Hi.
I'm Laura Vanderkamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist, and speaker.
And I'm Sarah Hart Hunger, a mother of three, practicing physician, writer, and course creator. We are two working parents who love our careers and our families.
Welcome to best of both worlds. Here we talk about how real women manage work, family, and time for fun. From figuring out childcare to mapping out long.
Term career goals.
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This is Laura.
This episode is airing in mid December of twenty twenty four. Sarah is going to be interviewing Onika Raymond, who is a travel journalist. They're going to be talking about all things traveling with children, attempting to enjoy what is sometimes a stressful experience, having a different mindset about that. So, Sarah, you've traveled with your kids. What are some of your favorite trips that you've taken with your kids?
Yeah.
I thought it was fun to discuss kind of like top trips with Onnika, and then that got me reflecting on what have our top trips been? So my kids and I would agree with them, say that our Alaska
and Vancouver trip holds the number one spot. We went summer of twenty twenty three and we went with a friends fan like the family that we travel with, so we were with them for kind of half the trip, and there was also a Disney cruise in there, so it just it had a lot packed into about a twelve day stretch and it was wonderful and Alaska is
like just another world, So that was number one. Number two, I'm gonna cheat a little bit because we've taken this trip twice, but skiing in Montana is a family favorite, and both times we went, it was honestly surpassed our expectations and just so many fond memories.
So that gets the number two spot. And then no number three.
I debated on this and I was like, oh, something beachy, But then ultimately we had a really memorable trip to Whistler in Seattle and Portland in twenty eighteen. That was a trip where Genevieve I had in a baby carrier the whole time, and it was like, right as she was starting to crawl, I remember being like, please don't crawl, Please don't crawl. And then of course like right as the trip was starting, she figured out how to scoot all over the place, but nonetheless it was really really fun.
Once again, the theme was meeting up with friends, because we visited Josh's really close friend who lives in Seattle, and I also saw friends in Portland as well, So.
Definitely some common ingredients there. We like mountains, we like to be cool, and we like to see friends.
Yeah.
I was going to say the cool mountainous region seems to be a theme with your favorite travel I mean, I've taken a lot of good shops. I didn't necessarily rank these top three, but some of the most memorable are some recent ones. I really enjoyed going to Spain with my boys this past year. Taking Ruth to Paris
to see Taylor Swift also a really cool one. And then last summer and summer twenty twenty three, we went to Norway with the Big four kids, and that was also a really memorable trip, traveling all around the country seeing some amazing, cool mountainous scenery. It is different from what both of us are experienced in our daily life, so I think that's a lot of fun. Have you ever considered living abroad?
We once went through a little New Zealand phase, even to the point of like figuring out what we had to fill out and learning about their elaborate points system for moving there, Like you have to kind of prove your worth and prove that you have years left to have earning power and contributing to their society. You can't just like plunk down in New Zealand whenever.
You feel like it.
But we we were like, Okay, I think as two doctors, we have like a decent enough chance our points value was going to be high enough, and we were like doing this, and then I was like, eh, I kind of want another baby, and I really don't think I feel like doing that while we're also moving to another country, So that plan was scrapped. Genevieve is here and we're probably staying in the United States for the foreseeable future.
Yeah, I don't know.
I think the idea of like doing a summer abroad or something. I don't think I'd want to move anywhere, but like two to three months might be a fun experience.
That's certainly a topic.
We're going to cover at one point on the show. And then it didn't work out for various reasons. But yeah, no, I think it would be fun to live abroad for a couple months and with kids. Most likely that would just be in the summer, but don't have any current plans for it.
Just doing well travel.
Our guest has done lots of that and she shares how that can work with certain flexible careers.
So I think you'll be excited to hear it.
Yeah sounds good. All right, Well, let's hear from Onnka Raymond.
So, I am so excited to welcome Onnika, a travel journalist with many years of travel experience and so much amazing adventures and knowledge to share with us today.
Thank you for coming on the show Onnka.
Tell our life listeners a little bit about yourself and where you are recording from right now.
Sure, thank you so much for having me on the show. Really excited to be a part of this.
And what can I say? So, my name is Onka.
I am a travel journalist, I'm an on camera host, and more than anything else, I'm just a storyteller and an explorer. And I'm currently on a round the world trip with my family and so I am talking to you from Namibia. So yeah, I've been gosh, I've been on the road. For almost seven weeks. It's been about five weeks that I've been in Africa, traveling to a bunch of different countries on the continent, which has been amazing and fulfilling. Currently, I am in Namibia, which is
such an incredible, incredible place. It's my first time here. Oh good, I can't wait to share more about it. It's just an incredible trip so far.
Oh, I can't wait to hear about it. Give us a little bit of background. Were you always a traveler? How did you get interested in traveling so frequently and sharing your stories about it and becoming a travel journalist so taking it to the professional level, Like how did this come about?
Yes?
So, you know, I always say that travel was kind of in my blood or it was kind of I guess within me to begin with, it's in my DNA. I grew up in Toronto, Canada, which is a very multicultural city. If you've ever been, it's one of the most think multicultural or it's one of the most culturally diverse cities in the entire world. And my family actually hails from Jamaica. So from the very start, from before I even turned a year old, I had a passport.
I made my first trip abroad to Jamaica when I was I believe eleven months old, and so we just always traveled when I was younger because it was just something that we did. But it was funny because I tell people that people like me, or people who come from where I come from, we traveled more so for immigration and asylum. We didn't travel for leisure or entertainment or for transformation. Travel for US was very much a necessity.
And so even though I traveled extensively when I was younger, it was mostly to visit family and more family in the Caribbean.
In the US.
And it wasn't until I went to university that I had the chance to do a study abroad.
And I did a study abroad. I lived for a year in France.
And I always repeat this story to people where I say that in the first week living in the residence hall, so living in the dorms, I met people from countries that I had never even heard of before. I met people from the Comoros Islands, I met people from Madagascar, I met people from a lot of different French colonies, departments and territories, and that just opened up my eyes. And then of course living in Europe for a year.
I had the chance to travel all around France. I did a little bit of European travel, traveling to Italy and to England and to Spain and Portugal, and I even had the opportunity to touch down on the African continent. I had the chance to visit Morocco. And so after having that experience for a year, it totally expanded my worldview.
And so by the.
Time I got back to Canada, I got back to Toronto, my travel bug, the travel bug bit me, and so I wanted to find a way, anyway really to get back abroad again. And you have to understand that this was before social media, This was before Instagram, this was before the internet was what it is today, and so there was no such thing as being a digital nomad.
And the only things you could do to keep on traveling and to make a living at it was either to go overseas as part of the military, or go in some sort of diplomatic function as a foreign service officer.
Or to teach.
And so I got into education that allowed me to teach overseas. So I taught overseas in France. I taught English in France and then afterward I went back to Canada the US to get a master's in education to get a teaching certification.
And then I went back abroad.
I ended up teaching in what are known as international schools. So I was teaching I guess, well off, affluent expat families who were posted overseas, and so that kind of started a career in education that was ten years long. And had the opportunity to teach in Hong Kong and in Mexico and in England before I moved to the US in twenty sixteen and decided that I did not
want to teach in New York City. And by that time, Instagram was kind of a thing and social media kind of was a thing, and where I was just kind of writing for different publications.
I was writing articles.
Realized that I could actually use social media as a vehicle to continue traveling and continue working in this field, and so it was all really organic, to be quite honest with you. You know, when I was teaching and
before social media was reliefing, I had a blog. From that blog, I started getting noticed by different publications like Conde Nest Traveler, and so I started getting commissions to write articles for various travel publications, and then when I moved to the US, I really went in and started doing like YouTube and all these other you know, kind of working these social media platforms. And from that, my presence online really grew. I was able to attract different
contracts and sponsors and all of these different things. And here I am, almost ten years later working in the field, which has been so cool.
Your journey to becoming a travel professional. I love it.
So when did kids come into this story? Because I know you're a mom now, I don't know how old your kids are, so share kind of when that came about. And I'm curious, like, did motherhood change your feelings about travel or were you worried it would change things at all?
So yeah, transparently, I was just traveling and having a good old time. I didn't know if I was interested in having kids. I was footloose and fancy free. My husband and I were deeks, so double income kids living overseas. I actually met my husband overseas in Hong Kong, and he's a German national like he's European, like properly European. We were just traveling the world together. We lived in
Hong Kong, together. We lived in London, England together, and then we moved to the US together and we were just having a great old time traveling and when made the decision to have kids, it was kind of one of these things where it was like, Okay, we waited until the last second, you know, it was kind of like, Okay, let's make sure that we get all these travels out of our system, because inevitably, we're going to have this child, and everybody is telling us that, you know, we're not
going to travel after we have a kid, where we're not going to be able to travel, We're not going to want to travel. So let's just get out of our system now. But you know what, we had our daughter. She's almost five, she's turning five in a month, and honestly, I feel as though that kind of reignited my urge and desire to see the world.
My daughter at this point, she's almost five, She's been to over thirty countries.
We've spent months in Latin America and in Asia. So she's just very well attuned to the world and I think it hasn't stopped us at all. I think people are really surprised that she's traveled so much, and they're surprised even more that we haven't let her being around stop us. We just kind of bring her along and it just as really a testament to how adaptable kids are, because everything she does, everything she sees, everything she learns.
I mean, it's really through us as a vessel. And so this is her normal, traveling from place to place, different time zones, being on the plane, meeting different people, hearing different languages. That is her normal, and I really love that for her. She's a true global citizen in a way that my husband and I never worked just because we didn't have that opportunity.
And forty years ago.
Life was very very different, right, Like the access and the mobility that we have now does not compare it to what it was like back then. And so I think not only that did her, you know, being born reignite my need or my desire to travel, but it also very much compelled me to want to share the journey with other people and to show people to normalize traveling with small children to other people.
I love it.
We're going to take a quick break and when we're back, I'm going to ask you some questions about those early days of traveling with a baby. All right, we are back, and I love that your daughter has gotten to have all these experiences. I agree that sounds absolutely amazing. I'm curious as to whether there was any Now, maybe there wasn't, because you're like more of a pro than I think
most of us are to start with. But did it always feel easy from the get go, or even if it did, were there any mistakes or learning points that you made in the early days where you feel like you've figured things out since then in terms of traveling long haul trips and everything with a child.
Yeah, I mean definitely. So. My daughter was a co with baby.
She was born in January of twenty twenty, and by March, when she turned two months old, we were actually due to go on a trip. She was we were going to go to California. I'll never forget, and basically everything shut down. The US shut down completely, and so for the first six months of her life, we didn't go anywhere, we didn't travel, and then when she was six months old, a little over six months old, we ended up going
to California. We ended up making that trip. In the end, we stuck to social distancing and we stuck to trips. You know, in the great outdoors where we wouldn't be in like enclosed spaces or anything like that.
And I have to say, to.
Be quite honest with you that at least in that range, that age range of like let's say, like zero to like two years old, I think it was easier than to travel with her just because she slept a lot, she didn't really demand much. So for a lot of new parents and parents of young children, I think there's a lot of like reticence and a lot of fear surrounding you know, what.
Are they going to do? Like what are you going to eat? Like how are they gonna sleep on the plane? Da da dah? And honestly, I feel.
As though before she could walk or talk was like way easier because pretty much, you know, you just feed her or you just make sure to travel during her nap times, and it was easy peasy. Now she's a lot more active. But I will say that now it's
almost like traveling with like a little adult. To be quite honest with you, probably the most difficult stage for us probably would have been about you know that two to three years old phase where you know that verbal is still developing, so they can't necessarily express exactly how they feel. You get that terrible two thing going on with like the tantrums.
That is challenging.
But something that I always say to people is, well, your child would do that at home. So if they're gonna like throw a tantrum at home, like, why not do it in Greece, you know what I mean? So at least you can kind of like go out for like a drink and some sadiki later on, you know what I'm saying. So for us, it was just always important to just live our lives as we had been living our lives before, just with an extra friend. So
it's been a really great time. And I think because we've just never really made it a big deal, because we've just made it so natural. Our daughter has just followed suit like it's just no big deal to her at all. She'll sleep when she's tired, if she wants food or she's hungry, she'll let us know, she needs to pee, she'll let us know, I mean, she just lets us know about her needs and we accommodate her. And honestly, it's no different than if we were at home.
No, that makes sense, And you're right, those are tricky years with a kid no matter what, So you might as well have them while enjoying all the awesome things that you want to be doing. I'm with you that I feel like I feel like it's like eighteen months to three years is like, Oh, it's just a very hard parenting time in general because your kids have opinions but they make no sense.
Yes, and it's not like you can and they can't.
Yeah, they can't express.
Them and you can't reason with them because it's not their fault, but they're not ready.
To do that yet.
Like, yeah, So what would you tell a family that is maybe approaching their first trip abroad with a young kid. Are there any go to hacks if it's not something that's like old hat for that family, like anything that you would think about in terms of planning the itinerary, like leaving space for certain types of activities.
So tell me.
Particularly with young children, I always recommend if you're taking some sort of flight, like a long haul flight, I would say to do it during their nap time. So I've found that traveling at night, for example, taking that that red eye, that late night flight has been clutched for us because our daughter that's when she's typically sleeping anyway, so we benefit from that and we don't have to worry about occupying her in a very tight space on the plane.
Also bringing toys, you.
Know, activities, but new activities to keep kids occupied is also very key if you're not a fan of screen time, which I don't love screen time, but I love screen time when it keeps my child quiet and not descriptive, like in an enclosed space like an airplane. If you're not into screen time, then bring what book, Bring cards, Bring something tactile, something that they can kind of fuss around with. Something that my now almost five year old is really into for the last three or so months.
Is playing cards.
So we have Uno and it's just I guess complicated for her enough to really engage and to make or think about how to play her cards, but it's also simple enough that she's still able to grasp the concepts. So she's really enjoying playing cards. And I find that us playing this card game even trump's like her getting screen time, like it's insane. We'll go out to a restaurant and the first thing she'll say is can we play Luno? And so that's kind of been a game
changer for us. I would say, bring all the snacks if you can't. Kids are picky, so obviously if there's some sort of food that can sort of pacify them, then most definitely if that makes the journey easier for you, then definitely let them have it or.
Bring it along.
Something that I you know, before my daughter was really mobile, because probably up until the age of three and a half four we were still traveling with a stroller. We had this really lightweight stroller that I love. It was called the GB Mini Plus. I believe it's like one of the smallest lightest strollers on the market, so clutch, very easy. You know, a lot of people talk about the Yo yo Zen and all these different things which are slightly heavier and more robust, but I really, you know,
for me, mobility is key. So as soon as we weren't able to babywear, which I love, like an Ergo baby, like very baby wearing sort of thing.
Yeah, but you got too heavy for that.
I love bringing around this stroller which folded up into basically nothing. It could fit in a carry on suitcase, it can fit in the cabin, and it just gave us kind of a little bit more freedom and ease of mobility, just because my husband and I we love walking everywhere and we want to avoid cars wherever possible,
wherever we can. So again, just like really simple things like whether it's a product or whether it's just a little accouterment that you can bring along, just to keep your child occupied and to keep you as a parent saying, I think that's kind of what I would suggest.
When you're doing your itinerary planning.
At One tip I've heard and that I have used is to like make sure you include and some kind of activity that provides space to run around, like even if you're in some.
Yes, oh my god.
It's probably my biggest tip is when we travel, we identify the playgrounds. We identify the playgrounds, like literally about ninety minutes before we got onto this call, we're in Namibia, but my child was at the playground. We identify the playgrounds because inevitably, I mean, kids are young, they have a lot of energy, and as much as you're kind of like, okay, well they're local by like my schedule, No,
when they flip out, that's all out the window. So definitely highly suggest carving out some time in your schedule to allow kids to be kids another thing that we love. And even on this current around the world trip that we're doing, basically in every country, almost every country we've been in, we've gone to the mall and we found when these indoor playground sort of setups. So we were just in Kenya and we were at the mall and
they had an indoor playground. You know, you pay ten dollars for the hour, and it has all of this set up with like a bouncy castle and different toys, and a lot of them that we've been to have costumes and things like that that kids can get into. So the indoor playgrounds have been a lifesaver. The outdoor
playgrounds have been a lifesaver. And then if we're traveling in terms of accommodation, if we're staying in a hotel or actually I should probably say at resort, we always try and see if we can find one that has a kid's club.
A few weeks ago, we.
Were in Mauritius. We were staying on this really nice property. It was a Meridian, the Meridian, and they had an amazing, amazing kids club and we happened to be there over Halloween and they even had programming special programming for Halloween. So my child, who we didn't even want to tell her Halloween was happening because we're afraid that she was going to be really upset that she was missing it in the US. In Mauritius, she got to attend the
Halloween party and she dressed up as a witch. And that day they had a whole thing where they got to learn like a dance routine to thriller, and then they did it for the parents at the at the tiki bar. So I think recognizing that your whole trip does not need to be centered around your child's experience, but really locking in and finding opportunities to make them happy and to enrich them, you know, even in a small way, I think it makes all the difference when you're traveling with them.
I love that.
And the truth is, like even a playground can be a cultural experience because the way the kids play are different. You hear kids speaking different languages, and even like the equipment is going to be different and the clothing like everything. So I can see how like playgrounds around the world would actually be way more fascinating than it might sound from the outset.
Yeah, I mean, we were in a playground in a few weeks ago in Saudi Arabia and Jetta, Saudi Arabia, and my daughter was playing with like some Saudi.
Kids at the park.
That's awesome.
It's amazing to see how little verbal communication actually counts in those situations because my child will I've seen it with my own eyes. She's bonded with kids where they have completely different backgrounds linguistically and they're able to get on just fun.
It's like tag is a universal language exactly.
Definitely, question about how you plan your travel Now, this might be unfair because you're a professional, so a lot of the planning might have to do with opportunities that you get, which makes total sense because this is.
Your career as well.
But do you have like a long range like wishless and how do you how do you track that? Like how do you like do you have things you tell me about your travel planning?
So when I started out traveling, I was younger, I didn't have a ton of money, and I was just willing to go anywhere, and I really did not discriminate when it came to traveling. So most of the time back in the day when I was traveling, my travels were based on how much it cost.
It was really simple.
I would go to the cheapest places because my objective was just to be somewhere anywhere. Now that I'm older and obviously more picky, more stubborn, have some more money, I obviously have you know, a long and short list in terms of my bucket list destinations or my must dews and must sees. But still a lot of that list is predicated on how much does it cost and can I use? You know, now I'm just a little bit more sophisticated when it comes to funding these opportunities.
So can I use my credit card points? Can I use my air miles?
For example?
We started this trip we knew that we wanted to eventually hit Africa, but when we're looking at our points of miles, we realized that it made way more sense and we could get way better redemptions if we flew to the Middle East first, And so that's what we did, and we ended up spending a couple of weeks in Dubai and in Saudi Arabia. And Saudi Arabia wasn't necessarily on our wish list, but once we saw how easy and quick it would be to get there from Dubai. It was kind of like, why not. So I think
it's a mixture of that. It's a mixture of curiosity, it's a mixture of circumstance, it's a mixture of cost and all of those things combined. Really, you know, And I think just in general, we're just really I'm just very open minded. I'll still pretty much go anywhere. So if it's easy and it's cheap, I'll probably get there first.
And the more expensive destinations or the more I guess onerous destinations to visit, those are kind of left to the wayside for now until I can figure out a way to kind of facility.
Yeah, and then maybe one day some amazing deal will pop up and you're like, great New Zealand, here I come.
Yeah. Absolutely absolutely.
I'm a huge fan of just kind of throwing caution to the wind and just kind of checking. There's a couple of online platforms where you can just kind of click your your starting point and then in terms of the destination, you can just sort by cost, and so I do.
A lot of that.
Do you mind would you be able to share a couple of those orner them? So all right, well we're going to take another quick break, and then I'm gonna ask you about some of the most memorable trips you have ever taken.
Maybe you're on one right now.
All right, we are back and you're in the Mibium right now, so maybe this is going to be part of the answer. But if you had to say the top three most memorable or fantastic trips you've taken with your daughter, what would they be?
Ooh so so so difficult to say.
But you did mention that I'm in Namibia right now, and I absolutely had and oh my goodness, this is amazing moment. Two days ago so I had the chance to visit. I guess it's the is it the Nama Desert. I'm not even sure what the desert is called, but it's in sous Le dead Lay, which I'm probably butchering the pronunciation of.
But it is in Namibia, and it's one of the I guess the largest deserts. And I'm not too sure of.
The superlative that you would attach to it, but it definitely has one of the largest dunes and large expansive dunes in the world. And so we were climbing this done which is affectionately called the big Daddy dune, and I thought to myself, you know, I was surrounded on all sides by this red dirt, just miles and miles of it, and I thought, this is absolutely incredible. This is what living is about. And my daughter was just
having such great time. She's definitely a beach girl. We were living in Miami prior to going on this trip, and so she was just she loves the beach, she loves being in the sand, playing in the sand, and so she was just having an incredible time. And I thought, this is really really cool. But honestly, I mean, there are It's so funny. Sometimes I go to places and I'm like, oh, this was like a tough trip. I'm glad that it's over, and then afterwards, a week later,
I kind of get twins. I'm like, well, actually, that was really fun.
I wouldn't mind be living that again.
So I think oftentimes, with perspective and time, I feel differently about.
Places, and sometimes it's more.
About how I feel in a place or who I met in the place, as opposed to the actual physical geography of the place itself.
That makes sense.
So Nimbia, Namibia, any other nothing, no other specific destination is standing out to you.
In terms of my daughter. I mean, we had a really great time in Japan. I thought that was she loves sushi. She's super bougie, so she will go in on the salmon and gury. And we went and we got to put on kimonos and get dressed up, and she really really loved that. She's very girly and she loves putting on different You know, she's somebody who really loves diving.
Into the culture.
I guess you could say so she loves kind of these experiences where she feels like a local.
And it's funny to say that.
It sounds funny that you would think you'd probably think that at that age she wouldn't have.
Those sorts of preferences.
But she really enjoys things like cooking classes and meeting local people. Something else that sticks out is earlier on this year, we traveled to India, and we traveled to India during Holy so that was in March, so during their celebration the Festival of Colors. We got to participate in that. But something that we also did was we did a Bollywood dance class and we also did a
couple of cooking classes, and she absolutely loved that. So I think the more I guess, the more local experiences we engage in.
The more she enjoys it.
Like the sight seeing is okay for her, but she's also somebody who is an active learner, and so if she can do an interactive activity where it's very tactile or she's moving her body or something like that, she's super interested.
She's super into it.
I love it.
And it sounds like she loves food too, which I wholeheartedly agree with. And I can't even imagine how good the food is in both of those places.
Oh my gosh.
All right, Well, another one kind of question we get a lot is time zone changes and jet lag. So do you have any tips for how you deal with this, both for with yourself and with your daughter.
You know what, one of the things we always do we just get ourselves on the schedule of wherever we're going to. So for example, if I do, for example, we traveled from Miami all the way to Dubai.
Via Qatar and we landed.
If I do a long haul flight and I land at nine PM, I'm going to take myself to bed, because that's basically with the schedule.
That I'm now on.
Similarly, if I arrive at one in the afternoon, then I'm going out and I'm going to stay out and keep myself up until at least nine pm. So I think it's really important to get yourself on the schedule of the new destination as soon as possible.
That's interesting, So like, no easing in, It's just like no, no, no, I've heard the daylight and it is helpful to like if you do land in the middle of the day, like get the sun in your face so that your body knows it's daytime.
Now. Yeah, definitely, definitely.
No, I'm definitely the type to hit the ground running, will fall into bed like a sack of potatoes because I'm absolutely exhausted.
No, that makes sense because you're kind of lengthening out your day, but then ultimately probably with a few slightly longer sleeps.
You'll you'll like just exactly. That's awesome.
Okay, one last question, well, one last one before we get to the level of the week, which is, can you think of a tip that's like under the radar, Like is there anything you feel like people don't talk about enough regarding traveling with kids, Like I know, like something you just feel like people are missing.
Oh my goodness.
People always say, why would you travel with a one year old or a two year old? They're not going to remember it. It's a waste of time. You know, why you're going to travel with them? Because flying with them is free. Why I always encourage people. I'm like, why would you not take advantage of that? You could basically fly for free with this child, And quite honestly, before the age of one, it's so easy to travel with a kid, Like, why would you not just take advantage of that?
So I always tell people.
Do it while you can, while you don't have to pay for it, Do it while your child is young and they're not walking and you don't have to worry about them walking into into traffic or something like that. I wish we had, I guess, a better view or a more positive view of traveling with the young kids.
I'm definitely about that life. And then also something that we've done quite often with our daughter, which I guess is deemed unconventional by most is we've spent months with her abroad and I understand, you know, as digital nomads and as particularly as someone who works in the industry, it's it's super easy for me to get away. But we've really been taking advantage of our child not being in like regular school to take these longer trips to live overseas.
Last year we.
Rented an apartment for a month in Chang My not in Chang Mai, in gosh in Kosamuay, Thailand, and then we spend another month in Bali. The year before, we spent two months in Pliotel Carmen, Mexico, and in Guatemala and in Colombia, and so just really taking these opportunities. If your child is not in school to world school, then I think that's something that people are not really taking advantage of and or it's not something that's really top of mind for folks.
That's so cool, And you're right, like I do think it's underthought about because I have older kids now, and I do feel like the biggest constraint is the school calendar. Oh yeah, I feel like you're going to find a way, Like I see you figuring out like how to like a school around the world or something like that.
Like you're going to figure out a way around it.
But it is true, if you have a job that's very remote friendly, then if you have a three year old, there's.
Really not that much stopping you from taking it on the road.
And there's something and I think something that people don't realize is that life overseas is often way cheaper than it is in the US.
Yeah.
So when I look at my expenses and keep in mind, I lived in very expensive cities. I lived in New York City for almost seven years and I lived in Miami for two years, both very very expensive cities with a high cost of living that's increasing steadily. But rent and bills in those two cities. I mean when we basically lived in Thailand, we rented in Thailand for a month, or we rented in Vali for a month, or we rented in Plyi at Al Carmen in Mexico for two months,
our costs, our living costs were like half yeah. So I mean you can really really take advantage, I feel, and a lot of people do not realize that, and it's to their detriment at the end of the day, because they're on the hamster wheel. You know, they're in the rat race, and there are other options. So I think that at least in terms of what I do,
one of the goals that I have. Something that's really top of mind for me is just showing people what's possible and helping them to gain access and helping them to realize that there's no one way or there's no one right way to live life or to have kids or to raise children. And so that's kind of what I hope to achieve by sharing my story.
Yes, Anika, you can't see me, so we turned our videos off for this, but I've been smiling the whole time, like you be just so many inspiring and interesting things, and I like the idea of just sort of like questioning the standard narratives about what's possible, and I think you've done that in such a cool way. Can you
share your love of the week? I did warn you at the top of the episode that every week we share something that we are in love with in a given week, and I'm going to be really silly and share mine first. And my love of the week is feeling healthy and good because right now I'm a little bit sick. You know, we really don't spend enough time when we feel normal recognizing like what an amazing thing
and blessing that is. So being a little cheesy today, but yeah, my love of the week is generally feeling good.
I feel very lucky to have that be the case.
I think that's beautiful. I think that's really really beautiful.
And I'm going to share my loves of the week plural, which may sound a bit silly, but something that I realized, and I was telling this to my husband the other day, is something that I really love, Like when I check into my accommodation, something that I always look for and I'm always so geeked, like when I find it is a pair of slippers. I realize that I really love when my hotel offers me slippers like that for me
is ultimate number one. And I've actually from the last two places we were staying at they had slippers, so I actually packed them in my bag and I brought them with me because I realized that that's something that I really needs.
This is a big thing for.
Me, and this is perhaps very specific to Namibia and Kenya where we were just now, both places where I feel cold, Like right now, I'm actually very cold. I'm in my fleece talking to you right now with a scarf around my neck.
The hot water.
Bottle has been so underrated for me because I live in Miami, where it's hot all the darn time, and I was on safari in Kenya a couple of weeks ago, and now I'm in the Namibian desert and it's really cold at night. And the Turndown service where I'm staying now and where we were in Kenya, they put a hot water bottle in between the sheets, and it's the most amazing feeling ever.
Well, I am talking to you from South Florida. I used to live in Miami. Now I'm in Broward County.
But nice. I didn't realize it's.
Fifty degrees right now and everyone is like in boots, and I wore my puffy jacket this morning, and I would have.
Loved a hot water bottle in my bed today. So I love that.
That is awesome.
I didn't know that we're having a cold front.
Oh my goodness. So funny.
It was maybe like sixty three or something like that last January. I remember because we had my in laws were visiting from Germany and I was freezing.
I was a freezing I was feeling.
I remember my mother in law was on our balcony and she was like this is great, and I'm like I'm dying, so I definite get it.
Yes, Well, tell our listeners where they can find you, because I'm sure they're all going to be like anxious to click through right now and see what is happening with you in Namibia or whatever country you're in. Nice.
Yeah, well, well, thank you so much for having me. I would be so honored for people to kind of follow along and tap in. So I can be found on social media, so on Instagram primarily, and my handle on Instagram is at my full name so Onnka Raymond O n e Ika ry.
M O n D.
And that's the same on Instagram, on TikTok, although I don't really post there, and my website is Onnica raymond dot com.
I love it and we'll put that in the show notes as well.
Thank you so much for coming on all the way across the globe today.
Thank you so much for having me. It's been a pleasure.
Well that was great, lots of travel discussion with Sarah and Oneka there. So this episode is airing in mid December, which means that for many people, a long winter break is on the horizon with kids home from school. So our question this week, Sarah ideas for getting through the long winter break with kids at home.
Yeah, and I know your mileage is going to vary based on whether you are somewhere that you're actually also like very much stuck inside, like if it is snow season or freezing rain season where you are versus not. I have historically done a lot of solo parenting, especially during winter break. Our common pattern is that we'll travel all together one week, but then Josh wall you usually have to work the other week. And my go to strategies have been really to make sure I have stuff
on the calendar. It just doesn't work well to have multiple days at home without.
A lot of things planned.
So I have reached out in advance and try to figure out who else is stuck at home because fun fact, if you're doing it, probably someone else is doing.
It too with kids similar ages.
So it's like a prime time for playdates or just having people come over or meet up somewhere. We often fall into a rhythm, or we'll do something in the morning, something out in the community. For us, it's good weather season, so again I know that's not really fair, but something outdoors in the morning and then PM is more just
like chill time. I think this year might be fun to have the kids create some kind of like really short mini bucket list just for that week, to kind of create a quest mentality out of it, because often that can just kind of make things seem like a little bit more fun, a little bit more gamified. And then I mean, it is a great time to organize. So it depends on the kid, but I have at least one kid who's very excited about like remaking their room during that time period, So something fun to do.
Yeah, Well, I would encourage people to check out our previous episode, which was Long Weekends with Little Kids that aired sort of at the end of this past summer in twenty twenty four. We had lots of tips for getting through extended periods of times when kids are out
of their usual school or daycare routines. Obviously that was aimed more at little kids, but certainly young elementary school age kids could be fairly similar, although you might not need to be quite as concerned with the post nap time as you would be with little kids, and certainly older kids might be able to entertain themselves a little bit in the afternoon, especially if you're going for a little downtime for the.
Adults as well.
But you know, if the there's also lots of break camps. Might be a little bit late to be looking for this, but perhaps there are still some places with last minute slots to have at least a day or two. And certainly if you need to get some work done over the break, you want to make sure that you have adequate care for that as well. I don't think any of my kids are excited to organize their rooms in the new year, Sarah. And I mean I don't know
that I'm excited to organize anything. So I think that's a lot to put on kids.
Only if they're excited, only if they're which some kids will be, especially when they got new toys and they want to have like space for them and stuff like that. So that episode that you mentioned is called the Long Weekend Survival Guide and I will definitely link to that.
All right, sounds good?
All right, Well, this has been an episode mostly about travel with children. Sarah interviewing Onka Raymond. We will be back next week with more on making work and life fit together.
Thanks for listening.
You can find me Sarah at the shoebox dot com or at the underscore shoebox on instead, and.
You can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. This has been the best of both worlds podcasts. Please join us next time for more on making work and life work together