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
Unique family vacation ideas are dear to our hearts at World Travel Family. We love the unusual, the educational and the fun ideas the best. We’re really excited to tell you about a new concept in family vacations that ticks all those boxes, we think it’s unique, we’ve certainly never come across anything like it … 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
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
Perimenopause has been a roller-coaster ride for sure. When we left home in 2013 I already knew that I was in the midst of this interesting time of life, but I didn’t expect my symptoms to get progressively worse and to cause us a few problems as we travel. I’m tough, really tough, not a delicate flower … 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
We came at New York pretty much blind, I’d done almost no research on what to do nor where to go. All we had organised was a 4-night stay in a Holiday Inn not far from Times Square. Times Square sounds like a good place to stay, right? It’s actually an expensive area of NYC, … Read more
This morning the boys and I went to Ripley’s Believe It Or Not New York, just off Times Square in New York City. I’d never been to a museum like it before and I really didn’t know too much about it. We loved it! I thought it would be about Guinness World Record breakers mostly. … Read more
Sri Lanka is a favourite travel destination of ours. We got married there and we’ve taken our kids there. This Sri Lanka travel blog to help you plan your holiday or travel in Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka works for single, couple and family travellers with interests ranging from culinary to wildlife, culture, surfing and adventure … 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
If you’ve been following our Facebook page over the last month, you’ll have seen me alternately complaining and raving about food in Sri Lanka. Food is a big part of our travel experience, we like to try as many new foods as we can and, hopefully, enjoy them. (For non-regular readers, my husband is an … Read more
Kuala Lumpur is a wonderful city, in one moment ultra slick and modern, the next ancient, traditional and cultured. Its a city everybody should experience at least once, and a city that many of us these days visit because of the great connections Air Asia offer. Prices seem low at the moment, they’re lower than … Read more
Malacca doesn’t seem to be much of a backpacker town, most of the tourists we see are local and/or considerably richer than us, which isn’t hard. Maybe all the backpackers are in other districts rather than the Old Town. Finding cheap accommodation (for a family of 4 in particular) in Malacca has been tricky. We … Read more
We were on Ko Phangan for 6 weeks, looking back, it was a blissful, perfect time, other than my husband’s health problems. It’s a lovely island, but if my husband hadn’t had surgery we would have moved on earlier as it was just slightly over our budget. We used Haad Salad Villas Ko Phangan and highly recommend … Read more
One of our readers wrote: I’d love to simply hear more about your day-to-day lives. What do your kids do all day? How does one spend six weeks in a remote place….I honestly have no idea. Don’t you (and the kids) run out of things to do? I just can’t fathom how you pass each day! Six … Read more
We have absolutely loved staying on Haad Salad, Ko Phangan for the last 6 weeks. It’s a beautiful beach paradise with calm, clear waters that my children can safely swim in and kayak on. We found good, cheap family accommodation and enjoyed good Thai food and rainbow sunsets . But there are a few dangers … Read more
Cheap family accommodation is one of my favourite internet search terms, I use it a lot. Family travel in Laos isn’t the easiest, there are a lot of long bus rides and narrow mountain roads, but it brings huge rewards. We were in Laos for 6 weeks during the wet season (July-Sept), our second visit. … Read more
5 years of travel, 2 years of homeschooling before that and we’ve never really had what you might call a schedule. It’s going great, so I’d argue that you don’t need one, but that’s to come. When I first started homeschooling, with a 7 year old and a 5 year old, I thought we would … 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
This morning, 4 months into our trip, my husband is having emergency hernia repair surgery on Ko Samui. I’ve always said medical care is great in Thailand, but I wasn’t expecting to test it out! My fit, healthy, Iron Man husband was absolutely fine on Saturday afternoon. He was playing around with the kids. We got a taxi … Read more
Years ago, in Vietnam, when we were on our first RTW, I had a go at driving the moped we’d hired. I got my twisting, pulling and pushing mixed up and mounted the pavement extremely inelegantly, scattering the picnicking Vietnamese family who were quietly enjoying their lunch. I hadn’t been near a moped since because … 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
Ko Phangan is a beautiful and relatively unspoiled island off the east coast of southern Thailand. It is easy to reach from Ko Samui by ferry. We spent 6 weeks on Ko Phangan because one of us became unwell and needed emergency surgery. One day on Ko Phangan the coconut-picking monkeys came to visit. Coconut … Read more
You have plenty of options for getting from Bangkok to Koh Samui in the far southwest of Thailand. Modern Thailand is an incredibly easy country to travel around, thanks to its long-established tourism industry, you’ll certainly be able to find a way of getting to Koh Samui from Bangkok that suits you. Once you reach … Read more
I could tell you how we got from Laos to Bangkok easily on the fabulous sleeper train and how we’re now safely installed in a hotel in Bangkok, but that would be LIES! And I’m not going to lie to you, so here’s all the icky, grumpy, boring bits of real life family travel from … 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
We’ve been backpacking with kids, full-time for well over 6 years so we can share the best tips with you. For us it’s the vacation that never ended and we’re that rare thing, a family travel blog that actually travels full-time. Here we share our best tips for backpacking with kids – based on real … Read more
Beautiful Vang Vieng, Laos is known for tubing and a crazy backpacker party scene. Not many people would associate it with family travel and it hasn’t always had the best reputation. We’ve spent four weeks in Vang Vieng now with our kids and we all love it here, despite the rain. I can give you … Read more
I keep quoting this figure of $41/day as our budget, that’s actually a lie, our budget for Laos is working out at a lot more than that, everything considered. We’re cheating rather too much on cake, beer and coffee, but Laos is indisputably cheap, cheaper than Thailand, and low accommodation costs are a big part … Read more
Laos Food, What You Will Find Food in Laos is incredibly diverse, you will be able to find a dish from just about any culinary tradition in the world being served to backpackers and tourists. If you’re looking for authentic Laos food, you may have a harder time because you’re more likely to find a … Read more
We’ve been in Vang Vieng, Laos for 5 nights now and we’re loving it. It’s raining, a lot, but it hasn’t spoiled our experience of this little town. There has been flooding, the Nam Song river was over its banks yesterday morning, I had to wade through the river to buy my morning coffee, all … 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
Wat Arun, The Temple of The Dawn or Wat Arun Ratchawararam Ratchawaramahawihan stands on the west bank of the Chao Phraya River at Thonburi in Central Bangkok. It is almost immediately opposite the Grand Palace and Wat Pho. A small shuttle ferry will take you to Wat Arun’s doorstep via Tha Thien Market Pier. The temple … Read more
There are many and varied places to eat out in Batu Ferringhi, from Mc Donalds to The Hard Rock Hotel and everything in between. You’ll also find numerous region specific speciality restaurants including Thai and Lebanese. It’s a lovely spot and well worth a stay. We spent 10 days in Batu Ferringhi on a fairly … Read more