We will all carry one adventure duffel and a day pack and that’s it.
This simple rule meant that we could all carry our own belongings and that luggage could be crammed and crushed into odd spaces like hostel lockers and tiny tuk-tuks.
In the end, we also brought along a horrible wheeled monstrosity we nicknamed “The Beast” and always seemed to have a chaotic constellation of carrier bags of food and random junk. So much for principles and plans.
So here is a copy of my original packing list and some thoughts on the things we brought. Use it sparingly to inform your own packing list and please let me know if there are essentials that you travel with that we should consider.
Item | Notes |
---|---|
Bandana | |
Baseball / Sun Hat | |
Boardshorts | I skipped these and just wore my running shorts. Totally fine. |
Buff | |
Flip Flops | |
Jumper/Hoodie | I took both a fleece and a jumper. I should have only taken the fleece. You need one, if only for the flights which are freezing |
Liner Gloves | |
Long Johns | |
Rain Jacket | |
Rain Trousers | |
Running Shoes | |
Sandals | I only wore these on wet landings out of boats and dinghies. Arguably they were unnecessary |
Sarong | I didn’t take anything like this on this trip, but used my travel towel. Having a piece of fabric to wrap in, build makeshift sun-shades and create a little “home” is super valuable. |
Shirt | While you can get away without a collared shirt, I like having one so I don’t feel like a dick in nicer restaurants and on the plane. |
Shorts | |
Socks (x5) | |
Sunglasses | |
T-Shirts (x3) | Mine were all identical blue from Howies. You just don’t need heaps of t-shirts. |
Thermal T-Shirt | |
Trousers/Jeans (x2) | I took a pair of quick drying travel trousers that looked vaguely normal plus a pair of black jeans. I wore the jeans whenever the heat permitted it and barely wore the trekking kit. |
Underpants (x5) | |
Wooly Hat | There always seems to be at least one cold night that justifies this. I can’t live without mine. |
Yoga Trousers | I use these for PJs and lounging. I did zero yoga on this trip. Should have left them home. |
Swim Trunks | I used my running shorts as trunks and carried a pair of cyclist-style Speedos which work well under a rented wetsuit. |
Rash Guard | A longsleeve rash-guard is sooooo awesome for playing in the waves for hours and not getting sunburned. |
Item | Notes | |||
---|---|---|---|---|
Clothesline/Accessory Cord | 10m of 2mm cord will do. Endless other things this can be used for. About as big as a pack of gum. | |||
Compass | Yep. Old Skool. | |||
Daypack (x2) | I carry a proper climbing day pack as well as a £1.50 super light pocket rucksack. The cheap one is great for little journeys and shopping trips. | |||
Dry Bag | These keep your clothes dry in the wet, but are also super useful for doing your hand-laundering in. Drop of soap, seal the bag and you can agitate away without all the fuss in the sink. | |||
Duct Tape | ||||
Duffel Bag | We took NorthFace Base Camp Duffels in sizes that matched our loads. These have usable/comfortable backpack straps and are pretty much indestructible and water resistant. | |||
Earphones | I almost took my over-ear cans. I missed them, but I’m glad I wasn’t schlepping them around. Go small and cheap. | |||
Head Torch | No, your phone won’t cut it. Take an actual battery operated torch. Much more reliable and if you’re doing any night tours, its great to have a light that will shine red-only light for your night-vision. | |||
Knife | If you don’t know why you’ll need a Swiss Army Knife, then rethink travelling at all. | |||
Lighter | ||||
Map Bag | I use an Ortlieb waterproof map bag for my journal, my phone or anything that MUST stay dry. Just so awesome. A5 size seems the most versatile even if its overkill for a smartphone. | |||
Padlock | We stayed in hostels and it was great to chuck our bags in a locker, padlock it and be worry free while we were away. | |||
Sewing Kit | ||||
Sleepsack | Some sheets in some places are icky. Maybe you won’t need it, but you’ll be glad you brought it. | |||
Spyglass / Binoculars | ||||
Tarp / Shelter | Since an accident years ago, I carry a rescue bothy, which is only good for emergencies. I’d advise some sort of lean-to shelter if you’ll be on the beach or in hot sun. | |||
Travel seat for car | Check the specifics for the country you’re going to. The fines in some countries are eye watering. You can rent from hire car companies, but it’s nice to have your own. We used a Trunki BoostaPak which folds down small. | |||
Watch | For the love of travel, please just take a cheap watch that tells the time. You hardly need to be charging and faffing with a so-called smart watch your whole trip. | |||
Water Purification Pump | I left mine at home in the interest of space, but we ended up buying water everywhere. Its an essential if you want to see anything other than the loo while abroad. | |||
Whistle | A whistle will save your ass in a life-threatening emergency. You can scream for 15-20 minutes. You can blow a whistle for hours. Carry one. | |||
Zip Ties (x5-10) |
You’ll have your own prescriptions and favourites to bring. I’ve left mine off in the interest of privacy. If you’re travelling for an extended time, you may need several months supply. I suggest splitting that supply up into your travelling companions bags in case any single bag gets lost.
Item | Notes |
---|---|
Compeed | This stuff is a lifesaver if a blister hits you on a trek. It’ll happen eventually. |
Conditioner | Lush makes nice bars which saves on liquid mess in your bag |
Condoms | I honestly don’t know what I was thinking. Travelling in cramped quarters with family is about the least romantic thing in the universe. Have some handy, but these are available anywhere in the world. |
Deodorant | |
Earplugs | Some hostels are crazy loud. |
Ibuprofen | |
Insect repellant | I hate this stuff, but I always have scares with mosquito-borne tropical diseases that could have been prevented. |
Lip Balm | |
Nail Trimmers | Trimming nails with a Swiss Army knife is horrible. Bring clippers on long trips. |
Paracetamol/Acetaminophen | If you end up with a fever, this is your best friend. Available everywhere, but take some to get you started. |
Plasters/BandAids (x5-10) | |
Razor | I carry an old-fashioned safety razor because I’m a cheap hipster. You can find razor refills anywhere. |
Shampoo | |
Shave Brush | You do not need 53 polymers and cooling astringents. Use soap and a brush. |
Soap | |
Sunblock | I couldn’t believe what this stuff costs in Central America. Take a stash. And make it reef-friendly, you jerk. |
Toothbrush | |
Toothpaste | |
Towel | Everyone in the universe seems to be carrying the £5 ones from Decathlon. They pack small and they work. Get one that actually wraps around you. |
Item | Notes |
---|---|
5v USB charger | |
AUX Audio Cable | Bluetooth is all good, but if your phone still rocks a 3.5mm jack, this is the easiest way to connect to hire-car stereos. |
Battery Pack | Your phone will die at the worst moment. Like when you haven’t written the hostel address in your notebook like an adult. I like having two, just in case. |
Bulldog Clips | I didn’t bring these, but wished I had. They’d even double as small clothes pegs. |
Camera Charger | |
Camera | I fretted over this one. IMHO a smartphone will do fine, unless you enjoy photography. I brought my DSLR for wildlife photography and without a telephoto lens it was just an encumbrance. Then I broke it. |
Fountain Pens | I carry a Jinhao x750 for writing and a Rotring Art Pen (Extra Fine) for drawing. |
Fountain Pen Ink/Cartridges | I wrote and drew a load on this trip. I use fountain pens and kept ink in small Nalgene bottles. It totally enriched my experience. I brought Waterman Serenity Blue and Noodler’s Black |
Games: Chess | |
Games: Hero Realms | We adore this game and since its just a large deck of cards its super portable. |
Games: Playing Cards | |
Games: Tak set | We are addicted to this amazing open-source game. We played it on the beach with shells and rocks, but its nice to take a portable set along. |
Games:Dice | Minimally a couple of 6-sided dice, or a full RPG set if you’re like me. |
Gluestick | Perfect for sticking random memories in your journal/scrapbook. |
GoPro | If you’re going to be photographing or videoing underwater, then bring one. Otherwise leave it at home. |
Guidebooks | |
HDMI Cable | Hooking up to hotel TVs is nice for making a movie night for the kids. |
Journal | A5 is the perfect size. This was more valuable to me than my camera. My richest memories are recorded in sketches and notes. |
Kensington laptop lock | I brought this to protect my kids’ Chromebooks. We never used it. Don’t take one. |
Kindle | A library on the go and electronic guidebooks rock my world. Fits in the Ortlieb dry bag I already mentioned. For the kids, I bought old 4th gen models for £15 a piece on eBay |
Laptop & Charger | We took one laptop and both kids’ Chromebooks. I’d argue against a laptop, but it enhances my travel. I write, I code, I watch movies. It’s a form of expression. The kids used their laptops for schoolwork, coding, films and games. . |
Maps | |
Mobile Phone & Charger | |
PINSentry Device | Some banking still uses these devices and it sucks to be caught out if you need to make a specific payment. |
Packing Cubes/Stuff sacks | These bring order to chaos. Being able to dump out your main duffel and just sort through smaller collections is a lifesaver. Extra points if you have them in various colours for sorting. |
Passport | |
Pencil Sharpener | |
Pencils | |
Reading Glasses | Yes, I’m that old. Now get off my lawn! |
SIM Changing tool | Paperclips are fine, but I throw one in my pencil case and always have it when needed, which was often on this trip |
Sketchbook | I use a single journal for everything and work in ink and pencil. But nice paper is important if you use other materials or it fills you with joy. |
Spare SD Card | If you don’t take a camera, skip this one. |
Speaker | We didn’t use ours, but a bluetooth or wired speaker will make a party wherever you are. |
Travel Adaptor | Normally I hate these things, but I bought this amazing adaptor by Hyleton and was thankful the whole trip. Multiple USB, a USB-c and plug/voltage compatibility for everywhere we went. |
USB Car Charger | Some hire cars have USB sockets, but all of them have a cigarette jack. |
USB Key with Ubuntu | In emergencies, I can recover my laptop or install Linux on a fresh device and recover from backups. Tiny and a lifesaver. |
Water Bottle (x2) | Go on. Take two. Treat yourself. |
Item | Notes |
---|---|
Climbing Shoes & Chalkbag | I carried these for 3 months and never used them. But I should have. They take up no space. |
Hammock | Yes, we took a hammock to Costa Rica. And we barely saw trees in Peru. Don’t take a hammock unless you know there are opportunities. |
Kite | A little pocket kite is good fun for kids on a beach or a hillside. It’s like a smile on a string. |
Skipping Rope | On a previous trip, I used a skipping rope instead of running. On this trip I did zero exercise. Still, its a good thing for the bag. |
Slackline | Trees notwithstanding, I wish we’d swapped the hammock for a slackline. Way more social and fun. |
Snorkel, Mask & Flippers | We snorkelled lots of places, including the Amazon. It was great having our own kit, especially since kids sizes can be hard to come by. Bulky, but cheaper than renting everywhere. |
Swim Goggles |
Item | Notes |
---|---|
Big Folder | A huge plastic folder to keep all school supplies in makes for a classroom you can fit in a rucksack. |
Exercise Notebooks (x5) | I like these Silvine ones |
Ink Cartridges / Ink | |
Journals | Try to get your kids to record things. Its a gift they’ll give themselves in the future. Just scrapbooking tickets and maps will trigger memories. |
Pencil Case | |
Textbooks | I used textbooks on the Kindle, but workbooks are useful if you won’t carry a laptop/tablet. |
Item | Notes |
---|---|
Credit Card details | If your cards get stolen/lost, having this information in your password safe or elsewhere will make recovery much less stress and hassle. |
Master Passwords | Know how to get into your password safe from anywhere. Know only this password. |
Photocopies of Passport | Electronic copies are great, but have a paper copy too. |
Phrasebook/Icon card | I saw these on the backs of people’s phones and on t-shirts. If your language skills are weak, these are super helpful. |
Item | Notes |
---|---|
Stuffed Animals | You’re going to pick up cuddly souvenirs on the way, but make sure you bring a familiar friend from the menagerie at home to help keep away the homesickness. |
Before we return to our everyday life in the UK, I want to share some of the hard-earned wisdom that we’ve accumulated in our travels. Life on this adventure hasn’t always been fun, even if it has been consistently rewarding. We’ve learned a lot, but there has been struggle and tears from time to time. For all of you who’ve told me you’re planning a similar adventure, I want to share some opinions which may help you define your own approach to taking youngsters with you on global travel.
Before I dive into the clickbait list of advice, I want to be clear about what I believe kids need both at home and abroad:
I believe that kids need structure and routine. I believe that adults need it too, but we tend to have more agency in providing our own support mechanisms and are wiser about recognising our own needs. Nearly every time that our crew suffered a meltdown or threw a tantrum, there was ambiguity and change involved that made the uncertainty unbearable.
So I start with the assumption that we all need some amount of structure and order. That to explore new places and experience the unknown we all need a basic order and routine to rely on. There’s too much cognitive overhead in pure chaos to enjoy yourself or get anything done. All of your energy and enthusiasm will fall down the gravity well of taking care of basic needs and an extraordinary experience will unravel into a chaotic expression of your home-life in extremely challenging circumstances.
Not structuring life for kids on a trip leaves the door wide open for homesickness.
Mind you, I’m not advocating turning your kids into robotic slaves, just providing them with something that approximates your rhythm at home. After all, adventure is often chaotic and the best family experiences may be about defining new habits and norms together.
Everybody’s family will be different, but I believe its worth waiting until there’s enough maturity and resilience to deal with the chaos and uncertainty of travel. At ten a kid knows their own likes and dislikes and has a good body of knowledge already. Knowing enough fuels their curiosity and informs the places they want to explore. They’re simply up for more.
In a practical sense, ten year olds will also be able to walk further, tolerate stranger food, go longer between snacks and hopefully tell you off when you’ve lost the plot and your temper. A curious “tween” makes an awesome travelling companion.
We’ve travelled with kids before they were in school and it was easy, but the kids barely remembered it. Despite their obvious portability, I think its worth waiting until they can participate more in the adventure and support and inspire you along the way.
Conflict is going to happen. Unless you’re crazy wealthy, you’re either going to be sharing a hostel/hotel room with your kids or you’ll be lucky enough to be travelling in a live-in vehicle. That much time in one room with your family is going to bring out the worst in everyone from time to time.
My own worst behaviour means loss of temper and a cruelly critical tone. I turn into a shitty parent even though I’m trying my best. I’m not proud of that, but it would be a waste of time to deny it.
That I’m not perfect is hardly a headline. My point is that the only way I am able to make things right when I fall prey to my own humanity is by being up-front with my kids about how I botched things. I admit I was wrong. I ask for forgiveness and, probably most importantly, I leave them in the driver’s seat about how they react and whether they forgive or not.
The upside of this is that I’ve got kids who are now able to call me out before my mood is absurd and who are more mindful of their own missteps when they inevitably happen.
We travelled for 3 months on this trip. We were scheduled to travel for 3 1/2. We ran out of steam, big-time just after two months. There are a variety of contributing factors that explain our burnout, but time was the biggest.
Seeing and doing so much for such an extended time numbed us. Instead of being wowed by beaches, they became “just another beach”. The kids’ curiosity plummeted and our patience for one another cratered. It was painfully obvious that we’d simply had too much of a good thing.
Your threshold may be different from ours, but my advice is to schedule your trip so that you leave wanting more, instead of never wanting to travel again.
I wrote above about my belief in everyone’s need for routine. While travelling its super important to make that routine obvious, explicit and visible.
I was reminded before we departed that the kids didn’t have a choice about the trip. So I’ve spent a lot of time during our travels, creating charts, maps, itineraries and calendars that we can all refer to for certainty about what happens next. Having the breakdown of the trip taped up beside the hostel room door sends kids the message that you’ve made a commitment that they can see and any changes won’t be foisted on them unawares.
If you’re the one in charge of schooling while on the road, this is doubly important. I got the most resistance to daily lessons during weeks when I had failed to provide a ticklist of the week’s agreed work up front. My kids thrived and committed to learning when they could mark their own progress.
Someone in your crew is going to suffer from Homesickness. At the time, it may not look like Homesickness. It may express itself as rage, sadness, violence, stubbornness or a whole cocktail of difficult behaviour. It doesn’t matter what you want to call it, it is your loved one’s unfulfilled need for comfort and certainty.
The triggers are anything and everything: the mention of a pet, the smell of familiar detergent, the loss of a sock. Once Homesickness is triggered, it will expand to fill the emotional space and turn any trip uncertainty into despair.
The only way I effectively dealt with this was to be a better listener and stay present. The truth is that you can’t, and probably shouldn’t, bail on a long trip because someone misses familiar circumstances. There’s something rewarding about pushing through that discomfort and discovering your boundaries while abroad.
But that glosses over the real pain that you and your kids may be feeling. So sit and listen. Accept the blows of a tantrum and dry the tears of sorrow. Just be there. Family is where you lend your support, not four walls and a roof. So be the shelter that they need.
We were really tempted to bounce around like giddy backpackers on a gap year. We wanted to fit everything in and do it all.
But I knew that would exhaust me and I suspected it would destroy my kids too. So I resolved with my partner to break the trip up into big chunks and set up base in a few choice locations we’d use as hubs to explore from.
Did we do that? No, we did not. We bounced around. We let the awkward travel days between destinations become two nights in one place followed by more and more little short stops. It was chaotic and it really wore the kids and me down.
See everything you can, by all means, but take it in chunks. Let the kids have the comfort of knowing where the toilet will be and where they can put their underpants and souvenirs for at least 5-7 days at a time.
When Homesickness hit a horrendous peak mid-trip, I’m ashamed to say I lost my shit. I got shouty and sullen and started to model all the worst behaviours for my kids.
When I calmed down, my heart broke a bit to see someone I loved obviously struggling and adrift. And in hindsight I could see that my overreaction to their acting-out was down to disappointment I was feeling about my own needs.
I needed to be really mindful of my own resistance whenever someone’s Homesickness raised my temper. I needed to raise my parenting game several notches. The secret was looking out for things I was attached to, when I didn’t want to put in the time to be present for my kids. A missed wildlife encounter, time to myself, a specific meal I felt I deserved.
When I learned to find and acknowledge what I was attached to, I could finally let it go and deal with my children’s struggle, which was obviously more important.
It’s easy to see the travel blogs and Instagram posts of sex-drenched Millenials roaming the world as digital nomads and get major FOMO triggers. Travelling with kids will involve at least a smidgen of nostalgia for less responsible times in youth, when it was easy to cut loose and backpack.
Travel usually involves a diminished set of responsibilities. There’s no job to attend, no flat/house to manage and a cut down schedule.
But the truth is that as soon as you take your kids along on the adventure, your responsibilities will ratchet up by 400%. You’re now with your kids 24/7 and they will offload as much of their needs on you as they can. You’re now a caretaker, therapist, cook, referee, teacher, medic and playmate.
All of that is pretty awesome, but set your expectations up front. Don’t imagine you’ll be in the bar until late, or blogging often (cough, cough) if you really will be building lesson plans and planning the next days activities.
OK, if you’ve survived the toddler years, then you’ve probably got snack management on lock. But if you’ve got to do it in a foreign language, with few familiar options and on somebody else’s schedule, you’re going to struggle.
It doesn’t matter. Just keep feeding them. Fight the hangry and be on guard for the grumble.
Most importantly, mealtime is not the time to start expressing your own aspirations through your kids’ diet. If they want to eat spaghetti bolognese for 15 days in a row, just let them. It’s not your expectations that need nourishing, it’s their awesome little adventuring bodies. It’s a trip, its not forever, so just let them eat what they want, so long as they eat.
I’ve touched on this a few times, but it bears repeating. You’re on journey of discovery. Any journey is tiring and stressful. And an adventure involves challenge and adversity. Since your crew will never have more than 75% of their energy at any given time, you need to be forgiving with just about everything.
Forgetfulness, anger, spite and punching-your-sister-in-the-back-of-the-boat-in-the-Amazon are all examples of times when you need to let something slide. Just do it. You’re carrying a ton of luggage and probably an intestinal parasite, don’t carry a grudge too.
And most of all, don’t waste the precious moments of your adventure waiting to get around to forgiving each other. Acknowledge it, forget it and move on. Hand-in-hand is the best way to see the world.
]]>For 34 years I dreamt of visiting the amazing city in the clouds. Today, at last, I did.
Following our altitude acclimatisation in Pisac, we checked most of our stuff into the left-luggage service at IncaRail and took a short train journey from Ollantaytambo to the Machu Picchu access town of Aquas Calientes. We’d had a driver with us on all of our wanderings so far, so it was something of an introvert’s relief to be back on a train, sliding along on our own through the Peruvian forest.
Travelling to Machu Picchu is a slow and steady process of getting closer to a Peruvian treasure and incrementally further from the contents of your wallet. Everything is expensive and the list of costs is long: entrance fees, transport, accommodation, the obligatory guide, food, souvenirs, the bus to the ruins from town. Our money had been going a long way in Peru so far, so Machu Picchu felt a little more like Mucho Dinero.
The journey to Aquas Calientes is one that unfolds in chapters. When we left Ollantaytambo, I marvelled at how different the dry and temperate landscape differed from my childhood dreams. Arid mountains are paved in-between with fertile ribbons of terraced farmland. But halfway along the journey, the valley walls close in, funelling the train into a steep-sided gorge. Open vistas become shadowy, vine-draped forest which only briefly opens to show glimpses of the towering mountains we entered. Leaves take on cyclopean proportions and single plants seem to fill the entire window of the train. It was as though the closer we got to Machu Picchu, the more history dwarfed us and the stature of the forest’s intimidation grew as the miles ticked by and the shadows closed overhead.
On arrival in Aquas Calientes, we spent an unremarkable night in a Supertramp hostel, made the most of the tourist restaurants and got ready for our tour of the ruins the following afternoon. When our time came the next day, we queued up for the bus to the site, meanwhile finding and haggling with a local guide who would not only tell us all about the ruins, but also provide the compulsory chaperoning within the monument.
I find it hard to describe how it felt to be somewhere I’d waited a lifetime to see. The wonder of the place is something more than the collections of temples and dwellings. The site is nearly 600 years old and the ruins are painstakingly preserved and restored, but by historical standards, its fairly recent. I felt churlish about not being impressed with the antiquity. In the context of the history of its peoples and Spanish colonialism, the fact that anything remains of the place at all is a wonder.
The secret of the city’s preservation and, in my opinion, its grandeur is its location. The city perches high above a huge oxbow in the Urubabma river with perfect sitelines to the surrounding mountain pantheon as well as any intruders of a more mortal nature below. On this sacred promontory, I felt as though I were standing astride the clouds and that is what took away my breath and my sense of time.
]]>The town was the first place we visited after Lima, opting to acclimatise in Pisac at 2,972m rather than suffer at the lofty heights of 3,399m in Cusco. It was a good introduction to a more authentic Peru, complete with maze-like village streets, a day of the dead celebration and a staggering number of stray dogs.
]]>Just after 6AM, our first flight to Amsterdam took off and we had a few hours of layover in Schiphol airport before we began the 11 1/2 hour flight to Lima. Our arrival and immigration checks at Lima airport were uneventful and by the time we would check into our digs in Miraflores, we would have been travelling just under 24 hours.
The taxi from the airport, through Lima, was standard Peruvian fare, which by US and UK standards was a white-knuckle adrenaline fueled journey of terror. Peruvian drivers use horns and bumpers as a form of non-stop self-expression and they perform an intimate dance with other motorists and nonchalant pedestrians at breakneck speed. Despite the excitement, our kids slept blissfully in the back of the cab while we hurtled through a kaleidoscope of neon advertising Chifas (the ubiquitous Chinese restaurants), Karaoke joints, hair salons and neighbourhood tiendas.
With stellar behaviour throughout the whole journey, arrival in the hostel couldn’t raise the kids either. As we checked in and got keys from the rusty old VW Bug that served as the Selina reception desk, our youngest was curled up asleep on a North Face duffel, her little beat-up Blundstones spilling out into passing backpacker traffic.
The city we awoke to was everything we were hoping and planning for. I’d chosen a tricked-out hostel in Miraflores, a main tourist area close to the beach. With affluence, style and a Pacific coast vibe, Miraflores is to Lima, what Santa Monica is to the dusty sprawl of LA.
The Selina Miraflores is something of a luxury backpacker stay that I’d found via Hostelworld. Operated by a youth-oriented travel group, a bit like a backpacker Soho House, the hotel is a mix of bunk rooms and private rooms with the amenities and vibe reminiscent of a weWork co-working space. Breakfast features Avocado Toast. True. Fact.
They’ve taken what was probably a very ordinary mid-range hotel and they’ve rubbed a load of funk up on it. There’s loads of simple, trendy decor and every wall in the place sports a mural or piece of street art. Its a hipster vibe that might not appeal to some but it was the right balance for us of good-value, cool style and a gentle transition between the familiar trappings of home and more modest accommodation that would come later in our trip.
We could have explored Lima for weeks or months and later in the trip, our youngest would express homesickness by wanting to return to Lima. But we only intended to use Lima as a landing point on our way inland to the Andean highlands, so we only gave it two days. In hindsight we sold ourselves short, because we loved wandering the streets and seeing the cool collision of colonial history and modern New World flair.
Our first day in the city was pretty much as we expected: a decompression day to find our feet, keeping close to the hotel, sampling some good food and warm weather and the expected amount of tension and miscommunication as we remembered how to travel together in a foreign place. We got set up with a Peruvian SIM card for our mobiles at Bitel and found our bearings before seeking the sea.
Miraflores towers above pebbly Pacific beaches on massive cobbled sea-cliffs. The long wander down the hill and the plentiful tsunami warnings were a reminder of how seismic upheaval and the rhythm of the ocean have sculpted the physical and cultural shape of the city.
Neither the kids, nor I, can stay dry on a beach. Sliding our pale British bodies into the surf at Makaha Beach, the water was just warm enough for us to play in and just brisk enough to help us fight the jet lag. The five hour time difference wasn’t as punishing as the long flights had been and the intense sunshine and sea air helped us reset quickly.
That night was Halloween and after a tourist market crawl, we hunted for supper, threading through hordes of zombies in Kennedy Park. The kids of the city had stared their Halloween invasion, visiting each store and shop on the commercial street. We saw familiar princesses and super heroes as well as a few masked, armed and red-jumpsuited gangsters from the Netflix series Money Heist (La Casa del Papel).
On day two, we ventured a little further from our digs, taking the excellent Metropolitano bus service into Lima Central. We walked the old colonial streets and marvelled at the ornate bay windows.
But the highlight of the walk was a visit to the Church and Convent of San Francisco of Lima. The monastery advertises itself on the merits of its well-preserved catacombs, but the real highlight of the tour is the monastery itself. Richly adorned with artwork and architectural splendour, the monastery is a wonder of detail that tells the story of Spanish colonisation, with a mix of Christian belief, Moorish influence and New world discoveries. The walls are covered in arabesques of tile-work and the carved cedar furnishings were intricate and Baroque. One dome above a rising staircase was a constellation of tessellated and boxed cedar stars.
Like many Peruvian attractions, photography isn’t permitted within the monastery, so its worth seeing for yourself when you’re in Lima.
Then we hit the beach again for a cool off before splitting into an introverts gang at the digs and a extroverts excursion to the vibrant Magic Water Circuit back in the city. By all accounts we introverts missed out on colourful, wet fun and good street food.
We’d slept, we’d wandered, we’d swum and we’d eaten. Eating may have been the highlight.
Lima is renowned for being a city of food, with traditional dishes and modern fusion cuisine. We sampled everything from street food to family restaurant fare to stylish snacks in our digs. Nothing disappointed. Just as seasonal food in the UK is turning monochrome and vegetables are becoming hard and flavourless, it was refreshing to see bright food and experience zingy flavours. Everything we ate in Lima was simple and savoury and came with bright tomatoes, fresh veggies and sharp flavours.
The unsung heros of Lima’s cuisine are the piles of tangy marinated onions, called Salsa Criolla that accompany everything. We had them with Tacos at Chinga tu Taco (A meal for four for S/117 - £27), and Chiccarones, an indulgent crackling pork, in towering sandwiches at Sangucheria El Chinito (S/90 = £21 for four).
Already, family lessons are plentiful while we figure out how to live on the road. Fitting in math lessons at the airport is proving easy, while balancing everyone’s needs and timing everyone’s hunger is trickier.
It’s especially easy to forget the needs of the smallest members of the group. The path of least resistance, but perhaps the most grumbling, is to just drag around small kids with no regard for their interests. But I’m trying to remember that this is their trip too and they don’t have a choice about being here in the first place. So they sure deserve some say in how they spend their time. Staying mindful of my kids’ energy and enthusiasm is a good way to keep from overextending my own.
Besides, fuelling a kid’s curiosity is the surest way to reawaken your own.
Next week we travel the Sacred Valley, exploring Incan heritage in Pisac and following the footsteps of Hiram Bingham to the spectacular heights of Machu Picchu.
]]>One week from today, I will be on my way to South America. I’m leaving the UK for the winter, like a bird chasing the sun across the sea to warmer lands.
It’s a huge trip. Over the next four months I’ll be travelling with my family to Peru, Ecuador, The Galapagos, Costa Rica, and Baja Mexico. I’ve dreamt of this kind of adventure my entire life. Living out of hostels and Jeeps and schooling on the beach while we learn languages and new rhythms of life as a family.
People keep telling us that we’re “So brave!” to embark on this unconventional path at this time of our lives. But the circumstances of our lives have aligned to make this the perfect time to go, so we’re going.
Not that we didn’t question our own motives. There were a thousand valid reasons to keep putting it off. In the end we had to escape on a big adventure or come to terms with the fact that we were no longer adventurers. Stubborness and FOMO made it easier to go than to stay. It was scarier to think of a life where we never took the chance.
Family life, by necessity, falls into comfortable habits. I favour paths of least resistance and shy away from unpredictable circumstance. I tire easily and want to eliminate hassle from family life.
But years as an itinerant artist with a wanderer’s heart, means I long for new terrain, unfamiliar flavours, and the beguiling sensation of a new language in my mouth.
I want my kids to experience the same. I want them to see that family is a fluid collection of relationships and not a place. I want them to see our family and foreign families in a new environment.
And we all love adventure. And sea life. And spicy food. And sunshine.
If you’ve followed my Twitter feed at all, you’ll have seen how much I struggled with work in 2018. I’ve been funemployed and full-time parenting for six months and I’m still exploring options of what I’ll do next professionally. Travelling and writing and new horizons may help bring clarity or, at the least, provide an awesome diversion while I put off growing up.
My kids are also at transition points at school that make it the perfect time for an extended break with the least disruption. They are still enthusiastic and curious, making them the perfect companions for sampling the delights of the world, whether that’s a rainforest wildlife encounter, or an in-flight meal.
We also want to experience the migration of sea life at the turn of the year. Following the Humboldt Current north along the Pacific coast from December to February should give us plenty of opportunities to see all manner of creatures migrating, breeding and enjoying the same beaches we are.
Furthermore, Winter is coming. After 20 years in the UK, Winter becomes harder and harder each year. I know I’ll be experiencing plenty of rain wherever I am, but at least it’ll be lighter and warmer.
The absence from school is long enough that we will be off-rolling the children and homeschooling them while we travel. Our school has been supportive of our travel plans and we hope to re-enroll there on our return, space permitting.
I’m preparing a syllabus that shadows the UK National Curriculum but uses the destinations and experiences of our trip as vehicles for their learning needs. Changing money, observing sea life, keeping a daily journal and speaking to local people present outstanding opportunities to apply learning from core subjects. History and Geography are obvious. I’m looking forward to the art projects. Drawing Machu Picchu while there, will be a dream come true.
At the end of the day, the kids would have to try pretty hard to NOT learn something after knocking about in the back of a truck in the rainforest for Christmas.
Yes.
A trip of this kind is an enormous luxury. The costs have mounted quickly, even with hostels for accommodation and a simple lifestyle. The main expenses are flights and adding carbon offsetting raises it further.
With the house rented out, we’ll take many day-to-day expenses with us, so the net cost is less than you might expect.
We are in an enormously privileged position to take the trip at all. But this is what I earn for. I live to learn and explore and I can’t think of a better use for my savings.
Have you MET me? Honestly, there’s a spreadsheet for everything. But despite the multitude of lists and schedules, we’ve been intentional about leaving big gaps in the planning. We want to give ourselves time and space to really explore and keep the options open to stay put whenever we find a location that we love.
Preparing a home for a trip this long is basically moving house. I have Konmari-ed the shit of every cupboard, closet and wardrobe. Twice. After multiple donation runs to charities and the recycling center, the house is pared down.
Between bouts of tidying and packing, we’re all cramming in enough Spanish to politely get us around and we’ll be doing some language schooling in some of the destinations.
In the next few days, we’ll write to Santa to request an extension to Yuletide gifts. We’ll be asking to delay Christmas until Easter, when we’ll pack in a whole celebration of birth, death, and renewal. The kids are calling this Jesus Recycling Day.
“He who would travel happily must travel light.” Antoine de St. Exupery
As for what we take, the rule is simple:
Everyone gets one basecamp duffel and a daypack.
That’s it. Pack it for versatility and lightness. We all carry what we bring. The less we take, the more room there is for experience.
Carrying a classroom around with us could introduce all kinds of clutter and paper cruft, so I’m working hard to source digital resources that we can use on the kids’ Chromebooks. Add a Kindle and a couple of paper notebooks for composition, maths, and handwriting and it’ll all be pretty minimal.
It would be foolish to try to tell the whole story of our adventure before we even leave. I honestly hope that the trip will unfold in surprising ways as we go.
Over the next four months, I’ll be posting here a few times a week about all aspects of our trip: where we travel, how we homeschool, the gear we bring, the incredible wildlife and how it feels to live nomadically.
]]>“Stuff your eyes with wonder, live as if you’d drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It’s more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories.” Ray Bradbury
People will wander and wonder around a concept and an idea until you give them something to point to. Words are not enough.
You have to be daring enough to draw the worst straw man, the ugliest example to free the team up to make progress. And you have to accept that if your team is good, they’re going to shred it.
In fact you should start your first drafts in the hope that there’s a really clever person on your team who will shred it. Yours are not the important ideas. Your role is to break the inertia.
Get the team started and polarised. Give them something to join or resist, but don’t allow them to just sit.
Hesitate and all will be lost.
]]>Although my first post referred to this process as a creative revolution, I keep referring to it as an experiment. Being an experiment, there’s a pretty fundamental hypothesis that’s been under test for the last three months:
I can fundamentally change the nature of the work I do and find a viable and sustainable replacement in just over three months
With the benefit of hindsight, that hypothesis looks incredibly naive and for the most part, the experiment tested it to failure very early. 100 days has turned out to be a long time to adjust to a new way of working but is way too short to make any real traction on developing sustainable/viable business ideas and new career paths.
During the shift from being a dancer to a coder, I went through a very similar period of downtime and reinvention. On a holiday to Gozo I obsessed about the future and the progress I was making. I ruined that holiday with obsessive doubt and a Feynman book on quantum physics. I spent time in tortured rumination, instead of making the most of a short opportunity for sun and snorkeling.
Doubt and distraction has been a big part of the last six weeks in particular. “Am I working on the right things?” “Shouldn’t I work faster?” “Am I developing something valuable and meaningful, or am I just pissing about with technology?”
What’s different this time, is that instead of avoiding fear and reaching for the familiar, I’m now leaning in to the uncertainty. I’m looking at my moments of panic as a sure sign that I’m truly in new territory. And when the crises of confidence start to invade productivity or family life, I’ve learned to just park them.
A colleague at a startup I once worked for, used to talk me down from a ledge of panic by reminding me of Paul Graham’s advice: just stay alive. If I’m going to found a startup or explore bleeding edge technology, then cultivating this comfort with uncertainty and risk will be essential.
Startups rarely die in mid keystroke. So keep typing! Paul Graham
So despite being the founder of a “Hubris as a Service” startup, what have I actually achieved?
I definitely overreached with my plans and barely touched some things. I failed spectacularly at:
It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop. Confucius
Lot’s learned. More about self than about tech. Here’s what I take away:
The best way to learn and to make progress is to do. And do. And do. Go for quantity over quality until you find your groove . Create everyday.
And now I’ve got my juices flowing again so that I feel like I can. Which is probably a good result for my first 100 days.
I want to say a special thank you to @blackswanburst, @yojimbo23, @jtopper and @pikesley . Your occasional encouragement or off-colour humour helped me stay focused and reminded me to have fun. I also owe my wife big time for being a co-conspirator in starting again and reminding me to just “Stick with it”. Thank you to you all.
]]>Last Tuesday, I was in London for various meetings and lunches and had an hour to kill mid-morning. I found myself on Charing Cross road, and as usual, I was unable to escape the event horizon that is the front door of Foyles booksellers. I went in to check out the new building, with the conviction of an addict who can’t usually leave Foyles without a stack of books and £100 lighter.
Normally in Foyles I gravitate to the Computing section, drift briefly through Business books, glance at the Travel section before either checking out Cookery or Design. By this time, I normally come to my senses and quickly pay and make my escape.
On this occasion, I was fascinated by where my mind settled and my interests drew me. In Computing, I only gave the coding books a cursory glance, but had to fight the urge to buy up most of the titles on making and electronics from MakerMedia. The Java, the Python and even the Go books just made me feel fatigued and in a rut.
Trying to make it to the door, I was briefly waylaid by the Design section. Specifically I found myself anchored to a bench with an annual on materials and design trends that must have weighed as much as me.
The hour I spent in Foyles was a fractal piece of what seems to be happening with the wider trend in my interests and career. I’m less and less interested in the shininess of new APIs and languages and more interested in physical interfaces, product design and bridging the physical world to the digital one. I’m excited about building out the web substrate for physical computing but the browser and mobile interfaces, not so much.
Untethering myself from a 12 year career that focused on web and mobile, is a vertiginous feeling as I drift away from experience, earning potential and the familiar. Searching for the unknown is what this whole 100 day experiment is about, and it’s only taken about a month to get here. When asked where this whole career break is heading I still don’t have a good answer. After 4 weeks, I’d be naive to settle into something already.
The blog has gone quiet over the last couple of weeks, as (shock! horror!) my time was consumed by a short job in London. I managed to find myself working as a commissioning engineer on a project for a London cultural institution. I spent two weeks working with RaspberryPi, Arduino Mega and the ever tasty AdaFruit NeoPixels.
Fundamentally, I was working out the installation options for an existing design and prototyping the circuits and cable runs. Its one thing to read a lot of blog posts and to breadboard some simple projects with the Arduino. But running 10s of meters of cables and dozens of microcontrollers pushed me out of my comfort zone and gave me the experience that will lead to more ambitious projects of my own.
It was a far cry from middle management in a publishing company or wrangling config management code. Being on a building site in a safety yellow vest and steel cap boots brought me down to earth and gave me a huge respect for the trades men and women who work bloody hard creating the built environment. It was refreshing to turn up to work every morning where a crew of professionals consulted an architect’s drawing and then got on with making it a reality. No daily standups, no retrospectives and none of the Agile thumb-sucking that the software world is so preoccupied with.
After the early success of getting the RepRap printer built, I entered a spell of worrying doldrums. I was able to print objects and integrate with the printer fairly easily, but I couldn’t get consistent quality out of any of my prints. Nothing would stick to the print bed and I was endlessly aborting print runs and recalibrating the printer.
I tried all the known tricks to get my prints to stick to the print bed:
And then last week I finally got around to building my heated print bed. Using a MK2a print bed, rigged to a modified XBox power supply, I managed to wire the heater and get it connected to the printer’s RAMPS 1.4 board. No joy. The bed wouldn’t turn on. The wiring was right, the thermistor was connected, but the bed wouldn’t turn on for love or money.
I worked out that the Marlin firmware wasn’t powering the heated bed, because I hadn’t enabled the thermistor. A quick edit of the configuration and then a flash of the Arduino and then…
Nothing. Horrible timeouts between the Arduino IDE and the board. Nothing would connect. I tried old versions of the Arduino IDE. I tried different code. Zilch. Finally I pulled the RAMPS shield off the Arduino and tried again. Nothing. Big salty man-tears.
As a last resort, I tried a suggestion I found online about resetting the board while trying to flash it. Nope. I tried again.
In frustration, I started hitting the reset button every 2 seconds. BINGO! The board flashed and then after reinstalling, the bed started heating.
I was warned a month ago that 3D printing was a slow and frustrating pursuit, particularly if you build your own printer. “Expect lots of frustration and tinkering”. This turned out to be true, but once again the troubleshooting has served as an apprenticeship into the workings of the 3D printer and more importantly into the attributes and potential of the materials it consumes and creates.
I’m now getting awesome prints with consistent results and am reinspired with the printing. The magic combination appears to be:
I’m just spinning up a hyperlocal web project and have been looking at options for the platform I’ll use to publish the content. I have years of Drupal experience, but have spent the last few years gaining a huge respect for the tooling and rigour that the JVM community provide.
In starting this project, I wanted to see if I could find an alternative to the existing PHP CMS options which tend to offer so much to editors and so little to developers. This last week, I’ve auditioned a number of Java options including dotCMS, Hippo CMS and Magnolia.
All of the options have some great features, but tended to require expensive licensing to unlock some of the more fundamental features I’d need, like search integrations and server clustering.
In the end, I’ve pretty much settled into building the site with Drupal 7. Drupal 8 is now in beta, but will need a few months of evolving security patches and then a big catchup of 3rd party modules. I want to focus on building community and content and not the underlying platform, so settling on a tool that I’m disinclined to tinker with will help keep me stay loyal to the end-user and not my technical curiosity.
The best part of the exploration has been using Docker containers to quickly pull together hosting environments that I could try the various options on. I’m still coming up to speed with the russian doll abstractions that Docker provides, but it is an exciting technology and likely to sit alongside Ansible in my new quiver of hosting tools.
As this second month of funemployment begins, I’m becoming comfortable with the uncertainty of where the experiment is heading. I am loving the extra time I have with my family and want to start looking for sustainable options to keep me doing challenging work without becoming a slave to the London commute.
Month 2 is going to be about seeking out some viable business opportunities, continuing my R&D into physical computing and 3D printing and starting to look for some collaborators and compatriots who share an interest in these new directions. I’m looking for artists, coders and makers who want to collaborate on something with a touch of the uncertain. You know where to find me. Get in touch.
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