In the beginning

With our fourth family trip to Europe coming soon, you might wonder how we got started down this adventuresome road.

We had always taken a summer vacation every year since Michelle and I were married, in 1993. Every year we checked the US map, chose a destination, packed the car, and set off with our cooler full of sandwiches, snacks and drinks. When Annie was born in 1996, that complicated things quite a bit, but we still went. Shelby joined us in 1999 and the little Honda became very crowded. We visited Colorado, New England, Texas, the Pacific Coast, Michigan, Banff (Canada) and all the places in between. The girls were great travelers, busying themselves with craft projects, movies and naps during the long drives. By the time Joshua was born in 2003, we had graduated to a minivan and drove to Savannah, Georgia. By this point, we had visited over 40 of the 50 states and 5 Canadian provinces since we were married.

But the following year Joshua was a toddler who didn't sleep well in cars. When we considered where to go that summer we couldn't think of an interesting place we wanted to go that we had not been to already. Finally, we decided to revisit Mackinaw Island in Michigan, where we had been before, in 1995 and 1998. We thought that since it wasn't too far away, it wouldn't be a big problem for Joshua. What we failed to anticipate was the psychological effect of visiting a place we had already been to twice before combined with the difficulty of doing it with young children. It completely zapped all energy for the trip. I felt like a zombie parent just going through the motions of a vacation simply because it was required of me to do so. And so I vowed to never do that again.

The following spring I had come up with a proposal for Michelle; We would forgo the traditional long summer vacation for shorter mini-vacations near home for two summers. Meanwhile, we would save our money as best we could for a really BIG trip in 2007, when Joshua was old enough (age 4) to enjoy himself and remember at least some of the experience. I proposed that the big trip be our return to England, Scotland, and Wales (where we had visited in 1994, before children). Michelle liked the idea and I was greatly relieved. That year we had a perfectly pleasant trip to the north shore, MN. The following year we had succeeded in saving enough money that we decided to fly to Disneyworld for a few days to please the children and to give them a little practice flying before their trip across the Atlantic.

As 2006 came to a close, it was time to begin making plans for our family of five to visit Great Britain - to see Big Ben, castles and cathedrals. But where to begin planning for a trip so much more complicated than we had ever done before?...