Day 1: Our Family Worldschooling Travel Adventure Begins

Day 1: Our Family Worldschooling Travel Adventure Begins

Travelling with kids long haul to Southeast Asia is a daunting thought for some, but honestly, with Qatar Airways, it couldn’t have been easier. Big seats, screens, and approximately 4,000 digital distractions entertained the kids from take-off to touchdown. If anything, they were disappointed the flights weren’t longer!

The food onboard was genuinely pretty good—a far cry from the “airline meals” we all dread. For the first time in our travelling experience, we opted for a connecting flight to save money, with a stopover in Doha. It turned out to be an excellent move. Not only did this make the trip significantly more affordable, but the 90-minute layover was just enough time to stretch our legs and enjoy the futuristic beauty of Hamad International Airport. Heathrow T4 could seriously take some notes! By the time we boarded our connecting flight, the kids were eager to dive back into their movies. No one managed to sleep, but with entertainment this good, no one was complaining.

We arrived in Bangkok at 6:00 AM local time, buzzing with excitement—and feeling a little confused with the time. The drive from the airport was a slow crawl through rush-hour traffic, but we didn’t mind, it was all a novelty. The bright blue sky, the endless stream of motorbikes weaving through the chaos, the various holy charms and dangly things hanging inside the taxi and the sheer energy of the city kept us glued to the car windows, wide-eyed and excited. Until, that is, our youngest announced she felt car sick. She has been known to redecorate the inside of our car on occasions on long trips. Usually with no announcement. Lorne and I looked at each other in horror, scrambled to find a suitable standby receptacle (Lorne tipping the contents of the food bag all over the taxi in his urgency) and just in time, as sure enough, we had a vomit in back of taxi situation! Fortunately, with the quick thinking and the timely forecast of the event from Francesca, we managed to contain and seal the outcome (well the hastily found bag did) and the journey proceeded without further incident.

Our home for the next couple of days was the Ibis Riverside Hotel, and it couldn’t have been a better choice, and kind on our budget too. The first thing we did after checking in was head straight for the breakfast buffet—a hearty feast that set us up for a bracing dip in the chilly pool. The kids splashed around for a few hours while we soaked up the warmth and shook off the last remnants of the journey.

By early afternoon, our room was ready, just in time for the inevitable jetlag crash. Everything was fine until about 12:30pm when tiredness hit us all. A couple of hours stretched out on ridiculously comfortable beds worked wonders. Refreshed, we ventured out for a short walk, another swim, and the real highlight of the day—our first taste of Thai street food.

There’s nothing quite like coming back to a country where every bite feels like a celebration of flavour. Dinner was everything we’d hoped for: simple, fresh from the wok, spicy, a sensation and somehow feeding all four of us for just £9. This is just one of the many reasons to love Thailand.

As we settled in for the night, exhausted but content, it hit us: this was just the beginning. An entire adventure lay ahead, and already, it felt like we were exactly where we were meant to be. All the planning, the conversations about how we would do this and school the children, some of the negative comments from people wondering if we had lost our marbles, the packing and last-minute pre-trip anxiety - it was all irrelevant. We were ready. We were doing this. It was beginning and all laid out in front of us for the taking.