Above, Lake Atitlan in Guatemala, considered to be one of the most spiritual places to visit. Join us on our journey on how we got there.
How seven people and a dog (plus the driver) can fit in a motorcycle vehicle built for three, is always a mystery, but somehow it works out. It’s one of those mysteries of life that you only experience when you travel.
Next, we pay the tuk tuk driver (Q5 for each adult, kids are free.). Then we get on a lancha to San Marcos. (The price here always seems to vary. This time, we were told kids were free. Adults payed about Q20 each.)
Our dog, Epic, came with us (he’s a newer addition to the family)
Beautiful Aaliyah
Enjoying the scenery
The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” Marcel Proust
Being surrounded by volcanoes certainly gives it a feeling of resplendence.
We arrive at the hostelito where we are meeting friends, and the kids join in on a gymnastics class and the local girls got in on the action too.
We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.”– George Bernard Shaw
Parker is good at climbing things
Kyah is helping our friends from Ireland make pupusas. (Cooking is one of her favorite things to do. Last week she made pupusas all by herself!)
Mmmm… good food
Waiting for the boat with his apple and his ball. Isn’t he a cutie?
It’s just another day in paradise
Rachel Denning is an unassuming mother of five who never really did any international traveling until she had four children. After a second honeymoon to Playa del Carmen, Mexico, she and her husband decided to sell most of their belongings and move their family abroad.
Driving from the United States to Panama, they settled in Costa Rica for a year, until the U.S. financial market crash in 2008, when they lost their location independent income. Returning to the United States to look for work, they knew they’d be back ‘out’ again, having been officially bitten by the travel bug!
Despite adjustments to living a simpler life (or perhaps because of it), they were able to save enough money to move to the Dominican Republic in 2009. After six months they came back to the States once more, where they were offered employment working with a non-profit organization in India.
They spent five months living in Tamil Nadu, then returned to the States once more (to Alaska) so they could have baby number five – Atlas.
From there, they set out in April of 2011 to drive, in a veggie powered truck, from Alaska to Argentina, visiting every continental country in North and South America.
Travel is a part of their life now, and they can’t imagine doing anything else. Rachel photographs and writes about their incredible family travel adventures on their website, and they also have resources that encourage others to live a deliberate life.