About the Paradise Family’s Travel Blog

The Paradises

As a couple, Will and I first connected over a common love for travel.  Our dating life took us to Mount Kailas, Tibet; Torres del Paine, Patagonia and the ridges near our home in the Colorado Rockies.  Before kids, we traveled close to the ground to interact with locals and revel in the natural landscape. When our first child arrived, we continued to travel internationally. And on with three, then four kids. It was different when they were little, juggling naptimes and diaper changes.  Now that they are all “tweens” we are ready to take advantage of this golden hour of life by homeschooling them around the world.  This travel blog covers our adventures in North America as well as the “Big Trip” that will take us to four continents in twelve months from 8/1/17-8/1/18.

The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.
– St. Augustine

You are in the right place if you want to see real people who are curious and like to have fun.  But we are also people who have bad days and aren’t afraid to be honest. We are NOT well-coiffed or “on trend”.  If you are looking for advice on Disney cruises or large tour groups wearing matching hats, this is not your site.

About Annika

Annika comes from a long line of travelers.  Her great-grandparents traveled from San Francisco to Europe in the 1880’s for her great-grandmother Bessie’s tour as a professional opera singer. Her observations were syndicated, at the time, in the San Francisco Examiner.  When Annika hesitates about keeping a blog, she remembers great-grandmother Bessie.  “If she could do it then, I can do it now.”

Born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, Annika went to the South of Thailand after college with the US Peace Corps and taught English as a Foreign Language, trained English teachers and started income generating projects with the Muslim womens’ groups on the Andaman coast.  Upon returning to California, she worked in refugee resettlement before getting her Master’s in Education from Stanford University. In her summers, she led trips through Thailand, Laos, India and Nepal for a thoughtful student travel company called Where There Be Dragons and learned how to teach through travel. Over the years, Anni has taught middle, high and college level history, creative writing, Spanish and Language Arts before retiring to raise four kids.

As a recovering SAHM, she is relearning how to sleep and finish a thought.  This is her blog although she coerces her other family members – and sometimes friends – to post to it too.  She is always doing some sort of sneaky teaching although her twelve year-old is catching on to her and beginning to roll her eyes.

Annika’s essays have been published in Brain Child Magazine, Outpost, The Tribe, The Bark and Emerging Women blog.  She manages the blog for Bart’s Record Shop. Clips at annikaparadise.com.

Lorna

Lorna (12) loves to swim on our neighborhood summer swim league.  We can’t leave until August because she is swimming at the top of her age group and she wants to finish the season.  She really enjoys reading, skiing, friends, the Hamilton soundtrack and learning to bake.  She plays the viola, basketball and runs track and field.  Lorna walks this beautiful line that straddles iconoclast and compassionate tweener.  She will keep a weekly blog, called “Lorna’s Lens”, fingers crossed.

Kai

Kai (8) is curious if he can watch Patriots football all over the world.  He is just beginning to learn the violin although he has been my most musical child.  He sang songs before he spoke to us in mere words.  He likes puppies and anything with a ball.  He is excited to watch cricket in Nepal, and rugby in New Zealand.

Lucy

Lucy (9) is most excited to see the Great Wall of China.  She is proud to be born in China although she doesn’t remember Cantonese any more.  Lucy loves to read, play her cello and snuggle with her bunny, Hopper.  It is hard to say goodbye to pets. Lucy likes gymnastics and the postal service: writing and receiving letters.  She built a soap box derby car with her grandfather and even added a motor so she can go 5mph.  Watch out.

Pasang

Pasang (22) was never on an airplane before January of 2016 when she flew from Kathmandu to the United States to come live with us and go to university.  Is it possible to co-parent, with a Nepali family and a co-mother with a woman you’ve never met? I’m feeling like it is.  Pasang loves Coldplay, black leggings and coffee shops.  She could write Boulder’s guide to chai.  She is studying Technology, Arts and Media Design at CU Boulder and, I believe, will help create the tech future of Kathmandu Valley while making the world a better place.

We will all miss Pasang.  I include her in my thinking as my fourth child although I didn’t meet her until she was 20.  The other kids refer to her as their sister.  And yet, she is currently a sophomore and will stay in the States to finish up.

Will

Will.  Will.  Although he sports a humble exterior, he’s a rock star on the inside with unshakeable drive and a mission-driven heart.  The majority of his life has been lived outside the box.  Growing up on Cape Cod, he loves his New England sports teams but will never eat fish again.

An entrepreneur by heart, Will started selling clams door to door by age ten.  He worked in Cape Cod kitchens from the time he was fourteen and somehow felt more drawn to the work than the school, so he dropped out his senior year of high school.  He later found his stride at the local community college and then went on to UMass Amherst.  Will then hitch-hiked across the country and spent the next twenty years in California, working first at Real Foods in Noe Valley and then Bread and Circus back in Massachusetts, and finally Whole Foods Market for the rest of his grocery career.  Will was the Regional President for Whole Foods Market for the last ten years of his career.  He “retired” in 2015 and then quickly found himself the President of the Board for his kids’ Waldorf school and bought a small vinyl shop in Boulder, CO, Bart’s Records.

Somewhere, in the midst of his twenties, Will methodically saved up enough to backpack through Pakistan, India, Tibet and Nepal.  He has always been drawn to mountains and hiking and felt most at home in the Buddhist Solu Khumbu area of Nepal.  There he met an abbot named Thapkey Lama and his nephew Lhakpa.  This friendship with Lhakpa and his family is still strong today – Lhakpa’s neice, Pasang, has lived with us for the last year and a half to attend university here in the US.  Our kids call her their sister.  Travel does that kind of thing.

He wears shorts 360 days of the year.  He wore them when he was deposed by the SEC in DC; he wears them when he shovels the driveway in freezing temperatures and even to emcee the annual awards dinners for Whole Foods Market.  He does wear pants for weddings or funerals or if he’s really sick.  Will does not plan to pack any pants.