I’m going to introduce you to our neighbours and share a book, Somewhere Different, with you. I want to let you now about a family with an incredible survival story and an interesting outcome. It’s a story that has now become entwined with ours. We met them over the internet and we’ve ended up neighbours in Breb … Read more
It’s true. We are great at budget travel – without a budget. People ask about our travel budget, what it is and how we afford to travel as often and as long as we do. It still surprises me that anyone should care about our finances, but I guess that’s the world we’re in because … Read more
It’s been two years of travel now. Two years of us, the boys and our backpacks. Two years of adventure, fun, amazing times and disasters. Two years taking us from Australia to Asia, to Europe, to the Americas and back. If you haven’t been following along from the start, here’s our journey, the short version. … Read more
I’ve been asked more than once if my kids enjoy travel. Some readers are concerned that children could be sad being away from friends and family or that they miss pets, bikes and toys. Others feel kids need stability and routine and may find long travel days and uncertainty hard to cope with. I can … Read more
Arriving in Mamallapuram (Mahaballipuram) on the west coast of India by bus from Chennai, we set about finding lodging and enjoying the sights in this beach-side town. What is Mamallapurum like? Where should you stay? What are the things to do in Mamallapuram? This post is our Mamallapuram travel blog and we’ll touch on those … Read more
If you read my post yesterday about our day in wonderful Mumbai, you’ll know that we enjoyed our first ever cruise ship shore excursion in India, with a few reservations. I’d ask you to go back and read it, if at all possible, by clicking the link in the first sentence, I’m on limited ship … Read more
We’ve been in Istanbul now for almost 2 weeks so I thought I’d do one of those posts where I tell you about life on the road, what we’re doing, why we’re doing, what’s Istanbul like and what is there to see and do. The Istanbul Blog We love Istanbul. We’ve explored and roamed this … Read more
As you’d expect from one of Sri Lanka’s major cities, things to do in Galle are numerous and diverse. However, a day visit or a longer stay in Galle needn’t have a city feel at all. Galle’s Dutch colonial fort lies on the south coast, a stunning setting with ocean views to three sides. Within its … Read more
You may think we’ve not been to many places in 2014, after all, we’ve been exploring London in minute detail since May, but 2014 saw us visit 10 countries in total. We were pretty busy. We’ve loved what we’ve done and it’s amazing to see the changes in the boys, physically, educationally and in every … Read more
Have you been to India? India is a country many of us fall in love with before we’ve even been, beautiful images, fascinating stories, wonderful food and exotic wildlife draw us to discover India for ourselves. Excitement is growing here as I introduce the boys to India through books, documentaries and videos, they’ll be going … Read more
Of all the tools we used for finding bargains in the travel world, Skyscanner was number 1, until the day we found ourselves at the check-in desk with non-existent tickets. That update and scam warning is further down the page. Our tips on how to save money on flights with Skyscanner still stand and are … Read more
Around the globe 250 million individuals use Pinterest every month (source). My account was in the top 20,000 accounts according to Board Booster before that tool was banned. I was pretty pleased with that. Today I’m totally re-writing this post, it’s years old. I wrote it back when I was getting almost 1,000 clicks to … Read more
Yesterday, a potential hotel sponsor asked me “Can your readers afford us?” That’s a perfectly reasonable question, we’ve written post after post about doing things on the cheap, saving money to travel and finding great deals. I can see where she was coming from. I replied, explained our demographic and our philosophy and I’m thrilled to report, … Read more
Housing and holiday accommodation in London is pretty high up on the global price chart, nobody is arguing with that. So how on earth are we managing to live short-term ( or, enjoy a very long vacation, what they call slow travel ) in a beautiful and desirable area of outer London, on the tube line, … Read more
Many travellers encounter mosquitoes or mosquitos (both spellings are correct) as they travel in warm and tropical climates. We have travelled for years, and our home base is full of mosquitos. This is what really works in avoiding mosquitos and their bites. Mosquitoes carry diseases that you really want to avoid. If you thought too … Read more
If you’ve read our previous post One Year of Travel, What Did it Cost? You’ll know that we worked out our average daily spend for one year to be just under $100 per day. That’s for a family of 4 people, 2 kids, 4 continents, 12 countries, and two cruises. This is a realistic figure … Read more
There are ways to save money on travel that are great, a good idea, the best ways. But trying to save money and travel on a tight budget isn’t so good sometimes. Best ways to save money on travel, and when not to cut travel costs. We’ve just completed one year of family travel on … Read more
We are a family travel blog, travel with kids is easy and good for families and parents alike, often. Here are our tips on travel with kids or as a family, based on our experience of 6+ years of international full-time travel with kids. Travel with kids tips blog posts are thick on the ground … Read more
We don’t travel light. We travel with 2 large backpacks, 2 small kids’ backpacks and 2 pieces of adult carry-on luggage, both containing laptops. It’s the absolute maximum we can carry, just within weight limits for planes and our bodies. We believe that travelling light with kids is extremely impractical, it’s also not a budget-friendly … Read more
We’ve just completed one year of non-stop family travel. We made it from Australia, to Asia, to Europe, to Central and North America and back to Europe. We are very into food, my husband is an exec chef, I’m just a big food freak. We’ve tried some amazing new dishes, but what were our food … Read more
Now in year 5 of full time travel, I can’t believe we travelled so cheaply in year one. We had $30,000 to spend and we were trying to make it last as long as possible. That sum was for 4 people and you’ll see below how long it lasted and how much travel we got … Read more
Why visit Hawaii? Well why not? Here we are in London, loving everything the capital has to offer, but still, the dreams and the plans are with us and as strong as always. We’re slowly stashing away the travel bucks and getting ready to spend them next year, but where, where will we go next? … Read more
This post was written after our first full year of homeschooling around the world. We continues homeschooling worldwide for another 6 years until lockdowns forced us to stop home or world schooling. This is our year end wrap up after homeschooling in Sri Lanka, Laos, Thailand, Malaysia, the UK and many more countries. We even … Read more
We’ve had our share of ups and downs over the last 12 months of non-stop travel. We’ve had a fantastic year, go check out our travel highlight post to see our best bits, but there have been some absolutely stinking times. Some we’ve written about and shared before, some we haven’t. This post is very … Read more
Travel highlights from the first 1 year of a multi-year trip. Yes, it’s true, we’re just coming up to one year of non-stop travel. It’s flown past, it really has. We thought we’d share our travel highlights, our absolute favourites, the things still fresh in our memories and the things that make us go wow! … Read more
Breakfast foods are possibly the most interesting and variable as you travel around the world. Through 6 years of travel, 50+ countries, we sampled traditional breakfasts in many countries. Here’s our take on the best, and worst, breakfasts from various countries around the world. Are you a morning person? I am, so that first coffee and … Read more
World Travel Family is a website and world travel blog which belongs to Alyson Long and her family. This website has been in existence since 2011 and is one of the biggest travel blogs in the world. Alyson Long and her family, Chef (James Long) plus kids,D and Boo, travelled full-time for 6 and a … Read more
We are having a very nice time here in Antigua Guatemala, quietly living our lives for a month. the Guatemalan food culture in Antigua is very different to what we’re used to on the backpacker trail in Asia. For some reason we expected everywhere to have plenty of inexpensive eating options, it’s not really the … Read more
Let’s talk about family travel gear, the stuff we’ve used and loved for 6+ years of full-time world travel and the things you actually need to carry on a holiday or vacation. We travel as a family, we have 2 kids, but most of what’s on this page relates to travel equipment needs for everyone. We’re … Read more
When we left home to travel in 2013 we hoped we could travel indefinitely, or for several years, on our savings and a few small income sources. We travelled ultra-cheap back then, these days we don’t, but we made budget travel our mission as we stretched our cash. Our newish travel blog was doing OK and … Read more
Transatlantic cruise reviews, crossing the Atlantic on a cruise ship, what’s it like? And tips for transatlantic cruise crossings. Nerves got to me in Southampton in February before our journey across the Atlantic to New York. I had no idea what lay ahead on our voyage and weather conditions concerned me. Want to know the … Read more
Welcome to our Cheap Family Accommodation UK post. We try to tell you where we stayed and what we paid on every leg of out trip to give you an idea of what bargains are out there. We cheated in the UK. We stayed with friends and family for most of our 5 week stay, but … Read more
Fellow family travel blogger Erin asked the question on her Facebook page, “How many countries have you been to?” Erin Bender (Holmes) So I counted, something I haven’t done for years. It’s not a competition, I’m not in any rush to tick off more countries. We’re busy re-visiting places we’ve been many times before. They … Read more
Regular readers will know that we touched down in the UK yesterday after 6 months in steamy Asia and 6 years of tropical living in Port Douglas, Queensland. It’s December, it’s cold. What on earth were we thinking! Most people visit the UK in summer. It gives visitors a fighting chance of not getting soaked … Read more
This post is about how to get to Legoland Malaysia from Malacca, the bus journey, where to stay near Legoland and more. It’s also about our experiences of travelling in Malaysia. I’ve been really struggling with travel in Malaysia lately. After the first couple of days in Malacca, loving the ancient buildings and churches, I … Read more
Finding budget family accommodation is always the hardest part of family travel at the backpacker end of the market. This post is about that and how to find cheap family accommodation for travel around the world. I’m having a bad day. We have 3 countries coming up in the next two months, we’ll be moving … Read more
If you read my last post about Chef’s hospitalisation, you’ll know that I wasn’t feeling too good. I’d even asked at the pharmacy for Xanax, I felt that bad. I was experiencing palpitations, shortness of breath ( probably through anxiety), headaches, hot flushes and a few other things that I didn’t mention. All these symptoms … Read more
Four months ago this week I wrote about the things I’d miss as we left Port Douglas to explore the world. Just the three of us, Chef caught up with us later. I haven’t missed home at all, we’re having a brilliant adventure, but things haven’t gone quite as expected. Our unplanned travel style has come … Read more
In our first year on the road we weren’t just about family budget travel, we were rocking extreme budget travel. Our budget for Asia on on our first year of full-time family travel was crazy-low, it hovered between $40 and $50 per day. That’s not much for a family of four and it’s certainly a … Read more
We’ve been travelling full-time for over 4 years now and, yes, we’ve all had minor health problems, the travel medical kit has had a work-out. Boo and The Chef have been what my mum would call “proper poorly” in Laos. Poorly is only proper if you have a fever and/or vomiting that keeps you in bed … Read more
Travel bloggers will hate me for posting this, but I’m known for my honesty, maybe for being rather pedantic at times. Reading too many travel blogs can give you entirely the wrong impression. This post came about after trusting information from smaller travel blogs and finding that their rosy picture was less than factual. Lonely … Read more
Your options for getting from Bangkok to Kanchanaburi include train, bus, taxi and minibus. There is no airport in Kanchanaburi, you can’t fly. Read on for more information on getting to Kanchanaburi, video of what the train is like, information on how to book train or bus tickets plus day tours, hotels in Kanchanaburi and things … Read more