How I'm Planning to Be Spontaneous as a Father of Two: Travel, Travel, and more Travel

My wife and I are both in our 30’s and this chapter of our life has been dominated by both working and raising our children. Now I wouldn’t go as far as to say we’re a typical family, but I think that a lot of people can relate to our situation. People generally find their stride in work by their 30’s, so all that’s left to do is put in the hard work to get ahead while you still have the energy, and if you’re married by this age, kids usually come into the picture as well. Now, if you have to pick two things you’re going to do well in life, I’d go with being great at work and being a great father/husband. The only problem with this is that it leaves little time for much else.

Like many others, I used to be much more spontaneous. It’s not that I’ve settled down. I’m the same person. It’s just that life has thrown me so many more responsibilities and, if I want to keep up with them, I have to plan them. So what is a 31 year old dad of two kids to do?

With that in mind, I’ve decided to plan to be spontaneous this year. I know that’s an oxymoron and doesn’t make any sense, so let me explain. I want to force myself to figure out how to bring back some of the spontaneity that brought so much joy in my younger years.

When I’m at home, it’s too easy to settle into the routine of work and dad life, so instead I’m going to fill this next year with more vacations than I’m comfortable with or even want to take. How many to be exact? At least 6.

Now to be clear, I don’t have the type of free time or cash flow to make that a smart decision. Instead I’m forcing myself to have to be a bit more spontaneous and creative to make it work. Will I need to work on some of the trips, absolutely. Do I need to figure out a creative way to make this financially feasible in the same year we’re buying a new house, yes, but that’s the point.

It’s become a bit of a passion project to figure out how I can have as much reckless fun this year, without being reckless. I’m sure I’ll be pulling some late nights figuring out how to make it work, or maybe making up for some work I probably should have done during one of the trips, but it’ll bring back some of the fun of not knowing exactly how each day is going to play out.

So why now? My son is turning 3 this month, and in 2 years he’ll be enrolled in kindergarten which would make something like this much more difficult to do. My daughter is only 4 months old, which gives me 20 months until I have to start buying her her own plane ticket for every trip. It it’s going to happen, it has to be now.

Part of what’s making this possible is a tip I received from a friend of mine that’s going to give us buy-1-get-1-free plane tickets for the next two years. I’m going to talk about that as well as some other tricks we’ve already found to make something like this possible in an upcoming post, so stay tuned.

You know what they say. You never regret the experiences you had, only the ones you didn’t. Here’s to a great year for us and everyone else. If you have any tips you think would make this endeavor easier or even cities off the beaten path you think we should visit, please share.