Today we’d like to introduce you to Johanna Swanson.
Johanna, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
When our daughter was born we realized we would have two kids in preschool for two years and how expensive that would be. What we pay in preschool is enough to live a comfortable life in South America so it made us start thinking that we could take that money and use it to travel for a year. We had three years before our son started kindergarten so we started manifesting our adventure. We saved money, researched other full-time traveling families, and started dreaming of all the places we wanted to surf.
One of the first things that came up for us as an obstacle was the idea of having to drink out of plastic water bottles. As a family we had given up plastic water bottles many years ago and as we all know when you travel it feels impossible to avoid. We then decided to add a little bit of a challenge to our trip and try to avoid single use plastics along our journey.
We had an incredible year and have learned and changed so much as a family and individuals. We are still processing all the fun and challenging experiences we have had along the way. We just returned to our community and are excited to get adjusted and enjoy the benefits of this past year’s lessons.
Has it been a smooth road?
We really were blessed with a pretty smooth road this past year. But there are a few instances that stick out in my mind.
Ha! On our first long flight from Mexico City to Madrid our son was sleeping on Jake’s lap and peed on him. Not just once but twice. It’s fun to laugh about it now but I felt so sorry for them both at the time.
One of our rental cars in Colombia had the breaks go out as we started a road trip up the Andes, but our travel club was great and helped us get a new car delivered. Our stroller got lost on one of our last legs of the trip but it was eventually found and delivered to the U.S. We actually lost quite a few items along the way. Shoes, a poncho, and many many water bottles.
I made some planning mistakes here and there but they were all fairly easy fixes.
We all were pretty healthy. Our daughter came down with a flu in Peru, I got some weirdo rash on my neck in Peru as well, but otherwise our health seemed much better than all our friends here at home struggling with cold after flu after cold.
Spending 24/7 with your family is such a blessing but also requires a lot of patience and communication. Our parenting skills have surely been tested. We broke a lot of our rules when it came to food and let our kids drink juice and carb-load much more than usual and even went to MacDonalds. I’d say food was our least favorite part of the year.
So, as you know, we’re impressed with The Swansons/ Our Family Slides – tell our readers more, for example what you’re most proud of and what sets you apart from others.
What sets us apart from the average traveling family is our mission to avoid single use plastics.
Avoiding plastic water bottles was actually quite easy. We purchased a Berkey Go water filter which fit in our carry on luggage and filtered all our drinking water. Whether it was in the bathroom and the airport terminal, the hose bib outside the restaurant in the countryside of Colombia, we filtered our water, stored it in stainless steel or glass bottles and took it with us everywhere. By the end of the year, we had only consumed two plastic water bottles.
Other things we did was take our picnic “kit” with us everywhere. This kit includes reusable silverware, napkins, straws, and food storage containers. We took food storage containers to restaurants in order to take food home in glass rather than plastic. We also brought with us reusable shopping bags from home and reused any plastic bags that we acquired.
But we were by no means perfect. We ordered Uber Eats a few times and which created a lot of waste and sometimes we would forget to ask for no straws, or restaurants would automatically give the children plastic cups.
We are definitely a work in progress with a goal of distancing ourselves from plastics more and more each day.
Let’s touch on your thoughts about our city – what do you like the most and least?
Our favorite parts of San Diego are the community, the surf, and the food. We missed our community in Encinitas like crazy while we were gone. It is such a blessing to be surrounded by quality people and being able to run into friends at the grocery store, beach, or park.
What we dislike is the traffic and all the consumerism. One of our favorite parts of being away was not having the noise of the holidays, the junk in the all the stores and the stress that can come out of these events. We noticed other cultures seemed much less focused so far in advance about all the different holidays.
We noticed a glaring difference in the service we received at restaurants abroad and we realized that we are so fortunate to have such a wide variety of foods here in San Diego.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://rfamlyslyds.com
- Email: hello@rfamlyslyds.com
- Instagram: @rfamlyslyds
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