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Well, so far 2020 is off to an amazingly bizarre start. In January, we were prepping for our TWK Travel & Tours trips to Vietnam, Thailand, and South Africa. We were so excited to share new family travel adventure tours in these places…some of our favorite in the world…with our guest families. We had four families signed up for Vietnam, five for Thailand, and four for South Africa. We started to get nervous…especially about our SouthEast Asia trips, when COVID-19 (coronavirus) started spreading in China. But, Vietnam and Thailand did such a good job preventing and containing potential outbreaks that we were reassured. Fast forward a few months…months we’d typically be prepping our families on what to pack, what to read/watch to get excited for the trip, having pre-trip gatherings, etc and instead we were working to reschedule our trips, get refunds for our customers where possible, change air tickets, cancel ground transport, rearrange and book hotels, you get the picture. That travel dream had become a real Midsummer Night’s Mare!

And we were sad…sad for all our old friends in Vietnam, Thailand, and South Africa at our favorite hotels and lodges that we would have to forgo seeing, and for all the new friends we would miss making this summer.

Sad about all the adventures…planned and unplanned…we would miss out on…

Sad about not getting to reconnect with all the returning TWK Travel & Tours families joining us again this year and for not getting to know new families joining us for the first time. Sad about the missed opportunities to discover nature…

…to immerse in culture…

And about all the memories we would miss making.

Then, it was time to let go of the sadness. Reflect on the memories we have made in the past and will make again in the future. To be grateful for the things we have in our lives, the home around us, the ample supplies, the health of our family and friends. And then to find something to fill the time between now and when we travel again. So…what does a traveling family do when they can’t travel?

Plan and Dream – Dream of where we want to go that we have not been yet…places to film for Travel With Kids television show. Plan for TWK Travel & Tours schedule next year. We are lucky because most of our guests were able to reschedule with us for the same destinations next year, so that makes for an easy transition in moving their funds towards next years trips. We have already begun to fill the rest of these family travel trips for 2021…the new schedules for Vietnam (June 10 – 19, 2021), Thailand (June 19 – 28, 2021), and South Africa (July 4 – 13, 2021) are up on our TWK Travel & Tours website now. But, we have begun to plan for other trips to add to the mix. Galapagos perhaps or Indonesia (Bali and Borneo) or perhaps a return to Fiji or Ireland? What do you think we should do?

Feed our Mouths (and our souls) – We can’t just sit around for a whole year planning for next year…we’ve got to keep our minds and hearts active. So, Jeremy has begun work on a documentary about what happens to the music industry – especially live bands – when large gatherings are prohibited. And we are both at work developing a couple other documentary ideas. Stay tuned for more on that later. Carrie is doing some work for a local non-profit that provides free legal services for victims of trafficking and abuse, which is something near and dear to her heart. She is also writing chapters for a new book.We also continue to release travel content and recently launched a mini-series “The Road Back: Safe Family Travel Adventures in Post Covid-19 Era”

Feed our Minds – We decided to use our time during the stay at home order to learn a new language and brush up on the ones we know (watch out Gwyneth Paltrow!) So, Carrie and Nathan began French lessons through Babbel and all of us brushed up on our Spanish.

Feed our Bodies – We started at home works outs through various on-line platforms and made up our own workout routines. We also started a couple big DIY home improvement projects (like building a backyard BBQ and bar area) that not only left our bodies aching (from building all that muscle), but made our stay at home orders a little nicer…bringing the resort home!

Feed our Passion…travel will always be at center of our passion…exploring new places, meeting people from  all over the world and learning about different cultures, immersing in nature. So, we decided to explore a bit more of the U.S. We have planned a few mini-trips when possible and not dangerous or having the potential to spread COVID-19 any more than necessary. Trips this summer have included Washington DC, California, Missouri, Arkansas, and South Dakota.

Feed our Roots – No, not the hairline – although with many of the salons still closed or operating at low capacity, that’s an issue as well. I’m talking family roots. Carrie has been busy tracking family history on Ancestry.com in an insane leap to try to prove the connection between her and Grace O’Malley, the Pirate Queen. So, far she has traced back to the 1700s in Ireland and Scotland and found cousins flung across the world in far off places like New Zealand, Fiji, Malaysia, and more! Sounds like we have some more exploring to do when travel gets back to normal!

So, in the words of Jimmy Buffett, “I seen enough to feel the world spin. Mixin’ different oceans meetin’ cousins. Listen to the drummers and the night sounds. Listen to the singers make the world go ’round” Pretty much sums up our summer and the things to come! We look forward with much anticipation to continuing to film and offer family travel adventure tours, although they will look a little bit different in light of COVID-19 (stay tuned for more information on the changes to come) next summer. Interested in joining, check out the tours at TWKTours.com.

 

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