What is the best way to learn a language? I figured this out one day while in Russia when I was watching my youngest daughter play with her friend. We had parked the van in a garden, but this scene in front of me at that moment wasn’t a new one. I had watched her play like that in Italy, Malta, New Zealand, Croatia, Malaysia. Bali, India and many more (she is 3 years old and has visited 37 countries already and lived in about 8!). She has played often with kids, she doesn’t share a language with.   But on this particular occasion, there was a huge difference. Something I really noticed, and i ..read more

DON’T LET FLIGHTNETWORK SCAM YOU TOO…  first up, even though flightnetwork scammed us,  I want to say that I am not a fan of giving bad reviews, but after 4 days of trying to get even just a reasonable outcome with the complete mess that flightnetwork.com made of our booking to the USA, I have given up and I am posting this to make sure you don’t have to suffer the same treatment and deception, in the hands of this unscrupulous company, as we did. THIS WAS THE MOST INSIDIOUS TRAVEL SCAM I HAVE EXPERIENCED. Here is what happened… I search for a flight using the IOS App Jetradar and found a very ..read more

When I first started to travel, I had no idea what travel essentials were. It actually made it harder to travel and sometimes also more expensive. As I travelled more, I discovered a bunch of things that really helped and made my traveling you can learn more in our free Family Travel Secrets ebook with loads more tips in it so much easier, lighter and smarter. This isn’t a big list, but it is one with a purpose behind it. Don’t take too much with you, only the things that are really helpful. I use all these travel essentials regularly and we take them with us everywhere we go ..read more

When you’re traveling in Russia by camper van, there are essentials you really need to know. You need to know them before you arrive and while you are there. This way you will be properly prepared. Things like where to find water, how to deal with your waste and the low down on electricity. Before I start, you can find out about some of the other things like reviews of different areas and more in these places. In our youtube series about driving across Russia to Siberia on our Youtube Channel We also have other posts about Russia such as Travel to Russia, My Thoughts on Politics, the USA an ..read more

As you know, we decided to travel to Russia. Travelling isn’t always easy when you do it full time. You’re not a tourist and everyday life becomes part of your travel around the world. Right now I am sitting in a playground in Tomsk, Russia and wondering what do other people do when things aren’t going the way you want them to? Do you push back? Or do you push through? Do you resign yourself to it and lower your expectations? Or do you give up and tell yourself you deserve nothing more or different? I really want to know how YOU deal with the tough times… Some advice would be greatly appreciat ..read more

There are 8 problems of living in a van that we have discovered in our first month of vanlife. Maybe they are just specific to us, but I am guessing they are not. We have been living in a van for 30 days now and have started to finally feel like we understand what it means to live the vanlife full time. We found some problems we didn’t expect before we moved into our van. Maybe there will be more and if there are, I will share them in an update post, but the ones that surfaced in this first month are: 1. Icky Smells Do camper van (RV) toilets smell? If not managed properly, they can smell real ..read more

Continuing on from our 8 Favourite Places to Visit in Italy part 1 we now explore cities and a region on the west coast of Italy that we recommend and our personal ‘Must Do’ places to visit in Italy. (in the future, we will do a story on the cities in the south of Italy including the island of Sicily. For now, we will start in Rome and head north, finishing in the Cinque Terra region, where I am while I write this feature for you. Rome/Vatican City Let’s not forget a visit to the capital of Italy and The Vatican! You simply must visit the Colosseum, the Trevi ..read more

When heading to Italy for the first time, it can be daunting to try to figure out what to do. There are so many wonderful places to visit in Italy that choosing which ones to visit first is a real dilemma.  If you not planning a trip for a while… Pin this image to save it for later These are the favourite places we have visited Italy that we think are ‘must do’ destinations. They are also the places we stopped in at on our first couple of drives around Italy with the kids. We got to everything we wanted on these trips, bar one. I must confess, we missed Pompeii. It was a mistake on o ..read more

I did the below video about halfway through our stay at our Workaway in Italy, but watching it again, just now, makes me realise that it doesn’t give the full picture of what these last couple months have been for us. I remember when we arrived in this Workaway in Italy, we had been living in Malta. The deal was super delayed and we up one morning and realised that we would be in serious trouble. Vero said it, “Let’s go to a Workaway (workaway.info) before we run out totally”. I resisted at first but then realised she was right. Waiting on a deal to complete is soul destroying when it ..read more