Final Thoughts and Statistics

 

We did it! We made it around the world in 381 days and have come safely home. We are definitely enjoying the comfort of our own beds and pillows, as well as a pantry, some foods we missed, a washing machine and friends! The map above gives a good picture of the countries we went to, though it doesn’t include the three separate 24 hour-ish layovers in the mainland US (the cross-over lines got too confusing!)

Before I give a run-down of all the statistics, I’ll share just a few thoughts and reflections that came out of our time in Wales where we deliberately took time to review the trip and remember both the good and the bad, as well as what we have learned along the way.

Favourite Country – people have asked us this all year long and we anticipate the question coming frequently these next few weeks as well. Short answer: we don’t have one    It depends on whether you are asking about the scenery, the food, or the animals! A few of our favourites though do include New Zealand, Hawaii (which we refer to as a country!!), Guatemala, South Africa, Peru, Australia and Norway.

Most Beautiful – every country has its beauty. And often, so many places of stunning beauty. We certainly learned the magnitude, splendour and creativity of God’s magnificent creation. A few particularly beautiful countries include New Zealand, Norway, Peru, South Africa, Scotland, Iguazu Falls (we know, not a country!!) and Canada. But, I think our single most jaw-dropping moment of incredible beauty was at Moraine Lake in Alberta, Canada.

Favourite Foods – everything dulce de leche (Uruguay, Argentina), passionfruit cheesecake (Peru) and passionfruit ice cream (many South American countries), el pastor tacos (Mexico), pad Thai and pineapple fried rice (Thailand), shawarma (Israel), bubble tea (Taiwan), and Christmas Turkish delight (Turkey).

Favourite Experiences – we did so, so many excursions and interesting things, but some that stand out for us include the hot air balloon in Turkey, paragliding in Guatemala, hiking Mt. Sinai in Egypt, the safaris in Africa, seeing lava and the Napali Coast in Hawaii, taking in a concert at the Sydney Opera House in Australia, hiking the Blue Mountains in Australia, cooking class in Thailand, stencil painting in Japan and hiking around the Iguazu Falls in Argentina and Brazil.

Scariest Moments – hands down for all of us, our scariest moments occurred during transport in South America!! And there were several, including a boat!

Hardest Moments – these range from being away from family during a medical crisis, to not having space or time to ourselves, being away from friends, grocery shopping in foreign countries, having bad weather make something that we were greatly anticipating not be enjoyable, and our terrible 18 hours being cold and wet on the mountain during the Santa Cruz trek in Peru.

Major Trouble – while hundreds of things didn’t go exactly according to plan, we really only had two (maybe three) major incidents. First, the ankle injury 10 days into the trip. Still so thankful it wasn’t broken and we could keep going. That ended up being our only major medical incident or sickness of the whole trip, which is incredible.  Second, the Vietnam Visa issue.  By not submitting it early enough, we got caught in the government shutdown for the TET holiday (Chinese New Year) and ended up spending one extra week in Taiwan (with family which was awesome) but one less week in Vietnam and needing to rebook several things.  The third, was the Botswana border crossing – the one and only time that we did not have the girls’ birth certificates with us for a border crossing was the one and only time they were needed!  In the end, despite it being very stressful, we did get through.

Life Lessons Learned (mixing important with funny):

1. Don’t take the little things for granted (like toilet seats, top sheets, salt & pepper, eating fruits & vegetables, etc).
2. Deadlines can be a good thing and very motivating!!
3. Sometimes the only way out of a tough situation is to keep going (eg, the Santa Cruz trek in Peru).
4. To be hospitable.
5. Community is important.
6. Don’t walk behind a donkey – they kick!
7. How to be okay in unknown and sometimes uncomfortable situations.
8. How to do laundry in a sink and for the girls, about exchange rates, reading maps, etc.
9. So much of the world and the people in it are the same and so much of it is different. Both the similarities and the diversity are wonderful.

Other Lessons:

1. Our preconceived notions of developed vs developing countries were greatly challenged.  Also, our “single story” of Africa was shattered, which was a very good thing. 
2. How huge, beautiful, and diverse the world is.  It made all of us want to take care of it better.  
3. Despite the beauty everywhere, we also live in a very beautiful corner of this planet.
4. Having missed some of the seasons, we learned how much we enjoy all four of them and were surprised to learn how much they regulate us and our body clocks.

What we will miss about travelling – seeing new places, meeting new people, trying new foods, learning new things, fewer day-to-day responsibilities.

What we will not miss about travelling – finding food, no schedule, the actual “travelling” part (long plane, bus, car rides), bad beds, communication barriers, doing laundry in the sink, no pantry, always trying to figure things out.

Key words to sum up the trip – amazing, challenging, wonderful (or “Our Year of Wonder” was “Full of Wonder”  ).

And now, the statistics.  They are pretty fun to look at and almost mind-boggling to think that we did it all!

We went to                                     34 countries

and                                                     214 cities.

We took                                            57 flights

and have been                              74 airports.

We were away for                         380 nights

and slept in                                     155 different beds

in                                                         19 different time zones.

We took                                           19 different modes of transportation

and saw                                           132 different wildlife species (of significance).

We did                                              106 hikes

and                                                     147 excursions/activities

and went to                                    20 different churches.

We visited                                      24 Youth Ambassadors

and                                                    2 cousins

and                                                    6 friends.

We tried                                           198 new foods.

We watched                                   9 TV series seasons

and                                                     7 movies.

We listened to                               26 podcasts episodes.

And we read so many books!

Matt read                                       37 books.

Julia read                                       87 books.

Marika read                                  181 books (plus 3 for school).

Annika read                                  162 books (plus 17 for school).

 

All in all, an incredible adventure that we are all so thankful we got to do together.  Thank you for following along.  We hope you enjoyed the journey vicariously and that you learned something along the way!

Coming Home

We had a pretty uneventful trip home which was pretty much par for the whole trip.  Julia will do a final post with all the stats, but over all our flights, we never had a cancelled flight and never had any lost luggage.  And even though we had a few flights that were delayed, they were never significant enough to cause worry or frustration.   We did try to take single direct flights whenever possible which helped, but we feel blessed to have everything go so smoothly on the flight front.  A funny story on the way home is that the whole trip, we had to check at least my bag as it had all our extra liquids in it, and so everyone was used to waiting for luggage.  After awhile, Annika would wonder aloud whether our bag would ever come out first.  This happened a few times over the course of the trip and wouldn’t you know it, on our very last flight to home, my bag was the first out on the carousel!  It seemed a fitting close to our baggage endeavors.  

We arrived back with basically the same things on our backs.  A few of us are taller though!

We ended as we started, with prayers and hugs.

Two sets of friends had some basic grocery supplies waiting for us along with a dinner and cake, which was so lovely and thoughtful.

It didn’t take them long to find their happy spots reading paper books (yeah!) on the couch.

St. John's

Even though we are home now, it still feels a little bit weird to be doing the post for our last stop on the trip, St. John’s.  It is bittersweet that things are coming to a close but from our time in Wales, we all concluded that we were both excited and sad to be going home which is probably the right mix of emotions at this stage.  We are glad we could do our last hoorah here and enjoy this time with family.

Signal Hill

We arrived in St. John’s a little before our AirBnB check-in time so we decided to drive to Signal Hill, tour the grounds, and visit Cabot Tower.  In 1901, Guglielmo Marconi received the first trans-Atlantic wireless message here from Cornwall, England using an antenna hanging from a kite close to the tower.

Over the years there have been various gun batteries setup to protect the harbour entrance.

Jellybean Row

Our AirBnB was in the Jellybean Row neighbourhood, which is more than just one street (row).  Pretty fun to walk up and down a few of the streets.

No matter how unique the AirBnB is, it is still a place to play games!

Cape Spear Sunrise

Since we had done the early morning hike to the top of Mount Sinai to see the sunrise, my family at least, thought it would be fun to see the sunrise from the most eastern point of Canada (and of North America if you exclude Greenland).  So we got up early and made the drive around to the south side of St. John’s harbour and headed out to the point of Cape Spear.

It was still pretty dark in the West but definitely dawning in the East.  Unfortunately there were clouds and this thin line of fog that grew as it travelled toward us.  So we didn’t see the sun breaking on the ocean, and instead had to wait until it got above the fog and cloud line to see it on the water. 

Still beautiful but not quite as dynamic as Mount Sinai with all the rocks slowly changing colours.

Looking back towards the entrance to St. John’s harbour and Signal Hill with Cabot Tower on the top.

Water Street

We were only a short walk from the main street through downtown St. John’s and enjoyed browsing through some of the shops.  It also happened to be the St. John’s Busker Festival so we got to take in a few shows.

Quidi Vidi Village and Brewery

The adults took the opportunity to have a night out and ended up going to what used to be the small little Quidi Vidi village but is now swallowed up by St. John’s.  We got to enjoy the brewery there and listen to some local Newfoundland music.

Cape Spear Lighthouses

We headed back to Cape Spear again, but this time with all of us and at a more reasonable time of day.  There were some old World War II bunkers and canons there along with two lighthouses.

Julia’s Lug bag has been everywhere on this trip and has reached legendary status in our family as it seems to hold everything we could ever possibly want or need during an outing.  It has held up amazingly, but is unfortunately on its last legs with zippers failing to clasp and other parts starting to fail.  It needs to last just one more day!

Petty Harbour

Just a few kilometers south of Cape Spear was the little village of Petty Harbour where a shop owner on Water Street had recommended a place to eat and a nice ice cream shop.  It was also a cute little town and nice place to spend our last afternoon.

We have seen many creative ideas and amazing artistry all around the world.  The last day was no exception with this very creative knitted hat that allowed for ponytails at any height you would like by adjusting what is buttoned.

Creative ice cream store as well with ice cream “nachos” where you get waffle cone “chips” to dip in your sundae.

Smiles all around!

From there we ended up heading towards the St. John’s airport.  Our flight was early the next morning so we had an airport hotel booked.  Julia’s sister and her family had a late flight that night.  So in the end, we checked into our hotel room and the kids swam in the pool which was a good way to end things.  It is was great to end the trip with family.