If you and your partner want to travel and have kids, you will/can. If both or either of you don't, you won't. Everything else in between is just hot air.

Off the top of my head I've met these 4 couples:

1. Swiss couple who drove a Landy from Switzerland to Australia with a 2 year old. Had second baby in Oz and drove back with an infant and a now 4 year old. Apparently mother's milk is all the child needed. Generated a lot of interaction with locals in countries like India.

2. German couple in Brazil in a campervan who had started their trip in the US with two under 10 y.o. kids. Every few months they signed them up in a local school. They now speak Portuguese and Spanish as well as having the adventure of a very young life(time).

3. US/Thai couple in Peru travelling in a sidecar outfit with a youngish daughter. The parents home schooled their daughter

4. Scandinavian couple who rode motorbikes from Cape Town to Cairo in the mid 1990s with their 2 kids. The 10 year old girl was on the back of dad's bike. Mum rode solo. 14 year old son rode his own 250cc dirtbike. They home schooled them.

You've both just got to WANT to do it. My ex wife didn't. That's the principle reason she's my ex.

Based on my limited observations, I would guess its easier to travel with younger kids. Couple with a side car traveling with a 4-5 year old were okay once they put a mesh over the side car and baby couldn't throw all his toys away. Young couple traveling by van with two small kids, at a camp in Panama, one kid asked me "have you had your water pill today?"--answer yes, small white lie. Teenagers would be a real problem, way more likely to whine and bitch.

Based on my limited observations, any sprog of Ted's would probably be highly skilled at whining and bitching :blushing: :D

Sorry. I'll get my hat and coat :innocent:

On the teenagers point, I think it depends on what the kids are used to. If they've been going to new and interesting places all of their lives, they're more likely to adapt and have fun (at least ours did). If they're used to hanging out at the mall every weekend with a group of friends, taking them away from that may be more difficult. It might still be good for them, but likely more difficult.

I wouldn't say your observations are that limited. :thumbup1:

Don’t have kids, stay free, if you change your mind later on in life, adopt, the world is too overpopulated & there is children in need.....

spot on !!

Terry, Sandy and Jack Borden - Adventure Trio
https://www.advmotoevents.com/presenters/adventure-trio
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcas...=1000347274350
They started motorcycle traveling with their son when he was 5 yrs old.

I think that I once listened to a Adventure Rider Radio Podcast where somebody from Motorcycles Industry talked about traveling with his Kids in a sidecar - (don`t remember the name right now)

Like in many areas of life - alcohol, fresh food, even travel - it's a lot easier to make your own rather than buy it in. If you ever want to see petty bureaucratic value judgements being made over every aspect of your life, from how much dirt is under your fingernails up, get involved with child adoption. We had to have two interviews, a house inspection and a followup inspection six months later to get a cat from the rescue centre. You don't just pick one off the shelf - human or cat - any more.

I dread to think what's involved. The RSPCA say I'm unfit have anything more sentient that hardy indoor plants. The slightly dodgy rescue place down the road sold me two dogs and two cats 14-18 years ago. One ancient dog and cat are still with us. The puppy farmers only want to know if I have money.

No kids here, I don't particularly like them (a no doubt unpopular fact in some company, although I have stopped telling mental Mumsnet types I'm secretly gay) and the wife isn't that bothered. Not much travel mind, I keep getting jobs and have parents still here. I live in more hope than friends who'll be using any inheritance to put their kids through university.

Andy

I have three kids and, to be honest, I wouldn’t be without them. The have filled our life with so much laughter. And tears. And worry. And frustration. There was more laughter along the way too. We wanted kids and were lucky enough to be able to have them. We discussed the possibility of not being able to have kids naturally and we decided that we wouldn’t have IVF - if the situation arose then we would have adopted / fostered.

Having children is an individual choice and, as has been said, there are too many of us for the planet to carry on as we are. The children have put my travels back some years - probably for the best to be honest as it allowed me to grow into myself and be ready to travel - I had a test trip years before I met my wife and I wasn’t ready - I enjoyed it but I was not comfortable enough in my own skin for a long trip. Then. I have changed, partly due to time and partly due to the family I have and I think I am more ready to travel now than I was 30 years ago.

Essentially what I am trying to say is that kids cans top you travelling but they can also make you more ready to do so later.

You clearly know nothing about adoption (in the UK)! Good friends of mine tried and despite being thoroughly upstanding members of society (unlike me!) were unsuccessful. The bureaucracy involved would appear to be an utter clusterfcuk ( my words, not theirs. They don't even swear...).

Yes. Bureaucracy has ruined the world.

I tried to adapt a dog with my ex from a rescue home that was scheduled to be put down due to it's age and the time it was in the home for.

They refused our application because our fence was the wrong height.

So they put it down. There simply aren't words. Just policy.

I have a friend who has recently adopted a child. It was a torturous and prolonged process. They would literally let a child be abused, psychologically damaged for life and raped by priests than adopt it to a family that used the wrong colour pen on their form. It's probably cheaper. That's what most things come down to in Britain. A costed equation.

I know absolutely nothing about adoption in other countries other then my own. Let’s say it’s hard to do, does that mean don’t bother because it’s too hard?

As my wife put it kindly if they've required to do 1/10 of the paperwork to have kids normal way, we would die out in one generation. This is not counting that normal kids are rarely up to adoption.

Adoption is an act of desperation not convenience.