I wrote this blog when we were flying back from Florida to Tokyo at the start of the year.
As I write this, we are currently 10 363 m above sea level, flying over Vancouver and surrounding mountain range on our way back to Japan.
It is an area I have wanted to visit and now that I’m seeing it from above- even more so…
I think I got the travel bug as a child. My Dad only got leave at Christmas, and so we would always go away and explore other parts of South Africa. Mum always said that it was because Dad never went anywhere in his holidays growing up and it got too hot and humid in Natal in December to stay put…
Either way, off we would go. When we were little, staying in self catering cottages and then in our caravan which my folks bought when I was 10.
We never went directly there. Part of the holiday was the trip there. An 18 hour car journey to Cape Town was taken over 3 days, stopping at little towns, and exploring. Even when we were passing through a little town or ‘dorpie’ as the Afrikaans people call it, Mum would read us the information from her book ‘Off the Beacon Track’ which was the SA equivalent of Lonely Planet.. The book would be opened and we would groan (especially when we were teenagers!) but the seed was planted!
So as I sit on this aeroplane, looking over the mountains, I’m wondering where this year will take us. Can we visit some new places? We are so fortunate to be living in Japan for this period, we should be able to visit some very different places and have some great new experiences. But when we travel- am I sharing my love for travel, new experiences, cultures and the histories behind the country with the children or do they feel like they are being dragged round another place? How can I share it with my kids? My Mum’s technique worked for me, but my siblings don’t get the same thrill out of travelling that I do, so it didn’t work for them…
Guess I’ll just keep visiting and get excited about places across the world- their history/ geography and culture and hope and pray that my children too will get the travel bug and want to explore this wonderful place that God has created.
Somedays by C 
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