Our track record

Having lived in the States and currently in Asia, the children obviously have done a great deal of travelling, there is simply no avoiding if you want to go back to your home country, visiting family and friends. I am very organized person and a good planner, I've always loved to travel. To show that I am fairly "pathetic" person, I keep track of my children's flights mileage. As of the end of 2012 Big Sister has flown 179,518 miles (288,906 km) in 8 1/2 years, that's more than 7 times around the world. The twins obviously only started 2 1/2 years later on their journey and they currently have 106,932 miles (172,090 km) or more than 4 times around the world under their belt. I know it's silly but the numbers are sometimes mind boggling thinking about how I would "just" take car trips to France and Italy when I was this age. In order to give some ideas, where have we been with them, what have we done?

We've done far less travelling in the States than in Asia, but being pregnant and giving birth to 3 children 2 1/2 years apart obviously makes things a little more difficult. We've done road trips as well in the Midwest, including a big one. Not even sure what I was thinking at the time but right before we left the States. In a very cold December month, it took me about 3 hours to pick up our rental car from O'Hare International Airport in Chicago instead of the "normal" 25 minutes because of winter weather conditions, this is the Midwest right? We decided to go south while our container was going east to Europe. We traveled with 3 year old and barely 1 year old twins by car from Chicago to New Orleans via Indianapolis, Louisville, Nashville, Memphis, Jackson, Vicksburg, Natchez and Baton Rouge. Luckily temperatures started to rise after ... well, Jackson, MS, the last part of our trip. Over the years, we've visited NYC, Washington DC, Philadelphia, Florida, South Carolina, California, Colorado and did some road trips to exciting Wisconsin and Iowa as well. I wish we'd done more but that's always in hindsight ...

With the kids being slightly older, travelling has become a lot easier and Asia offers so many great (and fairly inexpensive, or let's say less expensive) destinations. A short overview of what we have done so far with the 3 of them. Also, we've been lucky to have been to a few of these and other places before prior to having kids, so we're trying to find new places to go to together as well. In the end it needs to be fun for all of us, not just the kids!

* Long city weekend Taipei (Taiwan)

* Long countryside weekend Guilin (China)

* The beach in Cebu (Philippines)

* Long city weekend in Bangkok (Thailand)

* Visiting friends in Manila (Philippines)

* City, history and beach in Hanoi, Hue and Hoi An (Vietnam)

* Mostly beach and nature in Kota Kinbalu (Sabah, East Malaysia)

* Culture in Siem Reap (Cambodia) via Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam)

* Fun in Singapore

* Relaxing cultural visit to Luang Prabang (Laos)

* Visiting our friends again in Manila (Philippines)

* Lots of culture and visiting friends in Beijing, Hangzhou and Shanghai (China)

* Beaches and several great things to see in Panglao Island, Bohol (Philippines)

* City and beach in Bangkok & Hua Hin (Thailand)

* Off the beaten track in Mengwi, Munduk & Tabanan on Bali (Indonesia)

I'll try to flashback with travel suggestions, what we did, where we stayed and link those to my Tripadvisor contributions.