An introduction

Responsible, meaningful travel experiences for a family with four kids.

That's the idea; that's what this blog will be all about. Here they are now, all four of them. Let's call them (from top to bottom, eldest to youngest), Child #1, Child #2, Child #3 and Child #4. Great names, huh?

The photo above was taken at the "Loki Schmidt" botanical gardens in Hamburg. On our recent week-long visit to Germany's second metropolis, we did a home exchange with a local family, so it's actually quite a convenient example of what I mean by "responsible, meaningful travel", being;

• experience-rich, 
• avoiding big business wherever possible,  

and - perhaps above all else -

• enabling our kids to learn about the visited region and the marvellous diversity of the world that they are growing up in.

So what has "Daisy the bus" got to do with all this? Well, here she is during a recent trip to Northern Ireland (on the right, obviously; that's my wife Joelle on the left):

Daisy is a nine-seater VW Caravelle with a sturdy roof and, thankfully, a very reliable handbrake.

"Aha!" I hear you cry, "How can driving around in a noisy, dirty diesel van possibly be 'responsible' ??? Hypocrite!" to which I answer "Well, what are the present alternatives?". We are a family of six (and a dog!); we try to visit non-commercial and authentic destinations; we are not millionaires. Travelling by plane is evidently not "responsible", travelling by boat from our home country of Luxembourg is, um, tricky (look at a map), travelling by train is prohibitively expensive and travelling by coach / bus with four kids and a dog would be a nightmare that I don't even wish to contemplate. Granted, cycling is a viable option and we hope to do much more of that as the kids become older. However, for now, Daisy the bus is our outlet, our principal source and means of adventure, the kids' passport to discovering new cultures, friends, food, places and more.

Our next trip - starting in mid-July - will be the first to feature in this blog. We have big ideas, but little planned. Camping in the Pyrenees, discovering an alternative Spanish beach holiday, living in an olive grove in Portugal, avoiding the tourist masses in Provence; these are all things that we might - or might not - do. With four kids, you never really know...