84 posts
Every post, in order — or browse the story by section on the main Big Trip 2015 page.
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Our first city… Atlanta! The perfect blend of educational and entertainment experiences to get our kids warmed up for endless weeks of museums and history. (I’ll leave it to you do decide which of those CNN is. And the College Football Hall of Fame. 🙂 We spent two beautiful days seeing the sights, getting some… Read more Atlanta: Historic, Yummy and Fun
by Alexander To be gone from home for three-fourths of a year totally feels unreal. I mean, I don’t know a SINGLE PERSON that has been gone from home for more than five months. I’m going to be without almost all the things I love at home. I won’t go to a school, which means… Read more 9 Months Away from home… How am I Supposed to Survive????
Why Alabama? Two great reasons: it’s got so much rich history in terms of the Civil Rights movement my niece, Kaylie, just started law school at Cumberland! We decided we’d spend a weekend there, doing a 3-hour drive from Atlanta and really getting our kids focused on learning about the South and Civil Rights. Our… Read more Alabama: Birmingham & Montgomery historic spots
From Atlanta, we flew to Orlando for our traditional pre-thanksgiving visit to theme parks… only this year we dedicated FIVE DAYS to a combo of Disney and Universal. Now THIS is a special trip!
by Sydney In the south I learned that people eat fried green tomatoes, grits and gator. I do not like any of those foods. Did you know that South Carolina where we are now was the state that said that they wanted to be their own country. President Lincoln said “no you may not be… Read more Sydney’s Notes from the South
by Piper Today we finished our long car ride! Finally!
by Alexander For the first time, I’ll be posting a journal entry from the journal I started at the beginning of the trip. I’ll writing in it every 1-4 days, but YOU don’t get to see all of them so 😛. It’s just that my mean dad sitting next to me is making me post one of my journal… Read more Day 18: Colonial Williamsburg
The three Smithsonian museums that we went to were The Museum of American History, The Museum of Natural History, and The Air and Space Museum. My favorite museum was the Air and Space Museum because of its variety. It has everything from World War I fighter planes to the future of deep space travel. Oh, and we… Read more Alexander on D.C.: Favorite Smithsonian museums
by Sydney My favorite things in D.C. were the Newseum and the Capitol tour. I like the Capitol because we got to see Congress vote and convince people to vote for what they want. Our tour guide was really nice to us. She let us see what we wanted to see. We saw where the… Read more Sydney’s favorite things in D.C.
Joe’s post with a giant gallery of photos from our awesome week in DC…
by Sydney The shows in NYC are really fun and I had two favorites. They are different than the shows in Washington State. the shows in NYC were some of my highlights. The first show we went to was in Radio City at Radio City Music Hall. I saw the Christmas Spectaclar. The main part was… Read more New York City Shows (by Sydney)
by Piper We went to New York City and went up the Statue of Liberty, the Freedom Tower and the Top of the Rock. Every time l went up to the top I saw the city and it was a cool view. Our apartment was on the top floor– floor number six–so we had a good… Read more NYC… All About Skyscrapers (by Piper)
by Alexander NYC is full of great sights, and is one of the most popular cities to tourists in the world. Here’s my list of “most iconic sights”:
by Alexander, Piper & Sydney Dad here. During our trip, we visited some of the most important sites in US History, and as we went, we talked a lot about what happened at each and when. It became a “homeschooling habit” for us to sit at dinner and go around-the-table with each kid describing one… Read more Homeschooling American History
Beneath grey skies and the unsettling up-and-down movement of the ship under our feet, we just finished our (surprisingly serious and thorough) lifeboat drill… and with that we’re ready to go! Within the next 30 minutes, we should be pushing out to sea.
by Kristina We boarded the Semester at Sea ship (not be referred to as a boat) for our voyage (not be confused with a cruise) on Tuesday, January 5 so we’ve now spent a week on the ship. Here are some observations after a week.
I’m keeping a journal for our big trip… and instead of writing a separate blog post on the ship, I’m just going to post a few days from my journal! Lucky you…
by Alexander Tokyo was a great experience. Overall, we had a awesome time whether it was shopping, watching a sumo match, or playing Mario Kart in an arcade. We loved our 3 days in Tokyo and I’m sure we’d all want to come back.
by Sydney Yesterday we went to Tokyo Disney Sea. At Tokyo Disney Sea there are a lot of cool rides. I may like Tokyo Disney Sea more than Tokyo Disneyland. This time me and Piper were tall enough to go on every ride.
by Piper In Japan we went to Tokyo Disneyland for a half a day. we stayed at the Tokyo Disneyland hotel. It was cool!
by Kristina On our 6th day in Japan, we woke early at Tokyo Disneyland, bought some rice balls and hot tea (which you can buy in plastic bottles) from a convenience store and boarded a train for Matsumoto. When we arrived, we stuffed all our luggage and backpacks into two lockers at the Matsumoto train… Read more Central Japan: Matsumoto & our Ryokan stay
We woke early in the morning at the ryokan, and drove an hour through a heavy snowfall to the train station, where we took a Shinkansen (bullet train) to Kanazawa. This was the first city where we had a guide… it was helpful to have someone walk us through the beautiful sites and explain some of the… Read more Central Japan: Kanazawa
As a day-trip from Kanazawa, we boarded a bus and drove 1.5 hours up into the mountains to Shirakawa-Go. At the heart of the area, the village of Ogimachi was built hundreds of years ago in (literally) one of the world’s snowiest climates. It’s famous for the gasshō (合掌) style of houses whose architecture and… Read more Japan Alps: Shirakawa-Go
After eight packed days in Japan, we were fortunate to be able to spend a couple nights with my college roommate, Beth, her husband Hiro and 14 yr old daughter Emily. They have a beautiful, new house in Susono where her husband, Hiro, is a Japanese healer. Hiro also coaches the #4 Sumo wrestler in… Read more Susono with friends
by Alexander Just like in Tokyo, we did lots of touring in Kyoto. We experienced a tea ceremony, visited a golden temple, and learned Taiko drumming. We had a guide in Kyoto unlike in Tokyo to show us around the city. Her name was Miho and we’d highly recommend her, if any of you are… Read more Kyoto & Hiroshima (Goodbye, Japan)
Six days in China can really blow your mind. From the power and scale of 150,000 people at one factory campus who are building most of the world’s PCs … to the amazing skylines of Shanghai and Hong Kong … to sea cucumber + chicken feet … to the warmth and hospitality of co-workers and… Read more China! Suzhou Factories, Shanghai Skyline, Hong Kong Lights
Note from Dad: The twins decided that for their next blog post, they’d interview each other on the topic of “foods in Asia”. The interview below is Sydney asking the questions and Piper providing the tasty answers… S: Which city did you like more Hong Kong or Shanghai? P: Shanghai because we got to… Read more Twins talk China: We Ate Chicken Feet!
by Alexander We were just pulling out of Hong Kong, when Mark Ferne, the Dean of Students, called a ship-wide meeting. This was a first, so we all went to the Kaisersaal (auditorium) for the meeting. He said there were high winds in the South China Sea, and that we could not leave Hong Kong… Read more Vietnam: Sandy Beaches, Hot Bike Rides, and Weasel Poop
by Kristina “Has anyone seen the monk?” When I was asked this on our ship, I thought, “Now that’s something I’ve never heard back in Seattle.” I used to refer to Myanmar as Burma — the only thing I knew about it was where it was on the map. Prior to our arrival, we… Read more Myanmar: 5, Belfiores: 0
I think it’s the first time it’s been so dramatic. We were pretty psyched. And it seems to be sticking…
City #1: Kochi Our ship pulled into the port at Kochi early in the morning, giving us a “free day” to walk around and see a bit of India’s southern state of Kerala before we’d fly out of town to visit Jaipur, Agra and Delhi in northern India. So, we jumped on a bus… Read more India! 5 Cities in 6 Days…
We could peer at the Taj Mahal from a distance all afternoon the day before we visited… first from the Agra Fort… and then from the hotel… and it looked as exciting in person as it had been in my imagination.
Note from Dad: when we visited China, the girls decided it was so interesting and new, that they would interview each other for our blog. Last time, Sydney asked the questions and Piper answered. And today Piper’s got the questions and Syd wrote her answers… Piper: Did you like India why or why not? Sydney:… Read more Girls talk India… Interview time!
By Alexander Our time in the Maldives was AWESOME. Not only did we stay at a resort with white sandy beaches and exotic coral reefs with two other families, but the resort took up a whole island, and to get around the resort they gave us bikes. AND I got to go on my first scuba dive! AND we snorkeled, sailed, saw… Read more Maldives! The country I’d been waiting for…
By Alexander After our break in the Maldives, it was back to touring. We wanted to spend lots of time in Africa, but there were no direct flights straight from Male, so we decided to spend a couple of days in Dubai. Dubai was the one city I was most excited for on the trip. I was more… Read more A Sprinkle of Dubai
By Joe OK, yes, I’ll admit a melodramatic blog post title sounds like click-bait. But these DO WORK. You should see the stats… when we title these posts with stuff like “Myanmar – 5, Belfiores – 0” or “This happened in Myanmar” … the clicks go through the roof. So of course you might… Read more Sabi Sabi Safari… African animals attack!
By Piper, Sydney & Alexander Piper & Sydney: We got a chance to go on a safari and it was very exciting. We are going to ask Alexander 10 questions about our safari in South Africa, as there were some things he hated, and some things he loved. There were some very memorable moments at… Read more Twins Interview: Alexander, the Safari Target
By Sydney & Piper Piper: There are lots of things to do in Cape Town. I climbed Table Mountain, went to the Cape of Good Hope, visited a women and children shelter, visited Robben Island… and ate a worm.
By Joe. “World-schooling” is about our kids not only learning history and culture.. but also recognizing that Bellevue, WA– as lovely as it is– really doesn’t represent what the rest of the world has to offer. And that means everything from the socio-economics to the climate … to the foods our kids eat. We love… Read more So… this happened in Cape Town.
by Joe We arrived in Ghana early in the morning and left on a long bus ride first thing in the morning.. but even at 9am the equatorial heat and humidity wringed the sweat out of bodies. This would be a recurring theme, but Ghana and it’s awesome people more than made up for any… Read more Ghana (part 1): Villages, Cities, Rainforest… and Awesome People
by Joe The experience of studying slavery “as history” is nothing like the experience of seeing the actual instruments of its execution firsthand.
by the Whole Family Sometime around the end of March — right around the time we were in Ghana– our Big Trip hit its halfway point. Of course the “halfway point” is not well-defined, since we still haven’t finalized our exact plans for the end of the trip. At some point we’ll know when we’re… Read more Halfway done: “We have a new normal”
by Alexander Morocco was probably the country in which I was most pleasantly surprised. It was an all-around fun country to spend time in. My entries are about the first three days in Morocco, all of which were quite fun.
by Joe Try to guess– what was the NUMBER ONE DESTINATION CITY OF 2015 ranked by worldwide travelers on tripadvisor.com? Yes, Shields and Rytilä families, “Helsinki” was a candidate, but no… it was MARRAKECH. (Of course I tried to verify this and include a link just now– but apparently the tripadvisor editors are following us… Read more Marrakech!
by The Whole Family. We can’t believe it… our nearly-four-months aboard the MV World Odyssey.. IS OVER! A year or so ago the idea of being at sea with a ship full of college students still seemed pretty, well, nutty. Let’s just say some of our friends thought it “insanity.” But now the journey… over 27,000 miles with… Read more The Voyage Ends: Au Revoir, Life-at-Sea!
by Kristina. When is the last time you peed in your pants? It happened to me in England, and it wasn’t because I couldn’t find a bathroom. You’ll have to read below to learn exactly when, where and why it happened…
When the Portugese explorers left Belém to explore much of the new world, they had the same hardy and adventurous attitude that we Belfiores bring to each new country we visit. Whether facing incontinence or gastro-quake, we bring our unique brand of can’t-stop-us bravado to every site we visit. And in Portugal that meant everything… Read more Lisbon. Vasco would’a been proud.
By Alexander. Okay, two things. Number one. I know that Lagos is supposed to be this huge city in Nigeria that nobody’s heard about because heck, it’s in Nigeria. The point is, this is a different Lagos. Number two. The “s” in Lagos (only the one in Portugal) sounds like “sh”. I won’t have any… Read more Lagos: Portugal’s Paradise
by Sydney. I loved Seville and our neighborhood! The weirdest thing we saw was John the Baptist’s head. Seriously. Daddy took a picture, you can see it! I also liked our Airbnb except for the one thing that we all hated except for me. Why? because I am a deep sleeper…
by Piper. I had an awesome and exciting time in Granada and Moraira – two VERY different cities in Spain! It was really fun. If I had a chance to go back to Granada or Moraira I would go to Moraira. Read on to hear why…
by Alexander Once again, I bring you the contents of my ultra-secret TRAVEL JOURNAL! Way more fun for you to read, way easier for me to write. 🙂 FRIDAY, MAY 13, 2016 DAY 167 – VALENCIA -> BARCELONA Ugh. I hate driving. Our rental car doesn’t smell so good since we’ve all been packed in… Read more Spain 3: Z loves Barcelona!
by Joe. (How perfect! A big congratulations to Real Madrid who JUST NOW won the Champion’s League! We enjoyed watching the game from here in Paris! We’re big fans.) AND NOW, A WARNING! this blog post is rated PG-13. It contains images of severed heads (yes!), ejected body fluids, and bloody bulls. RUBENSTEIN FAMILY, in… Read more Spain 4: Madrid! Blood, guts, and.. great foo..
by Kristina. San Sebastian was our last stop in Spain… we had a lovely time getting to learn about the Basque region.. and eating all the delicious Pinxtos! What was the most dramatic “pinxto” of all? Baby eel.
by Alexander Personally, I never thought I’d ever like a theme park without rides. But that was before Puy Du Fou, a “historic” theme park in the countryside of France which lets you experience history through a bunch of shows. And no rides. All the shows were realistic and engaging (except for maybe one… Read more Puy Du Fou, France: Horses, Vultures, and Lions. Oh yeah. I forgot about blood.
by Sydney. It is video time. Watch this video and explore our Paris apartment. Piper will be guiding you though the journey of our apartment. Alexander will be playing the ukulele for you to end our journey. I hope you enjoy the tour!!!
by Joe. We’re spending the longest time of our entire trip in Paris– around 18 days! Is there any better city in the world you would suggest for us to spend 18 days? I thought not. 🙂 Of course… I’d never been to Paris before, it turns out I may be of French origin (oooh… what drama!… Read more What to do in Paris when it rains. A LOT.
By: The Whole Family. For weeks we romanticized Paris, the longest stop on our trip. We would rest! We would watch movies! We would enjoy a leisurely European lifestyle, sitting at cafes for cardplay and lengthy discussions about poetry and painting. (Really, no different than my normal life at Microsoft!) What we hadn’t bargained on… Read more Our Paris Favorites: from Euro Cup to the Parisian Dead
by Sydney & Piper. Sydney’s part: the Paris Disneyland Park We went to Paris Disneyland. We stayed at the Disney hotel. The hotel gave us balloons to play with. The only thing that we did at the hotel besides sleeping was playing with the balloons. We were there 2 and a half days. Hit… Read more Twins blog: Paris Disneyland!
Note: Guest authors John, Teresa, Mia (12), and Sam (10) Tippett are taking over the blog for this post. Find out what JOHN wrote in his secret-travel-journal all about Joe!
by Kristina. The Switzerland Alps are awesome! I’m so glad Joe proposed spending our 4 open days between Provence and Croatia there. Did we have beauty? AMAZING views! Did we have nostalgia? Of course! See where we returned to after a 25-year absence. Did we have drama? YOU BET! We reached 12,000 feet… we reached a… Read more Switzerland! High Altitudes, High Adventure… High Fevers!
By Alexander. “Dad, where the heck is Croatia, why the heck is Croatia so popular, and what the heck makes people want to go there???” “Well Alexander, I think you’ll find that all out in due course, don’t you think?” “And what’s that supposed to mean?” Our family had been excited for Croatia ever… Read more Croatian Cities: Yes, Dad. I know they’re Beautiful!
by Joe (with Sydney and Piper). People who know me well realize that I have a few quirky habits… and that some of these get a little, uh, magnified under certain circumstances. For example: When travelling and experiencing limited availability of high-capacity washer/drier machines, I might be comfortable repeating an article of clothing for more… Read more Would YOU spend 6 Nights on a Croatian Sailboat with the Belfiores? They did…
Evan Carr, age 10, joins our blog as a guest author– but not with a journalistic report of our time together in Croatia. Instead, Evan authored a “Croatian Folktale” while we cruised the blue waters of the Adriatic. Here’s Evan’s original tale. Enjoy! “Ivon and the Magic Emerald” Once, a long time ago in faraway… Read more Guest post: A Croatian Folktale by Evan Carr
At one point on our trip a fellow parent teased me and Kristina by saying something along the lines of “the Belfiore kids aren’t allowed to use iPads, are they. :)” I should have said “sure– but since we’re homeschooling, we want them to be doing creative work … writing, presenting, etc. … and there’s… Read more Homeschooling Belfiores .. one says-it-all photo
One morning in Prague when he woke from troubled dreams, Alexander found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin. He lay on his armour-like back… vertebrae protruding through his fatless physique… and if he lifted his head a little he could see his brown belly, flat to concave, just beyond the arches of his ribs. His legs, pitifully… Read more “zlata Praha”… Golden Prague
PART 1: by Piper. Dad here. We knew that Sydney and Piper would be celebrating their birthday on our Big Trip… and since they had to forego a timely birthday party with friends and dinner at their favorite Seattle restaurant (Tokyo Steakhouse!) … we booked a 7-day cruise down the Danube River with “Adventures by Disney”… Read more Danube River Cruise Part 1: Piper covers Germany and Austria
by Sydney. Our birthday in Slovakia I had my birthday Tuesday July 19th on the ship. People on the ship gave me a lot of happy birthdays! I also received presents. Piper gave me a Lego, Alexander gave me a Lego and cards Mommy and daddy gave us some gum and money. I gave Piper… Read more Danube River Cruise Part 2: Sydney on Slovakia Twins’ Birthday!
by Alexander. Our family loved Budapest. Despite the heat, we spent most of our time outside. Whether we were walking over famous bridges, or chilling in Hungarian baths, we were having fun. I hope someday we can come back to Budapest! (Or I’ll have to look at the pictures my dad tortured us with.) Once… Read more Budapest: Yes, yes. I was Hungary for the duck too.
26.5 years ago the Berlin Wall came down. 26 years ago, my friend Eli and I found 3 other Europe-travelers and rented a car for 24-hours to drive from the nation of West Germany into Berlin. (it was EXPENSIVE to rent a car and 24-hours were all we could afford!) My oh my, how… Read more Berlin: Still Crazy After All These Years
Wow. One more week and we head home.
It may be summer in the US, with all your “lucky” kids finished with school and enjoying their camps, playdates and lazy-mornings sleeping in… but out here on the road we’re still cracking the whip on the Belfiore kids! Our travel adventure is NOT all-about-the-fun, so homeschooling ain’t over yet. Besides reading lists, Khan-academy math, journaling, blogging,… Read more “Preports” – Your family should do this too
Denmark! Our second-to-last destination! I know a ton of you have already been here.. right? You ALREADY KNOW this is the Land of the World’s Happiest People… Bike Swarms… Hygge… Hamlet… Niels Bohr… LEGO… Sausage Wagons… Smørrebrod… Trunk-rides for Princess and the Pea… Vikings… The Egg… and the Christiania “Greenlight District”. Coolness! Oh you haven’t?… Read more Nearing the end: Hygge in Copenhagen
When we planned our visit to Iceland, of course we expected gorgeous scenery, volcanic intrigue, light-until-midnight… but we hadn’t anticipated the incredibly wide range of culinary adventures! Check out just how far our kids palates have come… and whether we hit Barfcon 13!
We landed in Iceland at 10pm on a Thursday … and with the sun high in the sky, walked to the airport hotel to crash. Considering the 2-hour time change from Denmark, we were officially beginning our journey (and adjustment) towards home. The next few days showed us yet-another brand new world… waterfalls, rainbows, volcanoes, bubbling… Read more Iceland Part 1: Volcanoes, Geysers, Waterfalls
We didn’t want everyone getting the idea that our trip has been all smiles and tropical cocktails, or that we’re not telling the whole story on our blog…so for a few months we’ve been meaning to share some of the “dark side” moments from our travels. And finally, here they are. By the way, a number… Read more The Dark Side
At 4pm on Tuesday we were sitting around “Joe and the Juice” in the Reykjavik airport, looking up at the Flight Departures monitor. Bags checked, we had an hour to kill before our flight. Wistfully, I said to the kids “Hey — take a look at that board. If I said you could pick one of… Read more Iceland 2: The End.
Our Homeschooling plan had to account for: a 6th grader 2nd graders Our philosophy was to emphasize reading, writing and math for all our kids .. and to turn an informed-travel experience into education around history and culture. We didn’t try to duplicate a “typical year of school” by covering all the school subjects. Instead,… Read more Homeschooling … plan and approach
We Belfiores are math-people. (Hey — no giggling out there! This is true!) Want proof? Try asking one of us whether we were worried about traveling around the world in the face of ISIS and other unfortunate conflict around the world, which makes travel SEEM like it might be unsafe… and we’ll respond with an explanation… Read more Stats: Our Big Trip by the Numbers
We wish all of you a very happy holiday season! Last year we made our traditional “family holiday music video” right after Christmas as a retrospective on the trip.. so this year we’re going to post that video on the blog. Enjoy! (Maybe some year we’ll manage to make the holiday video BEFORE Christmas…… Read more Happy Holidays! Music Video .. looking back on the Big Trip
by Piper Now that I’m back home, every morning I wake up happy and reviled to be home. I didn’t know that you could appreciate your home so much since we went on the big trip for a while. I love the fact that I don’t have to wake up every morning to corn flakes… Read more One year back at home
by Sydney First thing I am going to talk about is how I feel about coming back from the big trip. Second thing I will be talking about, if we go back what I would change. Third, about how some parts of school, like writing and math, are easier now then others. And fourth talking… Read more Big Trip: Looking Back, One Year Later
by Alexander 1I had hoped that by the end of the trip, I wouldn’t have to write any more blog posts. 2Apparently I was wrong– My dad is making me write one more for the one year anniversary of our return home. 3I could argue that this is a waste of my time. 4I am… Read more It’s a year after our trip. I’m in 8th grade. You know what that means???
by Joe OK, you’ve seen each of the kids post their “one-year back” blog entries… and this is mine. Except I’m trying something a little different this time, I wrote mine from a “PROFESSIONAL” perspective and put it on LinkedIn. After all, you know all about the TRIP but what you don’t know is… Read more Full-Circle, Twice Around: my Big #HitRefresh