Elephants, leopards and pandas, oh my! How to prepare & pack for a trip around the world…

It has been a long winter and spring is finally here in Nashville! We’re spending time planting seeds, stringing garden party lights and relaxing. This is perhaps my favorite time of year in Nashville, as it is so beautiful and the weather is so enjoyable. The tulips,  dogwoods, irises and cherry blossoms are in full bloom, and Luna enjoys seeing it snow flower petals when the wind blows. We are doing our best to enjoy each day here, because in only 3 ½ months, we’ll be jetting off to Japan. We have about 16 weeks left until we leave on our 18 week journey around the world! As of today, we have 113 days until our departure. The countdown has begun.

Our itinerary is finalized now, as is all of our lodging, airfare, and most transportation. So, now the fun part begins. We’re spending a few evenings each week going through information and deciding what tours to take, experiences to jump into, what parks and restaurants we’d love to go to, and where to get the best massages. We’re looking forward to playing with elephants in Thailand, seeing pandas in China, spotting leopards and sleeping in huts and open air tents in Sri Lanka, eating sushi at Tsukiji Fish Market for breakfast in Japan, and many other fun things. Luna will be spending her 5^th Birthday in Tokyo, so we’ve been in touch with the concierge at the hotel we are staying at to make her day extra special. If you have any suggestions for children in Tokyo, we’re all ears!

For this trip, we won’t be on “vacation.” It’s so long that we will face the daily grind and surely encounter new experiences of “living” on the road. To make this transition easier, particularly for Luna, we’ve really focused on taking some time to be intentional about how we will stay cohesive as a family unit, create and maintain rhythm and routine in Luna’s days, and be happy and excited about what lies ahead. We know we’ll get tired and miss home, but the experiences should be pretty amazing.

I like that this trip is already teaching me life lessons. It puts things in perspective for me and helps me maintain a focus and be intentional about the things in my life.  For example- we’ve wanted to teach Luna about different cultures, and this trip has given us the perfect platform to do so. We’ve created “country days” every few weeks on a Saturday, and we spend time exploring that country from Nashville. So far, we’ve learned about Japan, China, Thailand, Germany, and Israel.  Our “country days” consist of authentic meals from the place we’re learning about, sometimes fun regalia that Luna can wear to feel what being there is like. Josh has been quite creative in making cardboard masterpieces of Japanese pagodas and German castles that fit over Luna’s doorframe and transport her to where we are going.

The sweetest part about our “country days” is that Luna can now tell us she loves us in Japanese, Chinese, Hebrew, German and Thai. Luna’s nickname, Luna Bear, Mondbaren in German, has become commonplace in our household. On Thailand day, Luna fell in love with a story about a Thai girl named Aree and since then, has pretended to be her time and time again. For Josh and I, it’s comforting knowing that Luna has adopted these stories from other cultures as her own, and it’s our hope that these days will help make any transitions to new places easier. We’ve ordered our air pollution face masks for China (they are quite fashionable now- you can check out www.vogmask.com) and Luna is quite happy to wear her’s around the house.

It’s through little things like this, that may help prepare her for the strange things we’ll encounter in so many different places. We’re even practicing squatting over a “pretend hole” in the ground, as we will most certainly encounter non-western toilets in many places. Luna’s always been such a trooper traveling, but she’s never encountered as many challenges as she may face in terms of comfort and contrast as she will on this trip.  Overall though, I think that she’ll have the easiest time of the three of us. She is flexible, can almost spread out completely on our many red-eye flights, and can connect with a person through a smile. I look forward to observing her connect with the people and the places we are going, and to help remind Josh and I over and over, that we are so much more similar than we are different.

When people hear about what we’re embarking on, the first question they always ask is, “How are you packing?” It is a good question, indeed. We have traveled extensively, and for several weeks at a time, but we aren’t usually spanning several continents and several climates in the process. Thank goodness for www.zappos.com and free shipping. I ordered a bunch of roller backpacks, and finally settled on the Briggs and Riley roller backpack. It’s a great bag, and I wouldn’t usually go with a carry on that’s so large, but, I want to be prepared, God forbid if we lose our luggage somewhere on the way.

Other things I’ve found really helpful that will certainly be going with us on this trip:

• Eileen Fisher’s travel clothing line- amazing and versatile!
• Isagnix’s shakes and green drinks to make sure that we can travel and stay healthy and get high- quality nutrients in places where we can’t eat produce.
• Tumi’s Voyager Crossbody Purse
• At REI, we’ve gotten a Steripen as well as protective sleeves for our credit cards (so they can’t be scanned and have information stolen).
• Cole Haan’s flats to walk and wear out at night

I know it’s three months out, but we already have a drawer full of things particularly for the trip. I’m going to challenge myself to take less and be flexible and wear things over and over. We’ll see how successful I am…