Travel round-up: A time for contemplation

Collating this round-up each month is always enjoyable. I read about amazing places you’ve visited and good food you’ve eaten. I share your adventures and dream about sandy beaches and swish hotel rooms. But travel can often be a time of contemplation. We may visit a destination where we are faced with a country’s history or culture: the experience is sobering and thought-provoking. We can also travel to challenge ourselves and the journey can be exhausting as well as enlightening.

I would like to highlight three blogs which show this other side of travel, where it’s not just about sipping a mohito by the pool. These travel experiences made the writers stop and think and I’m sure will have a similar effect on their readers.

Jody, from About Last Weekend, was the last person I would imagine tackling a pilgrimage. Funny, glamorous, Kiwi  mum of four, now living in California via a 15 year stopover in the UK, Jody has just completed the Camino de Santiago. This was 825km of hard slog, often walking ten hours a day. She blogged most days on her journey, sharing photographs of places she saw and the people she met, and each post is worth  reading for its humour alone.  But this post in particular sums up why she did it and the lessons she has learned by living a life more simple: Camino – But what did it all mean?

Liz, from The Mum Blog, during a visit to Cambodia, was taken to the Killing Fields, where an estimated 3 million people were killed by the Khmer Rouge between 1975 to 1979. It’s a testament to the government of today that these atrocities are not forgotten and tourists are encouraged to visit, learn and remember. It may be chilling to read but it’s important that we do. What’s heart-warming in this post are the photographs of the Cambodian people who made Liz and other visitors feel so very welcome in their country: The Killing Fields and the amazing Cambodian people.

How do we educate our children, when faced with customs in another country that we don’t agree with? When The Family Adventure Project were made aware of the annual slaughter of dolphins which takes place in Japan, they couldn’t ignore it. Instead, they visited the cove and found their own unique way to demonstrate against the practice. Here’s the link to the post where you will also find a video which records their thoughts, how the children expressed their feelings and the actions they took: Sticker on the Heart: Taiji Dolphin Protest at The Cove

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These three posts above will give you some food for thought but I’d still like to share some of the other travel posts that have been published recently: plenty of inspiration here for holidays, with or without the children.

Paris in one day #1dayinParis – Mari’s World

[Summer Bucket List} Tour Paris! – Mama Owl

Things to do in the Haute-Loire, France – A Family Day Out

Palma de Mallorca: A Girls’ Weekend – My Travel Monkey

Top Baby and Toddler Friendly Places to stay in Europe – Kiddie Holidays

Our trip to Jersey with Condor Ferries – Older Single Mum

A Greek Feast at Corfu Club – A Residence Blog

A Day at Kennedy Space Centre, Florida – Family Travel Times

Sampling Scarborough’s Fare at the Ox Pasture Hall Hotel – Mum’s Gone To…

Please let me know if you have any posts you would like to share next month. Even if I have a theme, like this month, I will try and include a selection of your travel stories.

About Trish Burgess

Trish Burgess started her blog ‘Mum’s Gone To…’ with a series of posts called ‘Mum's Gone To Iceland' where she was extremely ill on a whale-watching trip and thought she would die snow-mobiling on a glacier. Thankfully she survived and continued with less scary family trips: ‘Mum’s Gone To…Canada, Cyprus, Barcelona, Berlin etc. Originally from Newcastle upon Tyne she now lives in South Lincolnshire and travels with her husband and occasionally with her son, who is now at university. Trish can be found on Twitter at @mumsgoneto

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