“Jen’s pregnant?! You guys are so fucked!”
This was not the reaction I had expected from a close friend when I told him the news that my wife and I were expecting our first child.
“You do realise you can’t go anywhere now?”
Up until this point, we had developed an addiction to travel and adventure, constantly plotting and planning new adventures to far flung places, heading off on last minute camping trips and taking on crazy challenges like cycling on a tandem from London to Berlin to run the marathon. We had been lucky enough to develop careers which enabled us to indulge in our obsession, and between us spent time living across 4 continents.
Was this really all about to end?
Determined to prove our friend wrong, 5 weeks after the birth of our son we decided to book a last minute cheap flight to Copenhagen.
“Oh, you are brave, aren’t you?”
This is a not-so-subtle-way of saying, “You guys are so stupid”. And as we stood in the queue for our £35 return flights out of Luton airport with a screaming newborn, we wondered if that was actually that was a fair assessment.
But then we arrived at our destination. And it was ok. It was better than ok, it was great. We discovered that Danish parents have no qualms about taking their prams out for dinner in the evening, which suited us just fine as we sipped wine in a local bar! A few months later we did it again. Verona this time. And then France. And with each trip our son was developing and soaking up more and more. It created a whole new dimension to our travel experiences.
But, what we weren’t doing, and what we really missed were the adventures. Not the cheap Easyjet weekends but the proper adventures. The challenges. Pushing ourselves out of our comfort zone. Waking up in the morning not knowing what lay ahead. Feeling alive!
What a lot of people would say to this is “well, you had a child – of course things have to change.” This is certainly what our friends and family have said. And we agree – to an extent. We can’t be as careless as we once were, we can’t just take a tiny backpack for a three week trip anymore and we can’t go off on a 14 hour cycle with just a couple of chocolate bars in our pockets. But, can we still take on challenges and have real adventures rather than just holidays? Yes definitely!
So we decided to start this site with the purpose of sharing our adventures over the next few years and of helping other new parents continue to pursue adventures and challenges too. We wanted to say to our friends – “Hey, this isn’t the end of the road! Having a kid is ok! It actually makes things better. Just do it.”
You’ll find a mix of travel tips, stories, gear reviews, destination advice, recommendations for other sources of information, and support for anything that might help you and your mini-me keep on exploring.
We’re here to help (or at least try to) – so drop us a line with anything at all x