Year abroad turns into family memoir

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This article was published 31/05/2019 (2345 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Rob Krause recalls with wonder watching his six-year-old daughter drift over the coastal city of Lima, Peru, secured to a hang glider guided by a local pilot.

The father of two from Osborne Village was nearing the conclusion of a 12-month backpacking journey with partner Daria Salamon that saw his family of four traverse 15 countries in the southern hemisphere, from New Zealand, to southeast Asia, to South America.

“She had received birthday money from her grandparents, and decided to spend her money to hang glide over the city,” Krause said. “It’s a vision of my daughter flying over these high rise towers in Lima. It was just extraordinary.”

The experiences of the family over that fateful year have been compiled by Krause and Salamon in a new book published by Turnstone Press, titled Don’t Try This at Home.

In 2014, Krause and Salamon decided to take a chance and pursue a dream of travelling with their children, who were six and eight years old at the time. The couple took time off from their day jobs, sold their car, rented out their home, and “cashed in” on all their worldly possessions in exchange for four one-way tickets.

“It was just after I had turned 40, and we were in the throngs of kids and family, and jetting off to practices all the time,” Salamon said. “I always thought I wanted to pick up and leave and see where that would take us and what that experience would be like.”

The part-time teacher still remembers the visceral feeling of sitting in the airport, waiting for their flight to New Zealand, and not knowing what was in the cards.

“I remember thinking we’ve cashed in everything that’s comfortable for these two backpacks and a year of no breaks whatsoever from our children,” Salamon said.

“It was odd to see our two kids sitting on essentially everything we would be living with for the next year,” Krause added.

The 280-page paperback, written from the perspective of each parent and accompanied by journal entries from the kids, isn’t quite a travel memoir, though there’s plenty of anecdotes on the hiccups that go hand-in-hand with wanderlust: picking up lice in Australia, contracting stomach bugs in the middle of a 52-hour bus ride, and briefly losing a child in a crowded market, are just a few vignettes captured in Don’t Try This at Home.

“It’s more of a family memoir,” Salamon said. “It covers all the trials and tribulations of being nomadic for a year as a family.

“It was an unusual and dynamic year, and I would say it was the best year we’ve had as a family.”

And other parents and families shouldn’t hesitate to embark on similar adventures, Krause said. He assures it’s not as hard as it sounds.

“The hardest part is the decision to do it,” Krause said.

“It really is an incredible experience for bonding with your children and that’s the highlight that came out of it.”

Don’t Try This at Home is available at McNally Robinson Booksellers.