Ireland to Vietnam with two minis in tow…..

Traveling as a family was something I’ve always held in my dreams. I never foresaw having kids to be the end of these fun adventures but a motivation to keep reaching further & exploring deeper into all aspects of life. That said it didn’t mean I was without my doubts when booking a trip thousands of miles away from home with 7month old & 2-year-old in tow. I had so many questions & worries running through my mind I seriously considered canceling a few weeks before. I also didn’t tell a lot of mom friends as I didn’t want to face their concerned questions, where are you going to stay? where will the babies sleep? how will you keep a routine? what will the food be like? will they eat it? what if they get sick? are you vaccinating & the flights, 24h of traveling….how will you cope?

I had no idea, but I was pretty sure that was all part of the fun. We were jumping out of our comfort zone and reaching for a dream of slow beach days and quality family time. So we organized our lives, packed one bag of clothes, changed my name (max put the wrong name on my ticket…cheaper to change it then buy a new ticket….) said our goodbyes and headed into three months of unknown.

We had a very rough plan for one month in Vietnam, two months in Thailand. We booked our first two nights of accommodation in Vietnams capital Hanoi but that was the extent of our planning.

The flight over was surprisingly easy. The kids were easy going as always, Iza watched way too much Peppa pig and Eden breastfeed & dozed in the carrier. After three flights & over 24h of travel we arrived at our fancy accommodation (we always book a fancy place for the first two nights away, helps easy the jet lag). The first two days in Hanoi were a blur, max got food poisoning, it was loud, busy and kinda scary to leave the posh apartment. So we quickly did some research and decided to book a ferry to Cat ba island. And by day 5 we had our dreamy sea view room, multiple beaches a walk away and could finally start to settle.

There’s a lot you take for granted when at home, just knowing where a shop is, or grabbing a snack, water, washing your clothes, all these things we had to figure out in a new place. But we soon found our routine, our favorite restaurants, best deals, idyllic beach spots and began meeting all the other traveling families. Hearing stories, learning tips, our worlds began to expand, we sank into life on the beach.

We loved Cat Ba but decided to do a little trip before heading on to Thailand, so we traveling inland to Tam Coc, it was beautiful as you can see from the photos. We also wanted to give Hanoi a second chance, but for me, the only highlight was the coffee, the city is just too crazy with kids.

I feel a lot changed for us even in that one month away, we started out super busy needing projects, keeping a work routine going, but by the end we were beginning to slow, beginning to leave the busyness of the west behind.

More tales to follow, until then

If you’re curious as to how much it costs to travel as a family I made a video here – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRPiFz0QAUk
Or wondering what our routine looked like with the kids check this video –https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fy_JWS8_i5g&t=24s

Char x