A family sells house and car for travelling around the world

This is a new trend reports the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten: families put their children in the baggage and walk out in to the world. Monday the 24th July starts their one a year long journey from Oslo in Norway.

Each member in the family has their own backpack. The only thing they left is their furniture, which is placed in a store. Their home is sold, and their car is sold, and also the debt is paid off. The only things the children have brought with them from school are books in mathematic.

The family will take their time to learn about the places they are going to visit. It includes religions, languages, society and geography. Tickets for aeroplane flights for one year will cost 20.000 British Pound. Estimated cost for the whole journey is approximately 100.000 British Pound.

Here is their itinerary:

Oslo - Costa Rica - Nicaragua - Guatemala - Hawaii - Fiji - New Zealand - Australia - Indonesia - Thailand India Hong Kong South Africa - Nairobi - Oslo. The father Knut, worked as IT-consultant and started to get health problems after a long period with hard work. Stress is now banned. Instead of working almost day and night whole the year, they can now look forward to a more relaxed life.

Parents in Norway are not guaranteed to have their children back at school when they return at home longer vacation than normal. In the last school year (1999/2000), 47 of 58 applications for taking children out from the school for longer than 2 weeks, were dismissed.

If parents take their children with them abroad for longer than half a year, they have no guarantee that their children can start up again where they left last time. In general most children don't need to change school after they have returned home.

An another family, Stein and Randi Johansen, with their daughter Sissel (3), set their sails out for the Middle Ocean, the Canary Islands and Caribbean. They have also quit in their jobs and sold the car. As the father says; we do it because we want to spend more time with our daughter.

Constantly more people use the world as a playground

Four weeks vacation in the summer is not sufficient for they who want to see more of the world. For families the children are no obstacles any longer for travelling to more exotic and exiting destinations. Parent who want to go on a safari, Inca trail, or sail around the world, can take their children with them, especially children aged form 10-16. Better economy in families cause new habits for vacation.

Many travel agencies have already had an increase in inquires from a family who wants to have stronger adventures in their vacations. It is definitely a new trend where parents take their children with them. Some of the most popular places are Australia and the Seychelles.

Families today like to go abroad to live a different life. It important to vaccinate small children before the trips starts. If you travel with a baby you should breast-feed it as long as possible. Then you avoid that children get diarè or suffer from dryness, says a doctor. Both the mentioned families must have Viking blood in their veins. It is no doubt that they have real guts, and that they also have same interest for explorations as their ancestors.

I hope their travelling plans will work out and that they will be able to accomplish their long journey. I wish them good luck, and I look forward to hear about their explorations.

Stein Morten Lund, 3 July 2000.