Planning vs Reality

As our year-long adventure was becoming more of a reality, Daisy and I decided to sketch out what our travel itinerary might look like. I created one with my work perspective and Daisy created one from her and kids' perspective. We would then overlay the two schedules and adjust accordingly.

Here's what I ultimately sketched out for me. Locations marked in pen were places I had committed to visit mostly for work. Other places I put on post-it notes to give me flexibility to move things around as I fleshed out the schedule. As you can see, the farther we got into the calendar, the harder it was to decide what to do (December and January look particularly barren!):

Granted, we did want to keep our plans somewhat fluid to give us the flexibility to change our schedule as opportunities arose. For someone like me, though, who likes to know everything and have everything planned out, incorporating this level of nebulousness in our travel itinerary was scary...but an opportunity for personal growth!

Since we are three months into our itinerary, I will spend the next few sections sharing our adventures. For now, I did want to list out the actual places we visited in the order we visited them so that you can compare the reality to the intended schedule above:

June                    Hawaii
July                     Ithaca, NY                
                           Niagara Falls/Niagara-on-the-Lake, Canada
                           Chicago, IL
August               San Diego, CA
                           Los Angeles, CA
                           Sedona, AZ
                           Carlsbad, CA
                           Los Angeles, CA
September          Boston, MA (Shane)
                           Bend, OR (Daisy and Kids)
                           Chicago, IL
                           San Francisco, CA (Shane)
                           London, United Kingdom (Daisy and Kids)

How close did we stay to our originally intended schedule?

Let me provide some context

This is a picture of us which I took on one of our travel stops: Shane, Daisy, Zoey (12) and Mira (9). I like this photo because it epitomizes how we feel about this adventure...all smiles!

So now we are on this grand adventure...yet, I think it’s important that I share some context around what spurred our decision to pack up our stuff and start this 12 month travel adventure (in the interest of brevity, I will just list the key considerations):

Desire to combine Experiential Learning with Homeschooling – For a long time Daisy and I discussed homeschooling our kids, but we found the Chicago Waldorf School and were extremely happy. Yet, traditional schools (even Chicago Waldorf) are still limited by their physical bricks and mortar. We felt Zoey and Mira would learn so much if we allowed them to experience diverse locations and cultures and align it with a homeschool curriculum.

Allow us some flexibility to be closer to family and friends – We have family and friends in locations throughout the United States and Asia. In the past, I found it terribly challenging to plan travel (especially to Asia) when we were limited to only certain times during the school year. Homeschooling has given us the flexibility to travel on our schedule and to visit locations which complement Zoey's and Mira's curriculum.

Broaden my exposure at work – I work for Bluewolf, a global salesforce.com consulting firm, where I lead their Higher Education and Nonprofit practice. We are a global firm with employees scattered throughout the world, in and around 14 different offices. I felt this was an opportunity to spend extended periods of time in different offices, building stronger relationships with my Bluewolf colleagues and getting closer to my customer base in those regions.  

Opportunity for personal and professional development – I knew this adventure was going to challenge my perspective on how I define office work, how I balanced work and life, and how I nurtured my relationships with Daisy and my kids. I was going to have to let go of some of the perceptions and stories I've told myself since I was an adolescent and redefine what my true authentic place as an accepting citizen of the world.

The decision to do this was a bit daunting at first (and to a certain extent downright scary). But now as I look back at the decision we made, I am grateful that we have the opportunity to take part in such a grand experience.

Next up...planning vs reality!

So now it begins...

The road (un)traveled – besides being a catchy title for this blog and an homage to the book “The Road Less Traveled” by M. Scott Peck in which he described the ingredients for a healthy, happy and fulfilled life,  it also describes the rather intrepid adventure my family and I have embarked on just a few months ago.

Before this adventure started, we spent the last nine years in Chicago and Evanston (home to Northwestern University) being part of a wonderfully supportive Chicago Waldorf School community. Yet, a loss in our family earlier in the year, the desire to spend more time with our kids and homeschool them, and a yearning to see more of the world and learn from diverse global cultures convinced us to pack up our stuff and hit the road for a year starting in June 2015.

Leaving our community behind, I felt blogging was the best way to stay in touch with friends and family as we traveled the globe. It also would give me a forum by which to not only share our adventures with everyone, but also a way to share the challenges I would face and the learning I would discover traveling as a family of four for a year. So while I may have started this a few months late, this is my blog…and these are my stories.