The Liebster Award nomination

Delighted to be nominated for the Liebster Award by fellow blogger Virginie, a cosmopolitan mum of 3! Virginie is based in Rome and few years ahead of us in keeping the kids tamed and well travelled. It’s been a pleasure to read Travel with my kids articles !  Also thanks a million to Out of Office fellow blogger Sahil for his nomination, double celebrations today 🙂

The Liebster Award? 

Liebster are given to fairly new bloggers by other award winners, in an effort to welcome and recognize up and coming bloggers (“Liebster” in  German meaning “dearest” or “sweetest”). They provide more exposure and build a supportive online community. What are the rules when you accept a Liebster Award? Once nominated, you must write a post thanking your nominator with a link back to his/her site. You will inform readers what the Liebster Award is and answer 11 questions provided to you by your nominator. Then, you nominate your own 11 blogs , providing 11 fresh questions for them to answer.

Here are my answers to Virginie’s 11 questions.

Where are you born and where are you living now? Born in Brasov, Romania. Lived in few cities, including Paris, Oxford, Lille, Bucharest; London based now for over 12 years.

Three words describing yourself. Rebel at heart, travel addict, highly sociable. Ok ok, cheating, not exactly 3 🙂

What is specific about your blog, in a few words? The art and / or stubbornness of travelling with baby and a toddler is meant to demystify travelling with little people, taking oneself or routines too seriously as well as sharing the delights and less fun moments of parenting on the road.

What is your favourite blog post on your site? As they have been all so brilliantly written is difficult to pick…:) perhaps the most topical is 2016 joys and challenges. And a little retrospective 2015: babymoons with a toddler.

What is the longest time you’ve been travelling non-stop, and where? Was it with kids in toe? 2 months during my first pregnancy, volunteering with kangaroos and koalas in Kangaroo island, travelling around Adelaide, Melbourne & Ocean Road solo as well as high school friends; thereafter other half joined in Sydney and we headed to Fiji for a more classical baby moon. No kids in toe but pregnant 13-23 weeks.

Are you more flip-flops or “snow boots”? Probably more flip flops or warmer destinations but loving ski holidays and rigorously making sure we fit at least 1 week of skiing per year. So far with little people we attempted in the winter Poiana Brasov and Chamonix; the list of flip flops with kids in toe much more extensive though 🙂

Plane, bus, bike, car, tuk-tuk, train, boat: what’s your favourite mode of transportation? And what about your kids (if concerned)? I’m not too fussy as long as I am travelling 🙂 Before kids we have done crazy 30 hours bus rides through Guatemala, Belize and Mexico, crossing few borders, luggage on top of a very dodgy bus which has been stopped, controlled few times including dogs as well as suffered various technical repairs on the actual journey 🙂 Now with kids trying to be more sensible about destinations and means of travel; my son loves planes probably the most out of this list.

What was your biggest ‘low’ moment during your travels? Italy managed to drive us crazy few times when our son was 5 weeks and thereafter almost 2 years. Wrote about it in Far from Zen travelling experiences. In a nutshell, we forgot the baby bag in a taxi and despite locating the taxi, we never managed to recover the baby items, my documents or the cash. Rome could be one tricky unfriendly place! Also AlItalia bureaucracy failed us and on one occasion we had to pay again for a last minute ticket! Despite having so many dear Italian friends, we are not fond of Italian services !

Which country has surprised you in a positive way? We loved Balinese people; not sure about the whole country though but in there we came across villages who helped us getting back on the road with our funny rental car stuck in the middle of nowhere after sunset. So sweet, helpful and not willing to take any money – few families came to our rescue ! Also the Balinese we came across whilst wandering around temples, waterfalls and so on – such a delight ! When we travelled with our baby, we also loved UAE, so many sweet Indian and Philippine personnel who went the extra mile and played with the baby for hours and let us enjoyed lunch or breakfast .

What is your favourite travel memory? I love diving and my best memories have been with Taj Exotica Maldives whilst taking our advanced Padi. The most amazing experiences whilst diving 45m deep, experiencing the ‘washing machine’ currents between the atolls, the manta stations and the sharks, our first night dive – all with the most amazing and beautiful dive instructors. With our son, one of the best and most surprising memories was a sunset cruise we have done on the Dalaman Coast – at 2 years, he was hypnotized for a couple of hours by the experience and has been the most behaved and attentive toddler I came across for over 2 hours !

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What is the number one travel on top of your bucket list? Galapagos in a couple of years once the boys are grown up enough to enjoy it. I watched in awe so many documentaries about its wildlife, the turtles, goats, seals, sharks and so on !  And it’s been on our list for so many years but as we didn’t get round of experiencing before kids, we are now waiting for the little ones to be ready 🙂

Still looking to finalize my list for the 11 Nominees! So please get in touch on twitter, fb, bloglovin or email if interested !