Traveling with children in Europe is possible and living traveling as a family, too. The family of Some Beautiful Place shows it to us.
Traveling with children in Europe for some is already a challenge, imagine traveling around the world with children and living traveling. Juan Alberto Pascual and María Estela Leiva, are a couple who have two children, Nicolás and Violeta. Both are Local Policemen, who for 21 years and 18 years, have been dedicated to serving citizens and since last September They have decided to leave everything, to take the world by the reins. You show us that traveling with children in Europe is easy and possible, and living traveling too.
For this they have been discarding all their belongings, cars, motorcycles, all the equipment of a house, personal belongings, etc. They have sold everything they could in just one month, they have preferred to change their life of comfort and stability , that for years they had achieved, for dedicate it to traveling, learning and all this always with the family.
«The love and tenderness of each moment is what makes the trip special»
This happy, dreamy and magical family has always traveled, in different media, they have traveled in a Canadian tent, on a motorcycle, in a microscopic caravan, in a 3-room caravan, in a motorhome, from hostels, from hotels, etc ...
As an example of a travel system, in a motorhome, they tell us that the family environment that is generated inside a space as small as a motorhome is exciting!, the love and tenderness of each moment is what makes the trip special. Here each one has his tasks perfectly assigned and each thing has its place. It is like living in space, inside a ship. Where every time you put your foot under the motorhome, a different language is spoken, with different customs and landscapes that change at every moment. The modern high definition television is the windshield of the motorhome, it is our living room, our showcase to enjoy life in constant motion.
Living traveling and traveling with children in Europe is what they tell us about their new life project.
Today Juanal, María Estela and their two children, Violeta and Nicolás, have a new life, a team life. Determined to travel the world as a family since September of this 2019, they left getting rid of their house, their belongings, and their dream jobs that had cost them so much to obtain from hard years of study and opposition.
They realized that everything they had achieved was an anchor to continue moving forward and make the change in life that they had been dreaming and imagining for a time. A family who discovered a few years ago that It was not necessary to have everything, nor to possess so much material good, but that happiness, well-being and freedom of oneself had nothing to do with all that.. That life really is spiritual and emotional. So after 30 intense days, they break up with everything, and start a new stage in their family lives. Today we interviewed them from England to know their history.
A beautiful story that they tell us day by day through their blog and social networks. Traveling with children in Europe and living traveling with family is possible and they show it to you day by day.
If you don't know them yet, what are you waiting for? Follow them on:
Tell us, how was the beginning of this project of traveling with children in Europe and then living traveling?
For many years, that our hobby is travel and sports, but we realized that our children were growing and that society increasingly imposed more rules and commitments on us. We saw that we were becoming more settled and that we did not have time to enjoy everything that really made us feel good. We discover with this, that life is not material, but spiritual, that you are neither the best nor the one who has the most just to possess, but that the less things you have the freer and happier you are.
We love being together and sharing any moment with the family. We could not wait any longer to the free days to travel, only to have vacations to share those special moments.
"If you want to do something different, of course you have to do different things"
Our body asked us for a change, we needed to make a decision, we saw life go by every day and we needed to move, so as a previous step to this “movement” we thought that our children in order to know, relate and communicate they had to know English, so So we decided, first step: to give our children a gift, for their whole life, something that they will remember as important in their lives, traveling to England and learning English, as a previous step to what will be a trip around the world.
We surrounded ourselves with people who were on the same wavelength as us, the traveling wave. We attended several days and events of traveling talks, to obtain information and that was what we needed to give ourselves that final impulse.
If you want to do something different, of course you have to do different things, that promote that change and that's how we did it.
Do you have any plans for this new life?
The plan is that we have no plan, all we know is that we love discovering and knowing different things every day, and learning from other people, people who contribute something to our lives. We discovered that sedentary life was not what made us happy, that we needed that magic incentive that only travel gives you.
We had been traveling for many years and enjoying that special traveler ingredient, and that once in our veins, we could no longer do without it. It is necessary to know the unknown, and to repeat if you feel like it clearly, it is to listen to new sounds, new voices, new smells, new flavors, and above all to know all those great people we are meeting.
Traveling with children in Europe is easy so our first stop is England, to learn English, so that we can move more easily around the rest of the world. When it comes to finding work in another country, it will be easier with a good level of English, because our idea is to travel. Generate money during the trip, for the trip itself, be self-sufficient with the income that we generate.
"Traveling with children in Europe is easy so our first stop is England"
In principle, we want to generate income, but in the event that it is not possible, we will travel in “low cost” mode. We believe that we will travel slowly, calmly, when working in the country one knows more about the customs and tricks of the country. We are not in a hurry, "haste kills", as they say in our favorite country, Morocco.
The way to travel could perfectly be in a van, car, or public transport, we do not have any banned travel system.
The answer to the question when we will return, we believe is the safest of all and the clearest we have: There is no return date. We know we will return, but not when, our minds, our illusions, all those signs that push us on this journey, will decide when to return.
What we are clear about is that what we think one way today could be modified tomorrow and adapt to changes, in this way we believe that it evolves, without fear, and above all with a lot of love and intensity in what we do. We do not believe in limits, so everything is in the mind, if you think about it and believe in it, it can be achieved, a pity not to have known it before, but it is never too late.
On this trip, you don't go in a motorhome anymore, do you? What happened to her since your trip with your children in Europe?
We are passionate about the world of the motorhome, but for this type of trip we did not see it as appropriate, at least to begin with. Much to our regret we also put it up for sale, although we didn't have time to sell it in those 30 days of revolution. But we can always go back to this system because at the moment it is the travel system that we like the most to travel with the family.
What is the most difficult part of your trip? And the best?
The most difficult thing for now is being the adaptation of the baby of the house. A very outgoing and cheerful girl who suddenly fell apart as if a flower were withering. Adapting to school is what is costing our little girl the most and according to her character we would never have imagined it. So it is the most complicated at the moment, although it has been a few weeks that we see her much more animated at the entrance to the school.
And as a curious anecdote in the material of the trip, one of the things that has resisted us the most has been to open a bank account in an English bank. They ask for a lot of national documentation and that little by little we have been getting. But that's it, it will be a month since we have….
The best: waking up every day and looking out the window or going out into the street and repeating ourselves over and over again ... "We have done it! We are awake in our own dream!"
To be able to see that we go to work or the children to school, everything is in English, and that the companies we work for facilitate family reconciliation and thus we can both work “full time”, that is, with the longest working day and power take care of our children and do some days with normal hours
On family finances, how to organize it on such a trip?
The family economy is sustained by traveling, working and spending just enough. The more you store the more anchors you have. Juanal currently works on a thoroughbred racehorse breeding farm, since Newmarket is a town dedicated to the world of horses and that they got thanks to a friend they met on a trip to Morocco.
María Estela works as a teacher in a kindergarten, she is very good at education, this work she had been developing in the Police, when she gave classes and police talks to children and young people.
We work and are as efficient and responsible as it takes to contribute our grain of work, but our daily focus is to learn English and learn new jobs while we work, which will help us in our next countries. We even want to train in these new jobs to add a new degree that helps us in the search for jobs ... that is to say, “to travel”
«As advice, the main thing is motivation and the liberation of prejudices. To find a job, there is no doubt that you have to be highly motivated and eager to learn and work. «
We believe in the opportunities and in the attitude of each one. María Estela did a couple of job interviews with many phases, where she completed aptitude and personality tests in addition to oral interviews and what was our surprise that both were admitted, the strange thing is that she has a still low level of English. And how can it be that without knowing English she has passed the interviews ?, because we believe that without a doubt by Attitude.
And the kids, how do they carry it? What is it like to travel with children in Europe?
The children go to a public school, where they share the class with children of many nationalities, so they are evolving very quickly with the language. They have English friends who are helping them in everything. Schooling in this country has been very simple, since education is one of the fundamental pillars of England and they take good care of it, the child and class attendance is very important.
Basically we fill out an admission form to the school, very easy to complete and without asking for much documentation. It is one of the easiest we have done in this country. The idea was clear to us, to learn English, the best is linguistic immersion.
In a trip like the one you are doing, do you think that the motorhome is better or to travel by plane and rental houses or hotels? What do you advise?
The motorhome creates a cozy atmosphere and you travel your own way as we have mentioned before, although it is a slower journey and more days are required to advance, on the contrary it is like being in a house, you always sleep in the same bed, you eat stews like at home and you don't have to be packing and unpacking, everything is on your back.
Traveling by plane is faster but you need to have accommodation and food. As for the economic issue, it does not vary, since the motorhome has annual expenses for taxes, insurance and maintenance that you do not have if you go by plane.
For the beginning of this new stage, we have preferred to rent, for the new countries, we do not rule out any option. But without a doubt at the moment our preferred system is the motorhome.
About your blog. When and how did it arise?
The blog was a pending subject, that many times we started to do it, but we never finished it, until in those 30 days and before starting the trip and thanks to a friend who is dedicated to the web, he gave us a hand and In less than 5 days, we had the design and the first photographs and texts.
We both take care of everything, luckily we always agree on everything, talking, thinking, deciding and writing or photographing, although as usual each one gives their personal touch.
What is the most read blog post?
The most read post, we don't know yet, but what we do know is the opinion of people who tell us they like it a lot. Although we have been traveling for almost 5 months now, we are still in a cloud, we have not yet settled our minds, nor do I think we will settle them hahaha. We have a lot of pending work, since we do not like to write a post without having the information for ourselves, from our own experience, which is what we want to tell. We believe that to know routes there are already very good guides, we like to tell feelings and personal experiences, which is really what is enriching the trip and our personal life
What is your beautiful site number 1?
Our beautiful number one place without a doubt, is Morocco, we have traveled in different media, large displacement motorcycle (sold), motorhome, plane and we like it so much that two years ago, we even toured the country in a Seat Panda from the year 92. We bought it to participate in a charity Rally called Panda Raid, and for more than a week we covered 3000 kilometers on roads and sand.
The traveling anecdote. The one you always remember ...
This is a difficult question as there are always many anecdotes when traveling. An anecdote, precious for us, was one day when I told my wife, in two days we will be having dinner in the Jmal el Fna square in Marrakesh.
We took the motorhome, filled it to the top with everything we had in the storage room plus a large amount of belongings that friends and family gave us and we carried it loaded as we could to deliver it to all those people who most needed it in Morocco.
And so we did it, we were able to deliver children's bicycles, clothes, shoes, toys, school supplies and all the food we could. As we traveled kilometers we knocked on the doors of those who we believed most in need or as other neighbors indicated, we were the closest thing to the Three Kings.
Seeing their faces of surprise, disbelief, innocence, gratitude, joy, makes you feel alive, we cry with them with emotion, our children who always accompany us, could feel and experience that feeling of life, we all had that bittersweet feeling, for helping a little but not being able to solve anything.
These experiences make you rethink life and live it differently. All the people who gave us their belongings to be delivered could see through our photos how they helped those families.
A dream to achieve. Tell us 5 countries that you want to visit, 5 monuments that you want to see and 5 experiences that you want to live during this trip.
We could not speak of 5 countries but of 5/6 continents hehehe ... A dream is to see our children speak English, which is why we have started this traveling approach to England, that we are aware that for this we will have to stay at this stop for a little longer than planned, but we believe it is necessary and we are very excited to know that this is a gift for our little globetrotters.
As experiences to live:… to be able to meet tribes of the Amazon, visit and know the places where the life of Jesus began (Jerusalem, Bethlehem, etc.), and actually say that what motivates us the most and what we have undertaken the most This trip is due to the need to know above all people, their cultures, their customs, their view of life, their experiences, we love to listen to them. We remember all the people we have met in our travels and all that they have contributed and taught us.
The experiences will come alone, the less organization the more experiences you can have on a trip, we are open to everything, to work in any legal job that allows us to earn income to continue and not stop and always with the family.
5 great low cost tips for traveling with children in Europe
Very useful for traveling families!
1
Refuel in supermarkets.
2
Use free activities: free museums, parks, hiking, exhibitions ...
3
Overnight in free places.
4
Stock up on food before entering expensive countries like Switzerland or France. Italy and Germany have prices similar to ours.
5
Always cook in the motorhome or apartments.
