Welcome
A little bit about ourselves
We are a family of four from Auckland, New Zealand. Mum (me), Dad (Paul), a 9-year-old boy (Dylan, you'll get to meet him in our travel diary) and a 13-year-old girl (who has chosen to remain anonymous because someone might recognise her and far out that would just be the worst, like worst, thing in the world).* All things considered, we are an ordinary family. Our days are spent going to school or work, making sure the kids get to their after-school activities, and hanging out with our family, friends and neighbours on the weekends. But an inheritance from an elderly great-uncle (yup, that kind of stuff really does happen in real life) gave us a chance to stop and say "what if we did something fun? What if we took a break from real life for a couple of weeks? What on earth would we do??"
So we went to a travel expo. The possibilities were incredible. After walking around for a couple of hours, we settled on a trip to a Pacific Island. Possibly Rarotonga. Perhaps Samoa. It didn't matter - as long as we could relax on a beach in the sun. Preferably with a cocktail in hand (for the adults), or a pool to swim in (kids). Decision made, we hopped in the car and drove home. And on the way home, the kids started to scrap in the backseat. Scrapping in the back seat is a specialty of theirs, and something they have been perfecting for a number of years. It started with the usual, someone's leg had strayed into the no-mans land in the middle of the back seat which escalated to all-out war within about 30 seconds. So the adults in the front seat looked at each other and said "holy crap, this is going to happen for the entire holiday." In other words, same sh*t, different location. Something drastic needed to happen. Voices needed to be raised. Lessons needed to be learned. Our kids needed to realise that they were stuck with each other for the foreseeable future - and that they needed to learn to work together. "That's IT!!!" we said. "No Pacific Island holiday for you. We're going to go to a place where the only people you can rely on is each other. We will not go on a holiday. We will go on an ADVENTURE!" And so it was, six months later, we found ourselves in Hanoi Airport wondering just what the heck it was we were thinking when we chose to go to Vietnam. |
Why this site?
We did a bit of research before we headed off to Vietnam - if merely to just assure the children's grandparents that we would be safe and return alive. We found HEAPS of stuff on the internet about where to go, what to do, amazing things to see. But most of this was from well-seasoned travelers, mostly young and mostly backpackers. We found very little from families which answered the questions we were most concerned about. Would we be safe? Would we be comfortable? Would we be welcome? Would we be bankrupt by the time we got home?
As we traveled around Vietnam, we wrote a blog* to process what was happening, and also to let the grandparents know that we were still alive. And when we got home we decided that we would share this blog with others, in case they, like us, were planning a trip to Vietnam and wondering where on earth to start.
Part of the excitement of our trip was discovering things for ourselves - both good and bad. So we've tried very hard to just tell it like it was, and not encourage or discourage anyone to do anything. We did learn a few key things along the way, though, so if you want to take advantage of that, then please read our travel tips.
*well, Mum, Dad and Dylan wrote a blog. The 13-year-old said her only blog would be "my parents were not as embarrassing as I expected and my brother is not as much of a dork as I thought he was", so we happily left it at that.
As we traveled around Vietnam, we wrote a blog* to process what was happening, and also to let the grandparents know that we were still alive. And when we got home we decided that we would share this blog with others, in case they, like us, were planning a trip to Vietnam and wondering where on earth to start.
Part of the excitement of our trip was discovering things for ourselves - both good and bad. So we've tried very hard to just tell it like it was, and not encourage or discourage anyone to do anything. We did learn a few key things along the way, though, so if you want to take advantage of that, then please read our travel tips.
*well, Mum, Dad and Dylan wrote a blog. The 13-year-old said her only blog would be "my parents were not as embarrassing as I expected and my brother is not as much of a dork as I thought he was", so we happily left it at that.
So did it work?
In case you missed the beginning, our rationale for traveling to Vietnam was to a) have an adventure, and b) impress on our kids that, when it came down to it, they needed to be able to rely on each other.
So did it work? Short answer - yes. Our children are not best friends (this probably won't happen until their parents are seriously grouchy old people who make unreasonable demands on them), but they are now more content in each others' company. Four weeks of sharing a room, occasionally a bed, and a language, has given them a new appreciation for each other. As a family, it's made us aware of how we can rely on each other, how we can appreciate each others' differences and how much fun we can have together. And it's given us something extremely special - a shared experience that only we can really appreciate and that we can enjoy reminiscing about for as long as we like to. Family life is not all lamington's and roses - but it has made us more tolerant and appreciative of each other. Best of all - backseat scraps do not end in World War III anymore - and that's probably all that we could hope for.
So did it work? Short answer - yes. Our children are not best friends (this probably won't happen until their parents are seriously grouchy old people who make unreasonable demands on them), but they are now more content in each others' company. Four weeks of sharing a room, occasionally a bed, and a language, has given them a new appreciation for each other. As a family, it's made us aware of how we can rely on each other, how we can appreciate each others' differences and how much fun we can have together. And it's given us something extremely special - a shared experience that only we can really appreciate and that we can enjoy reminiscing about for as long as we like to. Family life is not all lamington's and roses - but it has made us more tolerant and appreciative of each other. Best of all - backseat scraps do not end in World War III anymore - and that's probably all that we could hope for.
*Our kids have given their permission for their names and or/images to appear here.