The Wandering Warburtons

Steph and I have always been keen on travel, it was one of the first things we prioritised after we got married and has been something that we have dreamed about almost every day we’ve been together. Sometimes, life gets in the way of dreams and that’s certainly been the case for us, although I would probably argue that rather than blocking our dreams, we made space for other dreams.

There are many super smart people in the world, and their words have certainly inspired us along our way. Here are some of our favourite quotes about travel and a bit of detail about how they have inspired our own style of travel.

We’re super lucky to own a property and to live abroad as expats but one thing we’re super aware of is that our life away from our home country is likely temporary. Our initial plan was to live in the Netherlands for just a year and then head home and so we made a point not to accumulate masses of stuff and live a more minimalist lifestyle, we avoid long contracts and commitments and only buy objects that will last and improve our quality of life. Seven years later, we’re still living in the Netherlands with the same minimalist life but with the new intention that by having less stuff, it’ll be easier for us to pack up and head out on our travels.

Speaking of travels, we love to travel light. Washing facilities are common almost everywhere in the world – you don’t need 20 t-shirts and 10 pairs of shoes and three cameras. Travelling with masses of stuff just makes the act of travelling more stressful and new challenges less accessible.

OK, I’ll admit, this quote has become a bit of a cliché amongst travellers and exists on far many more tattoos than it probably should, but Steph and I have always had a strange way of travelling… we like to get lost. The first thing we usually do is to just head out in a random direction without a map and just exist in a place, not looking for a specific tourist attraction or a place for that perfect Instagram shot but to just… wander.

Our dream of being a full time travelling family comes not just from a desire to see the world, but to see each other. More than anything else, we want to find out what we’re really like when you take away the veneer of routine and replace it with adventure and experiences. Who can we be when we’re not running around trying to be stay-at-home-mums, school kids and designers?

I’ve always naturally been a bit of an anti-establishment kind of person, back at school I would challenge the teachers and push back on boring lessons (just ask my mum, she got called into school to speak to the headmaster about my “behaviour” more times than she would like to admit). For me, I never saw why we had to be taught in a classroom. Why are we learning geography by looking at maps in a room with one window? Why are we reading about history in books instead of listening to the voices of people that experienced it for themselves? Why are we learning about religion from a clearly-biased system when there are a million different ways to worship out in the real world?

We want our kids to have experiences, not just hear about them from old people who have spent most of their careers regurgitating the words of others.

I see so many people from my home town who were raised in one house and then when they moved out, bought a house just down the street from their parents. These people go to the same job day in, day out. Eat the same food day after day and go on vacation in the same few places over and over again. Never taking a risk and trying new things.

Had they grown up with mobility and adventure as their norms, what kind of life would they be living now? We want our kids to grow up with a sense of adventure and being willing to try new things and we truly believe that travel is the best way to make that happen.

Thanks so much for taking the time to read this post. I realise it’s a little on the lengthy side and that my writing style has a lot of room for improvement but I hope you enjoyed it! What are your favourite inspiring travel quotes? We’d love to hear in the comments!