PRAISE FOR AT HOME IN THE WORLD
“Many people have the fantasy of leaving everyday life behind to travel for a year. Tsh Oxenreider and her husband actually did it—with three young children! In this candid, funny, thought-provoking account, Tsh shows that it’s possible to combine a love for adventure and travel with a love for family and home.”
—GRETCHEN RUBIN, NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE HAPPINESS PROJECT AND BETTER THAN BEFORE
“Tsh is a remarkable example of how to balance the rooted stability of family with the winged adventure of wanderlust. This book takes you country by country and shows you how she’s found the best of both worlds.”
—CHRIS GUILLEBEAU, NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF BORN FOR THIS AND THE $100 STARTUP
“Possibly this book should come with a warning label, something like ‘only read this book if you want to upend everything in the name of travel, adventure, family, and love.’ Because that’s exactly what I want to do after reading it. I’ve always found Tsh’s voice to be warm, practical, and inspiring, and never more so than in this wonderful book. It was a beautiful reminder of how travel shapes us, how beautiful the world is, and how parenting doesn’t need to mean the end of adventuring. I loved every word.”
—SHAUNA NIEQUIST, NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF PRESENT OVER PERFECT AND BREAD AND WINE
“Tsh Oxenreider is the only person I know who makes traveling around the world with her family of five sound not only normal, but downright cozy. Her beautifully written stories and intentional perspective offer clarifying reminders of what it means to belong and be well, no matter where we may go.”
—EMILY P. FREEMAN, AUTHOR OF SIMPLY TUESDAY AND A MILLION LITTLE WAYS
“A welcome counterpoint to the ‘burn it all down’ travel memoir genre, Tsh traveled the world for a year with her husband, their three young children and her job along for the ride. I couldn’t put this inspiring book down, not only because of Tsh’s glorious and interesting travel stories, but because of the underlying permission to include our children and our significant others in what we love most about being alive.”
—SARAH BESSEY, AUTHOR OF JESUS FEMINIST AND OUT OF SORTS
“There is a ‘normal’ way of living we easily buy into—graduate high school with good grades so you can go to college, get good grades so you can go to graduate school, get a job, work until you get the promotion, the house, so on and so forth. This book enlivens risk and emboldens us to find a full path, not a comfortable one. This book will make the wanderer feel right at home and have the homebody strapping on a backpack to wander.”
—LISA GUNGOR, RECORDING ARTIST
“This book is one of a kind, and for that it’s a must-read. It’s not a stereotypical travel memoir from a single person about ‘finding yourself,’ but rather a family that adventures because they already have. It made me wrestle deeply with questions of belonging, home, family, and hospitality—while giving full permission to be okay with the paradox of having wanderlust and also being a homebody. Read it, then buy five copies and give to friends. That’s what I’m doing, at least.”
—JEFFERSON BETHKE, NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF IT’S NOT WHAT YOU THINK AND JESUS > RELIGION
“Warning: This book may create wanderlust. I loved this un-put-downable take on a true global road trip, family in tow. An inspirational tale of one family’s journey to find their place in the world, and one I’ll treasure.”
—CLAIRE DIAZ-ORTIZ, ENTREPRENEUR, EARLY TWITTER EMPLOYEE, AND AUTHOR OF DESIGN YOUR DAY AND THE BETTER LIFE
“As a homebody with a healthy dose of wanderlust, I’ve been fascinated by Tsh’s around-the-world adventure since the moment I first heard about it. I so enjoyed getting to tag along on her family’s global adventures, which were nothing at all like I expected—both more strange and more familiar than I had imagined.”
—ANNE BOGEL, AUTHOR OF READING PEOPLE
“As a devout homebody I’m used to being shamed by books about travel. Not this time. In At Home in the World, Tsh’s words will have you longing for home even if you’re sitting in your favorite chair. My view of home is forever changed for the better. I cannot stop thinking about this book.”
—MYQUILLYN SMITH, AUTHOR OF THE NESTING PLACE AND HOMEBODY EXTRAORDINAIRE
“No one leads us through adventure and family better than Tsh! This expansive story of people, places, presence, and pluck is an absolute page-turner. She went on the adventure I always dreamed of but didn’t know was possible. You are going to love this book. You’ll close the last page, hug your family tight, and then call your travel agent.”
—JEN HATMAKER, NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF FOR THE LOVE
Other Books by Tsh Oxenreider
Organized Simplicity
Notes from a Blue Bike
© 2017 by Tsh Oxenreider
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Nelson Books, an imprint of Thomas Nelson. Nelson Books and Thomas Nelson are registered trademarks of HarperCollins Christian Publishing, Inc.
Published in association with literary agent Jenni Burke of D. C. Jacobson & Associates, LLC, an Author Management Company, www.dcjacobson.com.
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Any Internet addresses, phone numbers, or company or product information printed in this book are offered as a resource and are not intended in any way to be or to imply an endorsement by Thomas Nelson, nor does Thomas Nelson vouch for the existence, content, or services of these sites, phone numbers, companies, or products beyond the life of this book.
Epub Edition March 2017 ISBN 9781400205608
ISBN 978-1-4002-0560-8 (eBook)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
ISBN 978-1-4002-0559-2
Names: Oxenreider, Tsh, 1977-author.
Title: At home in the world: reflections on belonging while wandering the globe: an adventure across 4 continents with 3 kids, 1 husband, and 5 backpacks / Tsh Oxenreider.
Description: Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson, 2017.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016037558 | ISBN 9781400205592 (hardback) Subjects: LCSH: Oxenreider, Tsh, 1977---Travel. | Oxenreider, Tsh, 1977---Family. | Voyages around the world. | Families--Travel. |
Children--Travel. | Belonging (Social psychology)
Classification: LCC G440.O84 A3 2017 | DDC 910.4/1--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016037558
Printed in the United States of America
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To Tate, Reed, and Finn—the best travelers
I know and my greatest adventure yet.
I knew when I met you an adventure was going to happen.
—Winnie-the-Pooh
CONTENTS
Introduction
Part I 1 LEAVING
Part II 2 CHINA
3 HONG KONG
4 THAILAND
5 SINGAPORE
Part III 6 AUSTRALIA
7 NEW ZEALAND
8 AUSTRALIA, AGAIN
Intermission 9 SRI LANKA
Part IV 10 UGANDA
11 ETHIOPIA
12 ZIMBABWE
13 KENYA
14 MOROCCO
Part V 15 FRANCE
16 ITALY
17 CROATIA
18
KOSOVO
19 TURKEY
20 GERMANY
21 ENGLAND
Part VI 22 RETURNING
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Notes
INTRODUCTION
There is a false dichotomy spread via the modern travel section of your local bookstore: you either love to travel, and therefore throw caution to the wind by divorcing a spouse or dropping out of college to go “find yourself” on sale in some foreign night market, or you’re happily married with kids, which means you have zero hankering to leave the suburbs and the school pickup line. Sitting on my desk is yet another new memoir—fresh on the market and one I cannot bring myself to finish—about a vagabond’s quest for the open road with the motive to escape any form of responsibility. Marriage? That’s only for the conventional types who love memberships at bulk warehouse stores. Produce offspring? That’s even worse—say good-bye to any semblance of independence as you know it.
This makes me sad.
I can dispel this myth. I can shout from the rooftops that you can both love to travel and be happily married with children. You don’t have to delay familial commitment out of fear that a ringed finger means no more fun in European bars or on African safaris. Giving birth to new life doesn’t mean the death of your passport; kids are remarkably fantastic travelers and can open more doors to cultural experiences than going solo.
Ignore the books that tell you travel is the antithesis of family. To me, those two beautiful words go hand in hand. They stand together on a crowded city bus, holding on as the tires bounce over potholes, siblings who have each others’ backs.
It’s not easy. You can bet the saffron in Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar that it’s far easier to pack when you’re single, and it’s decidedly much cheaper to move about the cabin. But traveling with family isn’t impossible. A love for travel, to explore new places and foods and cultures, to sleep on the cheap in the world’s grandest cities, doesn’t mean you’re not family material. It means you’re one of the more honest parents in the car-pool line.
If you’ve picked up this book in search of another story to justify your hard-held belief that kids and travel don’t mix, you might want to move on to another one. Or better yet, buy this and start reading it right now, before declining that marriage proposal out of fear you’ll never again strap on a backpack. A solid marriage, well-cultured kids, and travel? Hearty ingredients for a fulfilling life.
If you’re holding this book because you’re weary of punching your parenting time card yet one more day, I offer you solidarity with a side of hope: I can’t tell you how to travel with your kids, exactly, but I can show you what it’s like for me to travel with mine. This book chronicles my experience as a happily married wife and mom in her midthirties who never outgrew her wanderlust. Those post-college backpacking years whetted my appetite for more, and once my three kids came on the scene, I couldn’t believe my good luck: I now have three beautiful people to whom I can leave my love of travel and a worldview that accounts for the entire planet. Because once they’ve traveled, they’ve seen it firsthand. No going back. What a gift to bequeath them before leaving their childhood home.
Parenting and global travel—I can’t think of a better mix.
This is my family’s story. It’s a story about how we spent a rather ordinary nine months in an extraordinary way.
PART I
Traveling makes one modest—you see what a tiny place you occupy in the world.
—Gustave Flaubert
1
LEAVING
The prayer labyrinth is two hundred feet away and the kids are climbing rope nets on a playground next to a babbling brook. Bare feet are required on a spring day like this, textbook with chirping birds and budding leaves, as is a walk through the village park. After several hours in the car, my legs need to stretch. My husband, Kyle, returns from his loop around the walking trail, so we switch shifts, his turn on the playground bench to supervise the kids and my turn on the dirt. In the distance, the kids take turns on the slide with young locals, a revolving door of squeals and dares, the metal slide proffering a taller and steeper drop than anything found stateside, something more risky, as most good European playground equipment is.
Grass sways in tufts against the early spring zephyr, kelly green and iridescent. I walk across the gravel path and onto the grass, remove my sandals like it is holy ground. The dirt is chilly and there is still a bite in the air, not yet dissipated by the April sun; I have no idea where, specifically, we are, but I know we’re in Germany. This is our farewell to the country; we’ll soon reenter France a few kilometers away. I walk to the labyrinth.
It’s not terribly impressive and looks like it hasn’t been used for its intended purpose for maybe a decade. It’s a circular concrete interruption in the swath of grass, a winding detour on the way to a makeshift neighborhood petting zoo at the park’s opposite end. Cars drive past on one side, heading to the grocery store and dance class; teenagers recline on each other atop the park benches on the other side, examining each other’s tonsils with their tongues, oblivious to the fact that this is some sort of sacred prayer space. Ordinary life hums around this ordinary town, and I am here, alone in front of a prayer labyrinth in the Black Forest region of Germany.
I take one quiet barefoot step into the labyrinth and turn left, starting the winding path in and out and around itself in symmetry. I begin the monastic prayer I learned six months ago at the Ignatian monastery in Chiang Mai, Thailand, where a woman named Nora taught me letting go would do me well: Christ be with me, Christ within me, Christ behind me, Christ before me. Rinse and repeat.
We have two weeks left of our journey around the world, and it is time to begin the nebulous process of landing the plane. Prayer in a labyrinth will help.
I pray through the circle’s narrow path, stop once I reach the center, look up to the sky in gratitude, then sling my sandals in my hand and walk back to the kids. They’d enjoy this German petting zoo on the other side of the park, but I’ll need to show it to them now—we will soon drive away from this village and have dinner in France.
I have lived in twenty-two homes in just under forty years; the vast majority as an adult, having spent age two to eighteen in the same house. In my university years, friends joked that if you wanted to get married, you should live with me; almost all my roommates got hitched the summer after moving into my place. It wasn’t really my college goal to keep cardboard boxes at the ready in case I needed a new living situation, but this is what happened in my early foray into independence. I’d finally settle into the nooks and crannies of an apartment or rental house, only to hear the squeal of a roommate bursting through the door after an eventful date: “He asked me! And I said yes!” A few months later, I’d drag out the boxes and change my address at the post office again.
In hindsight, this was a good thing—I now know I thrive on change, and five different pads in five years of college saved my sanity and kept me going during the bookish years of study all-nighters and shifts waitressing at the local diner. In the thick of it, though, when the lights were off and I was alone in my twin bed, roommate snoring nearby, I’d wonder, What sort of jinxed roommate potion did I drink? It became an annual assumption that I’d need to find a new rent-sharing companion every May, a new place where I could hang my growing collection of gently worn bridesmaid dresses.
I was happy for my friends who found lifelong love so early, but I was also relieved I hadn’t. I hoped the person for me was out there somewhere, but in my early twenties, I felt as young as I was. I did the math, calculated how much time I had to enjoy being called wife even if I waited a solid decade to marry. When it was my turn to graduate, there were blessedly no suitors on the horizon.
Instead of settling down into family life, I applied for a teaching position that required a move to Kosovo, a war-torn pocket in former Yugoslavia, a country fresh from a genocide spearheaded by the dicta
tor Slobodan Milošević. This was my resistance against registering for tea towels and gravy boats and settling into picket-fence suburbia.
This postgraduate season of teaching English to Albanian teenagers, conserving water by taking weekly showers, and cursing a spotty, generator-powered Internet connection in a tiny Albanian village was, somehow, dreamy. I lived in a second-floor apartment on a nameless street in a village of a thousand people who seemed suspended in time. Cars had rolled in only twenty years earlier, and those same cars traveled these streets. My landlords and employers were an American family helping repair the devastated land and its inhabitants, and I took my cultural cues from them. That year I learned how to sit with my thoughts and go without English-speaking companionship in my age bracket (quite the change from university life, mere months before). I learned how to start a wood-burning stove and felt like Ma Ingalls with a navel piercing. I learned to make do without a clothes dryer, as most of the world does, and I learned to burn my trash instead of carting it to the curb on garbage day.
I also learned home mattered to me more than I thought it did. After a childhood spent under one roof, I blossomed in the hodgepodge experience of college, and was convinced that normal things—like predictable water output from the bathroom sink—weren’t my highest priority. I categorized myself an Adventurer, someone who flies by the seat of her pants, who needs the next thing around the bend so long as it isn’t settling down. I sought out experimental food from the local hole-in-the-wall café—fish still with its head, rabbit casserole—and shunned any resemblance of a self-initiated menu plan.
But after months of daily work in the village, riding the bus into the capital city once a month to call my parents from an international phone, and sleeping under a borrowed blanket I’d never pick for myself, there it was, an innocent little truth staring me in the face six months into my life in Kosovo: I liked the idea of home. Things like wall colors and candles mattered to me more than I had guessed, and it felt freeing to admit it. I wanted to sink into the unpredictability of a cross-cultural life, yes, but I also wanted a bona fide home. This was a season of refinement, of acknowledging there were multiple sides to me that were equally true.
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