Things will converge next summer in a way that is going to give our family a pretty unique window (and budget) for a 4-6-8 week trip somewhere abroad. If you had that much time, and well traveled (I.e. multiple continent) kids between the ages of 7-15, where would you go and what would you do? For simplicity assume the budget for the trip without airfare is about $30k.

Would love any ideas on how some of you would think about this. This board has always been such a great resource for great trip ideas and feedback.

That's awesome! Zero experience but off top of my head I would say India and SE Asia.

I'm partial to Europe, so I'd start in Ireland and work my way through.

The train system makes it easy to move around and get just about anywhere.

Either that or rent a small villa centrally located and day trip (or longer) as you want.

That long of a trip is going to wear on you (and them) and having a home base might be the best option.

Agreed on SE Asia and India. What an experience for those kids! Maybe start in Vietnam then head to Cambodia, Thailand, Indonesia. I think if it were me, I would just pick 2 of those, Thailand and Indonesia. BKK, Krabi or Koh Samui, Bali, Gilis. If you like to scuba dive or want to learn, its pretty darn cheap to do it in this part of the world. I am headed here in 35 days for 14 days of diving all around Thailand. Happy to give you any help on that. The kids could also learn to surf, lots of hiking/outdoor activities and could even go hang out with elephants for a few days. Lots of cooking schools, temples and day tours to keep you busy.

Or if India you could spend a week in several regions. Goa would be fun for the kids if you want to incorporate some beach time.

When I was 16 we did 6 weeks in Croatia, Hungary and Slovakia/Austria. My family lives in Slovakia so they showed us a lot the guidebooks dont. But that is a beautiful part of the world and relatively cheap. If you are into wine, look up the Tokaj region of Hungary for vineyards to visit.

We also went to Greece when I was 18 for a month or so. I wasn't big on the food but it was a blast on the coastal cities with the amount of sailing and swimming we did.

aggiefan2002 said:

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well traveled (I.e. multiple continent) kids between the ages of 7-15

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RTW would be fun but... before I chime in with suggestions it would be nice to know what they've already done.

Between the ages of 7-15, I visited 4 continents and some of those experiences were life changing.
You don't need to see the Anne Frank House more than once but Japan is different every trip.

That's way beyond the scale of any trip I've ever planned, what an incredible opportunity!

I would have to say, though, that my first thought is that if I had that time of time, money, and complexity, I'd be working with a professional travel agent. I can't even get my mind around how I'd piece together a trip of a month or more.

Looking forward to following this, I hope you'll post some update on what you decide to do.

Thanks all for the comments so far. Incredibly helpful and already spurring some new ideas on my end.

To Hollywood BQ: they have done Africa (west--no safaris) and Central America at this point as well as a dozen or so places across the US. No Europe or Asia yet. My wife and I have done Europe a couple of times and I've done South America.

My initial thoughts as someone who loves to plan long trips (2 weeks).

I would consider home basing out of several different locations on a single continent. So like 1 week in London, 1 week in Paris, 1 week in Rome...something like that. If you get a house you can go back to every day for a week it will give everyone some familiarity, you can dominate the city you are in and then take day trips to the surrounding areas as needed. This strategy will also reduce your extended travel days which can be stressful.

Balancing the go go go touristy stuff with some real downtime to rest and enjoy the culture and locale in a more relaxed mode I think is key to making this an enjoyable trip for all.

We did a 5 week honeymoon in Europe and only had a few true rest days. I would build in more rest days if I did it again. One of my favorite vacations of all time was taking the kids to Disney for 2 weeks but we took every 3rd day off from the parks. Made it so much more enjoyable than when we go for a week and only build in 1 rest day.

Let me preface my remarks with a short explanation of why I had been to about 25 countries on 5 continents by the time I was 15.

My father was in the Construction Industry and we wound up living in Saudi Arabia for many years. The Saudi government required foreign workers to leave the country for six weeks every year and my father's company granted that all in one block. The IRS allows you to exclude your foreign income if you remain outside of the USA for 330 days/year. So, that meant that for at least 1 week of our vacation from KSA, we had to be someplace that wasn't the USA and wasn't Saudi Arabia.

Funny aside - during those travels, I had only been to about 15 US States (Alaska and Hawaii were two of those) and I had not been to Canada or Mexico.

Looking back on ages 7-15 from ~40 years on +/-, a lot of the trips to multiple places blur together. So, I've been to Rome 3 times, Amsterdam 3 times, etc. but I couldn't necessarily tell you what we saw on each trip but I do remember all of it. Some I memories I do have fixed in time because of the cassette tape on my Walkman (Rome - John Cougar Mellencamp - Hurts So Good), Athens (Men at Work - Overkill), Kenya (Dio - Last in Line), Madain Saleh, Saudi Arabia (Rush - Grace Under Pressure), Pyramids at Giza (Huey Lewis and the News - Sports). I also remember that it was summer of 1978 when we went to Amsterdam and West Germany because the Rhine River was in what they were calling a 500 year flood and the World Cup was on in Argentina.

Europe
In my opinion you have to hit all the major Cathedrals.

• England - Westminster Abbey
• Germany - Koln
• France - Notre Dame (don't know where they are with repairs)
• Italy / Holy See - Pantheon, Sistine Chapel
• Austria - St. Stephens in Vienna

Just doing that will get you to do a lot of European things (Autobahn, Train, Streetcars, etc.) and you could easily spend 3+ days in any of those cities.

With the budget you're talking about, I'm guessing you're not staying in 2 Star Hotels but, I have to say that as a kid, one of the more memorable experiences was staying in a hotel in Paris where the bathroom was down the hall. That was a trip.

Ancient Europe

• Rome - Coliseum
• Athens - Parthenon

Obviously plenty of other side excursions there. In Rome, the catacombs were a trip and in Greece, a day trip to islands within range of Athens was very memorable.

European Castles

• Buckingham Palace
• Heidelberg
• Buda Castle in Budapest Hungary

Africa

• Egypt - We spent a week there. The Pyramids and Sphinx are going to take a day. Luxor is going to need 2 days and you'll have to fly there from Cairo. Back in Cairo, the museum of antiquities, the palace of Mohammed Ali (not the boxer) and The Citadel are all worth your time.
• Kenya - I was lucky enough to get to go there for 2 weeks as a school field trip. We went to a number of game preserves in Kenya and just briefly snuck across the border to Tanzania. Amboseli, Tsavo, Masai Mara are just some of the places. The Flamingos at Lake Nakuru must be seen along with the Great Rift Valley. Don't know if the satellite dishes are still there. Seeing Cheetah kills and people living in mud huts will be very memorable.

Asia

• Japan - this one probably doesn't need explaining. Try to see Tokyo and Osaka and anywhere else that you can.
• South Korea - you don't need to spend a long time there but two days in Gangnam will be enough to see that the Koreans are doing very well.
• China - Great Wall, Beijing, Shanghai and The Bund. This is a must to realize where we are today and where the future is going.
• Hong Kong / Taiwan / Macao - This is the Cantonese speaking China. It's good to see the prosperity that the Chinese can achieve when they're not under communism.
• Singapore / Malaysia - Two very different countries but both prosperous. Singapore is can't miss.
• India - I didn't think Delhi was that special and Bangalore is complete Charlie Foxtrot but Marine Drive in Mumbai must be seen and Goa must be experienced. Goa shows you what the Portuguese influenced Christian Indians can achieve.
• Saudi Arabia - there's really a lot to be seen here that is 2000+ years old and other parts that are very modern.
• United Arab Emirates - it's all new and extravagant. At the minimum you must connect through Abu Dhabi or preferably Dubai.
• Thailand - honestly, Thailand didn't really do anything for me but, I'm a middle aged man who is not cruising for a mail order bride and I'm not a backpacker trying to discover myself.

Australia / New Zealand

• Australia - You could easily spend 2 weeks there, even just a week around Sydney by itself.
• New Zealand - North Island, South Island, there's another week you could easily spend there. The main thing in ANZ is to get out of the big cities and see the locals in the countryside.

Obviously I'm sure I left some stuff off but I'd start with this list and narrow it down to what you can string together for flights.

In my day when we went RTW on PanAm, the one rule was that you had to keep going in the same direction East or West. So you'd want to order your vacation that way with side excursions North or South as needed.

I realize I left Spain off the list but I only did that 4 years ago so the memory is not as burned in as the trips I took when I was younger.

This is an extraordinary list, and I am in awe of all you experienced (and it makes your love for all things travel now make even more sense than before).

If you had 6 weeks and didn't want to be miserable, how many continents would you try? I feel like 2 max, and I lean towards Asia and Europe.

Thanks. Keep in mind that I just brain dumped a massive list of things I've done and would recommend. All the stuff I saw as a kid was over an 8 year period. The Asian portion except for Saudi, Singapore and Japan, were all done during the last decade that I was living as an American Expat in Australia from 2010-2019.

Six weeks, of course it really depends what you're into and also like I said, I made multiple trips to a lot of these places so I didn't see them everything all at once. Example - taking a train from Amsterdam to West Germany to Paris and back through Belgium was one trip. Going to Haarlem and seeing Windmills and Tulips and staying at the Amsterdam Hilton (like John and Yoko) was on a different trip and I think the Anne Frank House was on a third trip.

Here are the top things that I can say I did as a kid that really had an impact on me.
1 - growing up in Alaska taught me a healthy respect for nature, the environment and severe weather
2 - going to Kenya taught me how the animal kingdom works on land. From living in a fishing village in Alaska, I already knew how the sea / marine life part worked.
3 - ancient history - Athens, Rome, Cairo, Luxor, Valley of the Kings, Madain Saleh
4 - culture - Arabs in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, Africans in Kenya, Egyptians in Ancient Egypt, Europeans in 30 year post WWII Europe, Asians in Singapore and Japan
5 - what people can achieve - The Pyramids at Giza, Luxor, Valley of the Kings, Heidelberg Castle, Westminster Abbey, The Eiffel Tower, the Coliseum, Acropolis. and of course my dad worked on the Trans Alaska Pipeline

I'm kind of brainstorming out loud here. I think I'd group it like this:
Culture - England, Germany, France, Italy, India, Spain, Japan
History - Egypt, Italy
Achievements of Man -United Arab Emirates, Japan, Shanghai
The Future - Beijing, Singapore
The Environment - Beijing

So after all of that, let me think about a sequence of events.

Week 1 - USA to England - get your fill of curry, Big Ben, Parliament, the Underground, etc.
Week 2 - Southern Germany / Bavaria - probably stay in Stuttgart with day trips out to Heidelberg, The Eagles Nest, Schloss (Castle) Neuschwanstein (the Disney castle), Nuremberg, Baden-Baden, Munich, etc.
Week 3 - Rome, Italy - there is just so much history to see in and around Rome. The Vatican is going to take a day by itself. The Coliseum will take most of a day. You've got the catacombs, Trevi Fountain, the Spanish Steps, Pantheon, the Forum, etc.
Week 4 - Egypt or Kenya - you could easily spend a week in either one.
Week 5 - Asia - this one is tricky - I'd say Japan is probably going to be the most rewarding. I feel like China should not be missed either. I think you could get away with spending 2-3 days of connecting flights through Singapore if that makes sense. Singapore is worth a look but, I don't think it's worth an entire week.
Week 6 - probably consumed with travel between these destinations and back to the USA.

That would be about 6-7 countries with 3 continents over a six week period.

Of course you could just bounce around to a new city every 3 days but at the end of that, you probably wouldn't remember it was Barcelona or Madrid, Munich or Frankfurt, Rome or Milan, etc.

The other wild card on Europe is adding a week to travel to a former Warsaw Pact country and see what life there is like today. Maybe Poland or Hungary would be a nice place to experience that.

Last thing I'll add is Europe and the Holocaust. For your kids, I think it's very important for them to see first hand either one of the concentration camps, or the Anne Frank House, etc. It's much more relatable once you've been there. Kind of like standing in the window in the 6th Floor of the School Book Depository in Dallas. Once you've stood where some major historical event took place, it does give you a little better insight into what could have happened, or how things might have happened. Kind of how I crack up every time I see the picture of Adolf Hitler in front of the Eiffel Tower. I've been there. I've stood in that spot.

Aggiefan, I'll offer another point of view and a piece of advice. Advice first: buy a big nice scratch off map of earth and of the US. From Amazon and we framed them, and every time our family visits a new country or state for at least 24 hours we scratch it off. Your 4-6 week trip would be a great head start on something that will bring you joy and perspective for many many years.

Differing point of view: skip Europe. Completely. It's close by and easy to get to. The far away places that are harder to get to are way tougher to justify as standalone trips - so with your long trip, take advantage of it and focus on Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Thailand, India, etc.
I would focus on natural beauty of earth more than famous cities (think of showing the kids great huge mountains and amazing beaches on the same grand adventure). And have a soft landing at the end of your trip - really casual / tranquil last few days somewhere before rejoining reality, like Hawaii if flying back from Japan.

aggiesundevil4 said:

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Aggiefan, I'll offer another point of view and a piece of advice. Advice first: buy a big nice scratch off map of earth and of the US. From Amazon and we framed them, and every time our family visits a new country or state for at least 24 hours we scratch it off. Your 4-6 week trip would be a great head start on something that will bring you joy and perspective for many many years.

Differing point of view: skip Europe. Completely. It's close by and easy to get to. The far away places that are harder to get to are way tougher to justify as standalone trips - so with your long trip, take advantage of it and focus on Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Thailand, India, etc.
I would focus on natural beauty of earth more than famous cities (think of showing the kids great huge mountains and amazing beaches on the same grand adventure). And have a soft landing at the end of your trip - really casual / tranquil last few days somewhere before rejoining reality, like Hawaii if flying back from Japan.

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While I would tend to agree....a trip this long could be a solid opportunity to see quite a bit of Europe, seeing as the kids have never been. I mean you don't need 8 weeks to see Australia....yes, you absolutely could spend 8 weeks between there and New Zealand, you could spend 8 weeks anywhere. Or you could do 5, 6+ countries in Europe....

aggiefan2002 said:

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Things will converge next summer in a way that is going to give our family a pretty unique window (and budget) for a 4-6-8 week trip somewhere abroad. If you had that much time, and well traveled (I.e. multiple continent) kids between the ages of 7-15, where would you go and what would you do? For simplicity assume the budget for the trip without airfare is about $30k.

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A 4-6 week road trip would allow you to knock a whole lot of US national parks off your list! That's what I would do.

I don't know how adventurous you are, but if I ever take or sabbatical I'd buy a Landcruiser in Cartagena Colombia and overland South America from Cartagena to Ushuaia. Stick to the west of South America and it should be safe enough. If you have more than 2 kids this wouldn't really be feasible.

We were lucky enough to spend almost a month in Europe last summer - family of 4 with two teenagers. We flew into Amsterdam, rented a tiny car, then drove more than 3,000 miles through Germany, Austria, Italy, Switzerland, France and finished back in Amsterdam.

It was awesome, and the kids loved it - we never had a cross word the entire trip, which was shocking. I think they were old enough to appreciate the unique experience and opportunity, and really immersed themselves in all of the different cultures - it also didn't hurt that I made the decision not to activate their phones, so they only had access when we were under WiFi. We also tend to travel off the beaten path, which is why we like to have a car when we go to Europe, so I feel like they never got bored with the destinations.

If I had 6 weeks instead of 4, I would have rearranged our route and spent that additional time in the Scandinavian countries - never been there and I'm eager to hit that area.

If I had 8 weeks, I'd add in Spain, Croatia and Greece on top of Scandinavia.

I've ever been drawn to the British Isles, so even with 8 weeks abroad I don't think I'd bother with it - but that's just me.

Sounds like an awesome experience you're about to have!