Financial Irresponsibility OR A Family that Travels

Dal, Hel and Bel travel. I don't know if you have made a note of it from my blog posts, but we have been (in the past year) to Melbourne, The Great Ocean Road, Alice Springs, Ayers Rock, Hobart (a few times), Canberra, The USA, Brisbane, etc. And we will be flying to the Gold Coast for four days on Saturday.

With all this in front of you, you would be forgiven for thinking that we are far from the poor student family that we claim to be. BUT we ARE a poor student family... that is also travel savvy. Because Dal works in the travel industry, we know when the good deals are on. We know where to look for the great travel deals and when we just happen upon a fantastic deal we take it and then think about the repercussions later - e.g. Our $10 flights to Alice Springs kind of turned into a major holiday, but we only saw the $10 FLIGHTS!!

I realise that to some, this may seem like we are being financially irresponsible. I see it as opportunities taken. We may not be in Australia for much longer and to take the cheaper flights now to see this beautiful country seems to me like the financially savvy thing to do. Then we wont have to fly from the US when we "have the money" and spend thousands more to do the same thing. I also see it as an investment in my family. We get to create wonderful moments as we spend time together without any interruptions from our every day life.

So before the inevitable collective groan arrives at my next travel post, remember that travel is the Petersen THING. That's what we do. There will be time after Dal's phd to settle down and save for a deposit on a house. But we will ALWAYS travel, because travelling is learning and we LOVE to learn.