The excitement is huge, no doubts about it. So many places to see, so many things to do!!

The kids help us mark on a world map all the places we want to visit.  First on their list: Orlando’s Disney World, hum not what we had in mind! Then comes the North Pole,  Machu Picchu, the Great Wall of China, Sydney’s Opera House, they also want to climb mountains, trek the jungle, visit the Amazon.

Rj is easy, wants to see and capturing it all, through his camera lens. His big wish, however, is Japan and the Sakura.

As for me,  the dream is to visit Amazonian tribes and Peru’s rich historical landscape. I also really would like to focus on meeting local people and children wherever we go for the boys to appreciate the cultural differences, and what it means in the day to day life.

From here in London, the World seems so small and accessible: all the destinations are available, the travel expertise at hand, there are plenty of people that have visited your destination already and that can guide your travels…

A year would have been ideal but the school has only allowed us a term off (which we feel very lucky to have got considering the high profile of the school). The plan is to combine this to the long French summer break and we’ll have just 6 months to do Our little tour around the world!

So here we are, looking at travels guides and searching the internet for information about our destinations.  The cheer amount of resources is overwhelming in itself: from friends advice and recommendations, blogs, touring websites, travel guides, and photography books, we are not running out of sources of inspiration… We could nearly complain that it is too much! So we are dissecting every blogs and books to source the best of the best for our little tour.

And there we have it: it will have to be compromise!  6 months will definitely not be sufficient to fit everybody’s dreams and cover all 5 continents in sufficient depth. No North Pole, no Great Wall of China, but we have Machu Piccu and the Opera House! We also have the trekking and the jungle, the elephants, the monkeys, the pink dolphins and pyranas. No one seems disappointed for too long, we soon realise that there is much more to see out there that our original wishes are quickly overwritten by new dreams.

The line drawn on the world map has therefore changed and the main legs of the trip are finalised : It will be London – Brazil – Peru /Bolivia/Chile – Australia – Singapore – London. Lost of gaps to fill, especially between Singapore and London as we are planning on travelling through a fair few asian countries by any mean but flying. Lots of roads to map, trains and buses to book, people to meet. Exciting!