How to Decide Which Countries to Go to?
We’ve made the decision to travel around the world for 6 months, the question now is where do we go? Given that we are traveling with kids and that my eldest loves nature (and elephants), I wanted it to be a nature-oriented trip. I started picturing camel rides in Egypt, seeing the Fjords of Norway, visiting the panda’s in China, etc., etc. Then the reality of time, weather and cost kicked in and I had to whittle the list down, then down some more.
I didn’t want to be in a country in winter, if I could avoid it. After living in Ottawa, one of the coldest capitals in the world, for 10 years I had had enough of winter. We are also not skiers, so that helped narrow the list down.
My youngest was learning about continents at the time, so I was adamant that we had to go to as many continents as we could. I was ok with skipping Antartica (they could visit there when they’re older), and we were already based in North America, so left that 5 continents. I also wanted to visit more than one country in each continent. Doing so would give the girls a broader perspective of the diversity of landscapes, peoples and cultures in each continent.
Which Countries Made the Final Cut?
With the above goals and constraints in mind we narrowed the list down to the following countries: Peru, Brazil, South Africa, Kenya, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Thailand, India and Italy.
I didn’t meet my 2-country rule in Europe, and I also broke my winter rule, as we’ll be in Italy in winter. It’s Italy, though, and at least we’ll get a chance to see Carnivale. I’m also pretty sure my husband has visions of a history trip through Europe when the girls are older, so we can see more European countries then 😉
10 countries in 6 months is probably still ambitious. I’m new to planning Round the World trips though, so am bound to make some mistakes! Ask me when we get back how we managed.
