Vacations are No Vacation

A gorgeous resort in Cancun we won't be staying at.

So, are you going anywhere for the holidays?  She asked.  We're going to Cancun and Cuba.  Oh I've been to Cancun...you'll love it! What resort are you staying at?  We're not staying in a resort.  And we're not actually even staying in Cancun. We're travelling around and staying in Airbnbs and hostels.  Be careful, I've heard it's dangerous outside of the resorts in Mexico!  Are you taking your kids?  Yes.  All of them?  We did consider leaving some of them at home, but it being over Christmas and all...yes...we're bringing all four teenagers.  Wow, what a trip!  Oh...it's always a trip, trust me.

Not only do we travel on the cheap; it's also the way we prefer to travel.  (Ok, my husband and I prefer gritty, adventure travel.  Our kids would probably prefer an all inclusive 5 star resort if they had a say.  But, they don't.)

It begins before we even leave the house.  We'll be moving around a lot and you've got one bag so pack light.  We may not have access to laundry facilities to wash clothes so don't forget to pack enough socks and underwear.  And for god's sake pack (and use) deodorant!  Oh...and a toothbrush.  

We prefer to stay in apartments with a kitchen so we can cook breakfast and dinner, reducing our costs by only eating out once a day.  Which is a bonus for me because I love to check out the grocery store and see the different foods indigenous to that country.  In Australia Campbell's sells cans of condensed pumpkin soup.  And in Morocco they sell chopped up pumpkin that sits out unrefrigerated all day swarming with flies.  Not only that, we also eat street food.  And boat food (think food truck, but on a boat).  Which is how we got food poisoning in Thailand a few years ago (yes, ALL of us) and how I acquired a parasite who attempted to hitchhike home with me, all snuggled up in my intestines from Vietnam last year.  He was really comfy, I was not.

We've done pretty well on accommodations if you like being covered in mud sleeping in the rain forest in a farmhouse without windows to keep the swarms of mosquitoes out like we did in Costa Rica.  Or a couple of years ago when we camped in Patagonia in the rain, which then turned to snow because of course it did.  We've slept on the floor of a stranger's house we didn't even share a language with in Morocco.  And we've also slept in a tent on safari in Botswana with a lion outside.   That last one was particularly adrenaline filled.  Not to mention the time we got scammed out of a place to stay and stranded at the Sheffield Airport in the middle of the night when we were traveling to London.  But, that seems civilized in comparison to the others.

At this point, you may have figured out that we don't spend our vacation actually relaxing.  Sitting on the beach sipping fruity drinks constitutes a half day of the trip, at most.  In fact, our trips are utterly exhausting.  Like hiking to and swimming into one of the biggest caves in the world with a spelunking light and bats flying over head.  Or traveling to Egypt after the revolution when the US had issued a travel warning because the country was ruled by martial law; then getting caught in the middle of a protest.  (And yes, we are aware that there is a US Travel Warning for Cuba at the moment.)

So, this is the part where I tell you that I'm taking a couple of weeks off writing to go have an adventure.  What could possibly go wrong?  I'll be back to tell you in 2018.  Happy holidays to you and yours!  (If you're interested in reading about some of our other adventures, our trips are categorized by country in the labels section of my blog located on the right hand side.  Keep scrolling down.)