle the length of the Americas – and we’re nearly there!

We’re feeling pretty darn invincible right about now with ony 220 km left to pedal.

What comes next?  We have no idea. If you find out, will you let us know??

Why do we do it?  Because the bikes are the best way to travel.  Period.

On the bikes, we are connected with Mother Nature, see tiny villages that you can’t get to know traveling on bus or car, meet way more people than otherwise, and are like little kids out riding their bikes with the wind in our hair and the sun on our cheeks!

4. What challenges have you overcome to do what you’re doing?

What challenges, you ask?  We could be here till 2020 with that list.

We’ve cycled through it all – over 15,000 passes, through barren deserts, in rain and snow and hail and sun, braved sub-zero temps and sweated like crazy in outrageous heat.
5. What would you tell others who want to live an unconventional family life?

Do it.  Normal is overrated.

At the end of your life, do you want to look back and think, “I wish I woulda..”?  Or do you want to sit in your rocker when you’re old and gray and say, “I lived life on my own terms”?