After Justin and I put together our top 10 spots, accounting for overlapping choices, we ended up with this:
- Southeast Asia
- African Safari
- Japan
- Australia / New Zealand
- Canada / US National Parks
- Egypt
- Galápagos
Next comes my favorite part, the research!
We started asking questions like:
- How safe is it?
- What is the health care like in an emergency?
- Are there visa requirements or rules about how long we can stay?
- What’s the weather going to be like?
- How easy is to get to?
- How expensive it is?
- How easy is it to get around with kids?
- How common is English/how hard will daily communication be?
- Are there major holidays or festivals we shouldn’t miss or should try and avoid?
- Are there local day camps or kids programs we can take advantage of?
Remember, we started planning 4 years before our actual trip, so we worked to find answers to these questions really slowly, enjoying the process of learning more about each of these areas and consulting with people who had been before. The kids ages during the trip (5 & 7) is a big factor, we want to realistically consider their abilities, interests and attention spans.
Planning our sabbatical wasn’t just about picking destinations off a bucket list—that was just our starting point. It was about thoughtfully weighing what would actually work for our family at this phase in our lives and the world climate. Over years, we researched, debated, did our own travel as a family of four, reached out to others to better understand safety, cost, climate, accessibility, and kid‑friendliness.
Out of the seven destinations we started with, we decided to cut out just one: the Galápagos.
When we looked more closely at the Galápagos, we realized it wasn’t the right fit for this particular trip. Geographically, it didn’t align well with our other destinations, and the experience itself felt better suited for older kids. There are strict rules in place to protect the wildlife—which is part of what makes the islands so special—and much of the appeal is underwater. With kids who weren’t yet comfortable snorkeling in open water, we knew we wouldn’t be able to fully appreciate what the Galápagos has to offer. Rather than force it, we decided this was a destination worth saving for another time.
During our research some places inspired immediate excitement, others made us think hard about timing and expectations, but all of them helped shape a clearer picture of what kind of sabbatical we wanted. In the end, the real value wasn’t just in narrowing down locations, but in slowing down enough to plan a journey that felt ambitious but realistic, and right for us.
Updated plan:
