Family documents unusual travels

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This article was published 16/05/2019 (2623 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The thought of rounding up a couple of kids to go on any kind of trip can send shivers up the spines of even the most capable of parents.

When that trip is a yearlong trek through 15 countries of various stages of development in the Southern Hemisphere, all done on a modest budget and with plenty of sleeping outdoors, that anxiety could go through the roof — assuming there’s a roof to go through.

None of that stopped Rob Krause and Daria Salamon from doing just that back in 2015. The Winnipeg couple chronicled their exploits — good and bad — in a new book called Don’t Try This At Home: One Family’s (mis)Adventures Around the World, published by Winnipeg’s Turnstone Press and being launched at McNally Robinson Booksellers’ Grant Park location on Thursday, May 16.

In addition to being a writer, Salamon, 46, is a half-time teacher in the River East Transcona School Division, while 51-year-old Krause works from home doing business management and grant-writing for musicians. They managed to arrange their schedules for a yearlong trip that began in 2015 and included their son Oskar, then eight, and daughter Isla Blue, who was five.

Their journey took them through New Zealand, Singapore, Indonesia, Bolivia and beyond, all on a relatively modest, all-inclusive $150-per-day budget. Salamon arranged a salary-deferment plan with her employer, while Krause was able to work a bit from the road; additionally, they rented out their Osborne Village home while they were gone and sold their car before hitting the road.

“When we first started planning the trip, there were a lot of questions, and there was fear of the unknown — that’s what initially held us back,” Krause recalls. “Where did we want to go and what do we want to see? We’ve always been a camping family. We didn’t get to New Zealand until the typhoon season had whistled through there, and started working our way up, waiting for the rainy season to push up so we could go to southeast Asia.”

When Turnstone found out about the trek prior to the family of four setting out, they approached Salamon — who has long blogged about her travels and more and also has a novel, 2008’s The Prairie Bridesmaid, to her credit — about writing a book. “I didn’t want to write the book by myself,” Salamon says. “Rob and I are very different people. We thought we’d be better off having two different perspectives on the same trip. And Rob’s pretty funny, so I pitched it to them and they went for it.”

Rather than presenting he-said, she-said chapters, Don’t Try This At Home brings two distinct narratives from each of the adults that readers can peruse in whatever fashion they please. The book chronicles the highs and lows of the trip — the various ailments, missteps, rerouting, brushes with danger (human, animal and environmental) and more.

It all provided valuable perspective. “Seeing riot police in the streets regularly or the border crossings — I think about that a lot,” Salamon says. “Crossing from Bolivia to Peru was chaos — thousands of people, some bribing the guards, the lineups, the heat. I see how migrants or immigrants would feel. I think it’s good to have had those experiences.”

There were other issues that came up while on the road, not the least of which came seven months into the journey, when Krause’s father died back in Winnipeg. “One of the reasons we went when we did is because I could see our parents getting older and travelling for a year down the road may have been more of a challenge,” Salamon says. “It seemed like a really good time to do it because everybody was in really great health. And then all of a sudden Rob’s dad died.” The four returned to Winnipeg, staying at Salamon’s parents’ house for two months before setting out to South America for the second leg of their trip.

When it was all said and done, the final return to Winnipeg provided its own share of challenges, especially for Salamon, who chronicles her struggle with depression in the book. As for the kids, they were as resilient upon return as they were adventurous and curious on the road. “I think the kids are pretty well grounded,” Krause says. “They’re really happy with what they have. They still get spoiled, from grandparents and us, but they’re really down-to-earth about things.”

And while the trip offered its fair share of challenges, it also provided invaluable experiences. “I feel like it was the best year we’ve had,” Salamon says. “I’d say our family’s been fundamentally changed. Because we had to spend so much time together — almost to a fault, because there was no privacy on this trip — the fabric of our family was fundamentally changed. It really shifted the dynamic of our family in a positive way.”

Salamon and Krause have begun offering workshops for potential travellers who might be worried about the logistics of long-term travel. The pair also want to engage with workplaces to help foster a culture where workers are able to have a flexible schedule that would allow for these types of adventures.

“Let your employees take a year off while they’re healthy, when their kids are young, when they can experience it as a family,” Salamon says.

“I feel like we discovered something so magical and brilliant, and I don’t get why it isn’t the norm.”

books@freepress.mb.ca