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In July 2015 the four of us — Jim, Catheleen, John and Elizabeth — left Ottawa for six months in the Pacific. We'd talked for years about taking a mid-career break to travel with the kids, and 2015 felt like the right time: John (12) and Elizabeth (10) were old enough to get something out of it and remember it. We home-schooled along the way and brought them home in time for grades five and eight in January 2016.

This blog is the family log. Between July and December 2015 we went through Vancouver, Japan, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Singapore, Indonesia, Australia, New Zealand and Fiji.

The route

Dates are approximate, based on when we posted from each place.

  • Vancouver – July 9 to 19 (10 posts)
  • Japan – July 19 to 25 (7 posts)
  • Thailand – July 26 to August 9 (15 posts)
  • Laos – August 9 to 25 (12 posts)
  • Vietnam – August 27 to September 15 (16 posts)
  • Singapore – September 16 to 19 (3 posts)
  • Indonesia (Bali and Java) – September 20 to October 18 (17 posts)
  • Australia – October 18 to 31 (8 posts)
  • New Zealand – October 31 to December 4 (16 posts)
  • Fiji – December 7 to 18 (5 posts)

Where to begin

If you want the whole story, read it in order, starting with Planning the trip, or jump straight to the first stop, First stop – Vancouver.

If you'd rather skip around, use the country links in the route above. Here are the first posts from each place:

If you only have five minutes, read Farewell and reflections on our Pacific tour, our look back at the whole trip.

The short versions

After we got home I put together a slideshow for each stretch of the trip. They're a quick way to see the highlights:

The family blogs

Each of us kept our own blog too, so you can see the same trip from four points of view:

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