Couple Things with Shawn and Andrew - 226 | answering your questions about our trip to paris

Episode Date: August 28, 2024

We took our three kids to the Olympic Games and made a month-long trip out of it where we adventured through France, London and Italy. It was incredible in so many ways and we’re beyond thankful for our time as a family but if you’re a parent out there you know that traveling anywhere with three kids can bring a whole different set of challenges. Overall, our trip was amazing and we wanted to spend this episode answering some of the questions you had for us! We hope you enjoy :)  Love you guys, Shawn and Andrew Thank you to Better Help for sponsoring this podcast! ▶ Visit http://www.BetterHelp.com/eastfam today to get 10% off your first month. Follow our podcast Instagram ▶ https://www.instagram.com/couplethingspod/?hl=en Subscribe to our newsletter ▶ https://www.familymade.com/newsletter Follow My Instagram ▶ https://www.instagram.com/ShawnJohnson Follow My Tik Tok ▶ https://www.tiktok.com/@shawnjohnson Shop My LTK Page ▶ https://www.shopltk.com/explore/shawnjohnson  Like the Facebook page! ▶ https://www.facebook.com/ShawnJohnson Follow Andrew’s Instagram ▶ https://www.instagram.com/AndrewDEast Andrew’s Tik Tok ▶ https://www.tiktok.com/@andrewdeast?lang=en Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Order now. Alcohol and select markets. Product availability may vary by Regency app for details. What's up, everybody? Welcome back to a couple things. With Sean and Andrew. This episode is all about Paris, traveling with kids, traveling the world, and all of the questions that you guys submitted. I think we'll have like three episodes of this because there were so many. We did a screen recording to capture all the questions we got from Instagram is nine minutes long,

and we were scrolling at a quick rate. But for those of you who don't know us or don't know, Sean and I just returned with our three kids who are age five, four, sorry, what am I saying? They're neither of those ages. well I'm rounding up for those of you who don't know please please help me with my kids ages almost five just turned three

and eight months we were overseas in Europe we went to London, Paris and Italy we were over there for three weeks we took them to the Olympics we had some work to do and Sean did a wonderful job as a Yahoo correspondent for the Olympics

but we were gone for so long we obviously had to bring our kids we had some amazing memories so this episode It's going to be some questions about our experience, but also questions about what it was like traveling with kids. Thank you for submitting the questions. There is an episode specific to traveling with kids on planes, trains, and automobiles around the world.

So make sure you look for that one coming up. But this is also just kind of all-encompassing from the trip itself. This would be fun. This will be a good way to capture our experience just for us, our personal documents. Okay, first up, ready? Yeah. It says, rate the countries, we have visited an order from best to worst.

Let's start with this trip. So we had England, France, and Italy. I would say, for my personal opinion, I would say with kids. Let's go three, two, one. Okay. We each alternate. In third place, France. France.

Second place, England. Italy. First place, Italy. um why i don't know england is so similar to what we have here it's so livable it's comfortable we had a great we were only there for three days yeah the weather was perfect our itinerary was great our accommodations were awesome so it was tough to be for sure i would say i agree with all of that england was amazing it was very easy i would say it's a great place to start for beginners if you're looking for a place to go with kids um but aren't wanting to venture out of culture too much. I will say Italy had a culture that it was definitely harder to get around with kids and not

super kid friendly in the sense of navigating. It's steep terrain. There's lots of steps. Cobblestone. It's tight. It's like busy with people. However, the food is amazing. The culture loves children. That was really fun. So you felt very welcomed and people would really help accommodate you and your family. So I think that made it made the hard. ship of it you know easy easier I feel like we could

we felt like we could live in England we felt like tourists in Italy and we felt like foreigners in France you know that's kind of how I describe it I will say Paris was amazing the Olympics were amazing they pulled out all the stops

for everyone there but I will say overall the culture of France was harder you could definitely tell they weren't a fan of foreigners as much as much which is totally fine but i i did feel like i was imposing rather than welcome number two most beautiful locations to visit in paris oh my gosh everywhere was beautiful

the architecture and buildings they have are really iconic i'm a big fan of that um that was really cool to see the louvre the louvre is insane even the roof you're like wow that is beautiful it's like slate i know it's not technically in paris but versailles oh my god Gosh, talk to me. The gardens, the palace were absolutely stunning. The gardens were unlike anything I'd ever seen in life. I would highly recommend that. The Eiffel Tower.

To see the sin from a boat's perspective was insane. I would definitely do that if you're ever in Paris. Montmartre. Oh, my, dude, we had a great time in Paris. Yeah, we did. Montmart is like a basilica. That's what it's called. Basilica, which is kind of like a cathedral.

and it's just surrounded by just a bunch of cool stuff the basilica itself is insanely beautiful yeah and you have a great view yes they have these bridges that have like the most amazing entrance that are like

yeah there's one iconic bridge I can't remember the name of it but it was like the yeah it was oh Art de Tronf Nice Oct de Tron You tried. I dried.

Yeah. I think that covers it pretty good. Yeah. The parks, such a small thing, but like so beautiful. We were really impressed with the parks in Paris.

Great for kids. Honestly, within like a 10-minute walk of our house, there was four parks. Yeah. We went to each and every one of them. They all had...

Carousel. Carousels. They all had great playground, space for the kids to run. It kind of reminds me of L.A. and how it's set up. Like, you wake up in the morning and you're looking at, like, rooftops,

and then there's, like, beautiful parks and places to go that are all walkable. Yeah. Okay, next, do we have picky eaters? Yes. And were the kids cool with the food from other countries? I really don't think we had an issue here.

I agree. They're picky in the sense of, like, they're normal toddlers. I feel like when they were younger, like bears age, they'll eat anything. Jet is less picky than Drew. Drew's the pickiest because I think her age

just they get into like the snack phasing but we found plenty of food in all the places we also make sure to go to grocery stores wherever we are to pick up like fresh fruit and crackers and bars and just things where if they really get hungry

they'll have something that they can eat. Yeah we mentioned this in our main channel YouTube video of touring our apartment Um, the products they have there are either the same that we have in the U.S. So the kids like that or very comparable. We got like kind bars. Yeah.

And they love that. Uh, they have pretty much like the same cereals. So the kids enjoyed, we don't usually eat cereal for breakfast, but they liked doing that. And then I will say for the most part, all the restaurants were really accommodating. In Paris, it was a lot of like, they had Caesar salads. They had french fries. They had grilled chicken. They had kind of anything that, you know, you would eat here.

And then in Italy, it was so easy with the kids because they will live off of pasta and pizza. I'll say this. And this is not like one is better than the other because I think the U.S. food is really distinct and has so many wonderful qualities about it. The way they make food in Europe is different than the way they make it here. They have like a grading system on it from 80s. Aida E, I think. In Paris.

It tells you how healthy it is. I lost over nine pounds in our three weeks there, just because I think the preservatives are different. We ate so much pasta and pizza, so many carbs. And you walk everywhere. We had dessert every night. We drink wine. It just felt so clean. Yeah.

The taste probably isn't as spectacular as what you're used to in the U.S., you know, like full in some ways. Yeah. But you could tell it was better. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. Anyway, we could talk about the European food a lot.

But we'll go on to the next question, which is, what is one memory you hope your kids will remember from the trip? I have mine. Okay. Hit it. There is this really cool moment in Italy towards the end of the trip where we're all getting tired. We're missing home. We had a chef that night who made the most amazing. dinner and was so kind to our kids

but after dinner was over we went out into our yard at our Airbnb and we were playing tag and our kids were just like the happiest they had ever been the sunset was like out of a movie you could see the whole like the Mediterranean

sea we had it was just I felt like I was in a movie and to hear them belly laughing giggling to see it was just the best moment. I feel passionate about this

that I hope the memory they take away is the dance parties we had in the kitchen. And I'm passionate about this because obviously it's ridiculous and so rare

to be able to take your whole family at such a young age to Europe. It was such a unique thing that we got to do. We had work over there. It worked out really well for us. but I really believe that if you can be you know happy and and present and intentional in the playroom with your kids that's what matters the most and like those are memories that I'll take away specifically for myself I think what's unique about traveling is it kind of takes you out of your normal routine

so as opposed to you know like whatever getting consumed with household chores that you need to do while you're not traveling like you're kind of on vacation which puts you in a different kind of set of routines but I don't think it's like it's not going to be wow they remember the Apple Tower no it's like we had such a good time together I hope that's what they remember it's just our giggles on the plane that was friggin's gold dude all right next uh did you end up having to buy formula in Paris yes and it actually worked out really well. So I packed like a couple boxes of formula to take over, flew over perfectly fine, went through customs, nobody asked a single thing. They actually...

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Presale tickets for future events subject to availability and vary by race. and conditions apply learn more at mx.ca slash y annex recognized it like in my carry-ons and stuff they're like oh yeah yeah please keep it even bottles filled with water if it was like for the kids they let me take it on it was interesting um but then over there i just used the french website formula website so instead of like dot us it was dot fr and i ordered enough for the whole trip and it came within a day it was really easy um one thing that i started using in our travels that i'd never used before was a vpn i'm saying this because like the e-commerce experience shopping online is different even watching youtube or we were trying to watch the olympics we downloaded a vpm which is

super easy to use and you've you didn't even know what this is no it essentially just tells the internet that your computer is located somewhere that it's not i don't i think it's like it's like having your own private server is i'm not the guy to ask this is way over my head anyway you can get a similar e-commerce experience by using that interesting that's what i have to say about that okay so look into that if you're traveling and having trouble um next up do you find most places you went to were toddler friendly um not really the metro in France I'll tell you that much yeah that was crowded I will say in London I don't feel like we were ever you know out a place with kids the cabs in London are amazing oh my gosh they're big enough to bring two strollers in

six people sit so nice so easy yes accommodating in France things didn't feel as toddler friendly I remember the guy that almost got to fight with Jet on the freaking train because Jet had his two, his legs were too short so his feet were sticking out on the seat like straight out and this guy walks on the train and bumps into Jet's legs and it's a grown man looked at Jet like he was going to fight him I was like I almost fought him

and the lady who was so upset that we had that we were taking too long to walk yeah I felt oh my I forgot about that she was not happy she's like cussing us out in french um toddler friendly in italy yes and i don't know how to explain this more other than places in italy that don't feel toddler friendly by like how they look or the access are made toddler friendly because of the people they will go above and the like above and beyond to make your kids feel welcome we had so many people who wanted to like who literally were like taking bear out of my

arms to like while i was eating dinner not because i asked them not because i looked like i needed it they just said oh can i hold him while you eat or they're just so accommodating and love kids and it just wasn't that way in france um kids aren't as like common around there yeah yeah But I wonder, like, Italy, we went to a tourist destination. Paris is like a city. It's like hustle and bustle city, you know? That's a tourist location. Yeah.

I guess you're right. It's more like, it's not like a beach, though. So I guess I'll grow my empathy there. But, yes, toddler-friendly. Take your kids. Our pace that we moved at was incredibly slow. Some people had patience for that. Some people didn't.

Like, you know, the kids want to get in the stroller. They want to get out of the stroller. They want to get this under the stroller. stroll or they want to you're just moving slower yeah you know next would you recommend a hotel or Airbnb and why under the age of five an Airbnb over the age of five a hotel I say this under the age of five I feel like you need more excessive immediately accessible space to like bedrooms kitchen you need to like make bottles or food or there's just more nuances for kids over the age of five kids can go longer periods of time without like needing to go back to the room to nap or they can go they're like more potty trained and able to use public toilets and don't need diapers and so hotels are easier they can share beds and you don't have to worry about it as much you get the towel service it's clean yeah that's the pro of a hotel another pro of the hotel is usually a location is like more central yeah I guess

that can also be a con though because if you're looking to get like the real local experience and Airbnb gets that for you I think if you have a party bigger than four so we have we have three kids at this point like you're either going to have to get a second hotel room which is not really ideal that's when an Airbnb I think makes sense when you have a larger group yeah or a lot of kids so so the way we did it we had a hotel room in London um but we we we We did three connecting rooms, pretty much. In Paris and in Italy, we did Airbnb's. Downside with Airbnb is you kind of don't really know what you're getting until you get there.

With the hotel, you usually understand there's like, I think, more comprehensive reviews and just like a lower range of possibilities. And it's more helpful. So like with a hotel, if you get into your hotel late at night and you need food, you can just order food. you can just order food. Airbnb, you cannot. So there's more planning involved with an Airbnb, but I do think for younger kids, Airbnb's are better.

Yeah, we're definitely in the Airbnb stage. Yeah. Next, what would you change about the food there? Oh, another food question. Actually, I was really, I think I personally matured from the first time we went to Europe. I remember being like, oh, I don't want to eat this for, like tomatoes for breakfast. Yeah. Or they have a lot more savory type of foods in a lot of ways.

especially for breakfast, which is one of my favorite meals. And I think I didn't really enjoy that the first time around. This time, I was way more excited to, like, eat the local dishes. I think I've expanded my understanding of an appreciation of that. I don't think I would change anything. I missed broccoli. I missed some green food and eggs. Those were very hard to come by, those two things.

But it's also a different. culture like we didn't have a problem with the food i i also feel like they're way more they have way more vegetarian entrees in some ways in the like they have a bunch of like eggplant dishes especially in france squash zucchini whereas i feel like it's more meat based here yeah which is fine i actually kind of enjoyed that yeah it a lot of eggplant but we're not super into fancy food too and i feel like that's the temptation is when you're traveling to frant or paris it's like oh there's all these Michelin Star restaurants. We don't really enjoy that experience.

It sounds good in theory, but not in practice. You got the next one. Where did we stay in Italy? So we stayed in this little town called Termini, and it's a little bit southeast of Sorrento, but it was pretty remote, very small, authentic local town, not touristy. And then we would drive up to Sorrento,

we drove to Pasatano, We drove to Narano and stayed in Termini, which was great. Yeah. A lot of zigzaggy roads. So even though you're two miles away, it's going to take you 20 miles or 20 minutes to get to Sorrento. It was kind of on top of a ridge. So we got a sweet 360 view. Sean mentioned the sunset.

It was awesome. I think the management group was called Feeling Italy. So you could probably check out their website. They have a ton of property. Yeah. And they did a good job with having services, like cooking classes or, chefs that could and they were very responsive yeah that was great um next up did we plan the whole trip ourselves or did i use a travel agent Sean this is Sean's superpower one of them I love doing this stuff

so I planned it um this was this was a rare trip where I did consult a travel agent for Italy only because I had to plan so much around London and Paris for the Olympics everything I just got tired by the time. We were also so torn on where to go in Italy. I know. Because we were bouncing around. Mallorca, it... Well, that's in Spain, but yeah.

I know. Yeah. But we were bouncing around whether we go to Spain or Italy. Majorca, Mediterranean, Amalfi. Do we go back to Rome or whatever? Orchigal, yeah. And we had landed on Sorrento and ended up finding an Airbnb close to Sorrento. Because the reason why I chose Termini this Airbnb was...

after being in Paris for so long in London with our kids where I knew we were going to be in an apartment not have access to a pool or water which is like their favorite thing in the whole entire world I knew when we went to Italy I wanted to have access to a pool and a yard

finding that you have to go outside the city yeah so you use a travel agent just to find the place we were going to stay but we planned all the activities and the itinerary outside of that so we use Viator for experiences had such a blast. We did one literally in every city we went.

Yeah. Every two or three days we did a different one. And they're great. You could filter it by duration, ratings, whatever you want to do. And it's in every city that you go to. It's the only place I use anymore for booking experiences. And we plan our day kind of in the morning window,

pre-afternoon nap and afternoon window. Yeah. And so we kind of have like two parts of the day. So we usually only have one activity a day that we consume one of those two windows with. The other one will hang out. Try to just take it slower. Yeah.

Either enjoy our evening or have a slow morning. Did you and Andrew get any alone time? This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Andrew and I have a non-negotiable date night every single Thursday. But when our schedule is packed with kids' activities, big work projects, and more, it's easy to let priorities slip. Even when we know what's most important,

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Yeah, we had a naked time. Oh, my gosh. Is that specifically what they're... That's not what that was asking. I just won It was like We went to work events together Yeah

So it wasn't quite date night Andrew and I also got to go to Turks and Kikos Right before this trip For four nights by ourselves Which was amazing We kind of expected that for this trip though Not having time together We knew it was going to be a work trip

And we really wanted to concentrate All of our time that we had free With the kids So No we didn't really get any alone time but we kind of planned it that way yeah i really have felt not having date night too same it's like not good we went three weeks with no date night like we're not good i don't feel like i feel like there is a lot of things emotionally which is like you got to search for it and dig for

those things that we need to catch up on you know yeah there's a lot of good yes yeah there's a lot of and planning that we talked about and that's what all like the work trip was is like oh do we got to do this we got to talk to this person to respond to them it wasn't like yeah

how's your relationship with this friend or whatever you know we also had a hard time planning any alone time because of the amount of time we are taking for work and putting on my mom Griffin and Andrew's mom

to watch the kids yeah so like asking them on top of that can and i go on a date night it just didn't feel right at the time yeah you got the next one okay do we feel like a month was too long to be away no so it was right at three weeks we were gone i feel like it was perfect the kids thrive dude yeah and i think at the end of any trip you're ready to be home no matter if it's yeah three nights or three weeks so the last couple days we were like kind of itchy but uh no we had such a good time such a good time yeah i think it allowed us to like it allowed the kids to get fully acclimated to truly be sleeping good in a new

routine you like a big fuzz on the end of your nose thank you um and it just made it like a true go experience a different culture it felt like we were living in a different city. Yeah. Which is great. Yeah. As opposed to actually having to live in a different city. We just stay in Nashville.

Yeah. Tinker around and experiment elsewhere. Yeah. Were there any days you felt totally overwhelmed? You always seem so up and it blesses me. Yes. The travel days. Oh, there were tears from everybody.

I think everybody cried on the trip. Yeah. Yes. We had a couple of hard times where we felt totally overwhelmed. I felt totally overwhelmed when Andrew when Jet got sick because that's when I felt the most away from home where I didn't have immediate access to like

our doctors, our resources, our hospitals so that really kind of shook me and then travel days are also always hard because you're getting reacclimated you're packing everything back up and it just makes it feel stressful and not super enjoyable Yeah, you're like a Sherpa.

You're just carrying bags, luggage. Kids. It's a lot. You're sweating. It's freaking... What about you? Yeah, overwhelmed. Jet and I got stuck on a train for 16 hours

when we thought it was only going to be a two-hour ride. And there was just a lot that happened. And I don't get overwhelmed. If it was just me, it would have been totally fine. But I have a three-year-old here who doesn't have the same perspective or bandwidth as I do and you just want the guy to be able to I don't know like you want to

make him comfortable which sounds weird but like you just want to make sure he's okay so that was a little overwhelming situations where I didn't feel like we could provide that must seas in Paris and skips in Paris I feel like for size a must see like Louvre could be a pass yeah

you don't need to go in the Louvre We walked in the courtyard I know but remember when we did the Louvre Like if you're really into art You should go see the Louvre Let's talk about with kids From a family perspective Yeah

Skip the Louve at all costs if you have kids But Versailles there's so much room to run around Yeah The River Cruise I think is a must do The Eiffel Tower I think was a must Yeah again a lot of room to run around But I also will say For us with kids for the Eiffel Tower

shockingly for the Olympics the Eiffel Tower was dead there was nobody yeah it really was so if it was like a super long line I would pass with kids back to the overwhelm question I think like when we plan the activities and choose you know the Viator stuff

try to get a spot that's not too crowded that's not going to require efficiency or like be on a tight time schedule because I think we've gotten better at understanding we just move slower there's unpredictables is there a restroom readily available is there snacks so the Eiffel tower has snacks on the base level the second level yeah is there yeah is a room to do the elevator or the stairs are there seats and AC around like we kind of you kind of think about all this stuff to prevent overwhelm how do you deal with the mental load of motherhood

on vacations hmm that's a good question I honestly thought we did a really good job of that, this trip. Like, I felt like we had a lot of really good quality time with the kids. I don't feel like there were massive frustrations or explosions with, like, the kids being kids. Some of that comes with reps. I think some of that's alleviated with planning. I think when there was that mental load. stress it was when things weren't as planned as you wanted them to be yeah but you did a great job

expectations oh here's an overwhelmed this is a lesson learned from both ander and I uh managing expectations we booked on the way there an overnight flight thinking oh gosh super easy kids will sleep we'll get there you know and we set our expectations at that and it was one of the hardest flights of our life because they didn't sleep and we were in this panic mode as parents are like they have to sleep they have to sleep instead of just being like they're not going to sleep let's give it up so that was an overwhelmed i think like managing your expectations of go at the flow figured out afterwards it's going to be fine um but i think that kind of reset the tone for the whole trip for me yeah next what did you learn about yourself or your family on this long trip

that our kids are freaking amazing I'm so proud of them we it was so fun because I think we each got individual time with each of the kids so like Drew I just learned about her she's she takes a little longer to open up but on this trip she was like more prone to dancing and she wanted to dance with me and she was more prone to like want to sit down and tell me about what she's excited about which is adorable and that doesn't happen necessarily in the normal routine at home with jet it was like just to see his boyhood imagination and passion and like oh honestly it's kind of nostalgic to hear him share all these ideas to see the warmth that he creates around him and like how he feels he makes adult feel welcome and like no matter

what language they spoke they responded to his smile and wave that he said that he gave everyone with bear it's like that dude is so chill and freaking cute and like just along for the ride yeah he they're also impressive and then i think there was this aura of team that was developed and the kids even said that to me each drew and jet said dad we're team and it's like yeah we are and That I think only came from the newness of the context that we were in. But I also love that we're teaching that because, like I said, kids love to be included. They're very used to us going after work. They're very used to us going on work trips.

They're very used to, like, mommy and daddy have their things and we have our things. But I think seeing the kids feel so special being so included and it be the normal there was. Really cool. Yeah. And then to have Sean's mom and mom on there to, like, tie in all these kind of family legacy and lore stories was really special. So like, hey, you know, dad and I went to Paris and, like, all those things, I think actually have a really big effect. You got the next one. Do we feel like we overpacked or underpacked?

I don't know. We went through all of our stuff. I think we had 12 bags total, including. including carry-ons. So we checked seven bags and then we each had like a carry-on. I had my backpack. I'm counting.

For three weeks with sound machines, formula, shoes, all your fancy event stuff. Hold on. So between the five of us, between you, me, and the three kids, we had two strollers. We had four suitcases,

three big ones and a carry-on, and two backpacks. So what is that? Eight. Yeah. I feel like maybe overpacked a little bit. It was unique because of the work situation. But not by much.

But not by much. You did an elite job. Like we went through all the kids' clothes multiple times. Yeah. No, I think it was pretty good. There were some stuff like we thought we were going to wear more Olympic themed clothing. So I brought like a jacket. But that was pretty much the only thing I didn't wear.

And we did bring a few, like, fancy outfits just in case we had, you know, we said yes to more events, but we didn't use them. I don't know. Yeah. You did a great job. Kudos to you, babe. Thank you. Next, favorite meals that you ate in France and Italy. There's this local restaurant in Italy that we had the best pasta at.

Yeah. It was also after the travel day, so that makes things automatically more satisfying. we had this insane pizza that had flavors I'd never tasted before yeah yeah and then in France what was our favorite French I would just say the French baguettes oh we bought a baguette every single day

from like a local market yeah and it was incredible okay Disney Paris was it worth it is it better than ones in U.S Hot take? Is it better than the ones in the U.S.? No. Was it worth it?

No. It was worth it. I'm glad we went, and I'm not itching to go back. I'm glad we went, but if I am giving someone advice as far as, like, where to spend your money,

it would not be Disneyland Paris. I agree. It would be Disney World, Florida, if you're going to do a Disney, and use your money somewhere else in Paris. If you're looking to, have shorter lines though but that's because the Olympics you don't know

yeah you're right it was like a French holiday when we went and it was rainy and it was boring so there were like almost no lines but I would have been curious I've heard the Paris zoo was great for the kids

an aquarium but we didn't do those so maybe those would do better than Disney but some people like the idea of going to all the Disney worldwide so true in the sense to say that there were some unique things the food there i liked their little food huts they were cute yeah it's a different experience but oh the um this is my favorite memory from disney oh my gosh the Disneyland Paris parade oh yeah hands down the best Disney parade it was great it was really great it was really great it was

worth it to compare and contrast it with Disney World Orlando yeah it was not better though than Disney World Orlando yeah I think that's our dog standing outside the room is he trying to come in um all right next why did you travel with the kids and not just Andrew way too long we will never be away from our kids that long we got invited to do an epic game show which we very much do want to do it's a bucket list item for us where maybe you kind of like go around the world as fast as you can and we turned it down because it's too long from the kids that look we're in a phase with these young kids that there's such drastic change happening so quickly we don't want to miss a single second up you go away from us eight month old

for two weeks you come back to a whole different kid and it's like there's no reason for us to do that yeah the longest we have been away from our kids is four nights five days Turks yeah yeah and we understand that traveling with kids is more stressful, but also it's worth it. Yeah. Like, there's no question about that. Yeah. Next.

Okay. Please tell me more about hiring a chef. That looked amazing. We found the contact. We asked our, like, the property manager of our Airbnb if they had any contacts to chefs, just asking, and then seeing what the prices were. And it actually was pretty common in Italy, where people would come and make traditional Italian dishes.

The price was not that much more than eating a normal. dinner? Nope. I would just always recommend reaching out to your Airbnb person or asking well, no, Viator has it too. We didn't went through the Airbnb one through the Viator and so check that out. Yeah. Next. Was there was being there more or less expensive than you thought? We had an exorbitant amount of charges on our on our credit card. But we I think kind of budgeted that in a little bit like we always

this is what we're doing we have a budget and then we have a added miscellaneous cushion above that that we budget in I think we did that there were some hiccups like buying the tickets

to the event that ended up we charged a card like six times for one pair of tickets that doesn't ultimately but go ahead I'll say this

it was not any more expensive than I thought and we had budgeted for with the exception like remove Olympic tickets. Yeah. So take Olympic tickets out of it. It was not more or less expensive than we thought.

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Yeah, not more or less expensive. Olympic tickets were astronomical. Yeah. Shockingly expensive to the point where like... Hurt your feelings a little bit. I was appalled. Yeah. We were in like the nosebleed section for the gymnastics.

event because we bought them last minute and it was very expensive dumb yeah but man we racked up the Uber bill maybe that was unnecessary just because it was like

it's close to bedtime we knew the kids home let's take an Uber we could have walked but let's take an Uber so we actually did a good job talking about all this and I think that's what helped with this trip with the mom what was the earlier one motherhood load

was just the planning that went into it. We set a budget and I expected it. It was good. I did not mean to talk about you. I'm doing that all the time to you, so I apologize to. If Sean and I seem a little out of sorts because we landed 12 hours ago.

Yeah, about 12 hours ago back from this trip. So we're, and we leave for New York tomorrow because we have work to do. It's great. All right, next. Did you have a driver or walk everywhere? at what point in your life do you have like a driver you know like you got a driver

we had an Uber we don't have a driver we average probably 11,000 steps a day at least yeah and we also Ubered quite a lot but we did not have a driver yeah did we feel safe when we were there we did we also planned for that that was a huge part we literally had a safety briefing

this is part of our planning we have a lot of friends in who work in safety. I'll say that. And this is something that does not come naturally to me is I probably overly trust people naturally. And so this is actually a good exercise for me to like, hey, let's get, let's make sure we know where the USNBC is

in each country we go to. Let's get the contact of all these people, punch them in your phone. Let's, whatever. Like we went through a step-by-step thing, which maybe it's worth sharing at some point. But I will say a couple of things that I did that I guess kind of prepared me, kind of didn't prepare me, was I called our pediatrician before I left asking if they knew about the health care system in these countries, if they had any advice if our kids got ear infections or if there were prescriptions I could travel with, that kind of thing. I also was advised to look up where a local hospital was,

which really didn't help. And you also just, like, share your location with people who are back home. But, yeah, I did feel really safe when I was there. Yeah. In all countries. In Paris, there was, like, two doors that each had codes. It was good. It was a good setup there.

But the whole feeling of feeling safe, I think planning goes a long way, even though it's like, you could look up the hospital on Google Maps whenever something happens, but maybe you don't have service. That was a big thing for us is the service was so spotty. We didn't get like the international plan. So you're like just knowing where it is conceptually really helped.

Have our kids recovered from the sickness they got over there? Yes. Sean freaking crushed it. She spent a whole day chasing this dog. doctor and medication down you took care of our family i appreciate that our kids were sick but they're good now um did their culture seem to embrace kids or was it quote every family for themselves kind of mentality like the u.s. London felt communal. Italy felt fun and welcoming France felt more but it's again it's a it's a different city like it's more of a if it means anything I read

this on every blog where it said like traveling with kids to France is not really encouraged yeah it felt like every family for themselves I will say Paris gave off a very like Michelin star restaurants very romantic very adult very sophisticated high fashion material like it was very um elite so you didn't really have many opportunities to I feel like, oh, let my kids just run wild. Or like, when you're in a restaurant and the kids are throwing French fries everywhere, you don't feel super great about it. Yeah.

Whereas in Italy is like... Hit pause on whatever you're listening to and hit play on your next adventure. This fall get double points on every qualified stay. Life's the trip. Make the most of it at Best Western. Visit bestwestern.com for complete terms and conditions. You know, we're trying to clean up and everyone's laughing and the waiters come over and talk to us yeah yeah and as you're all cleaning up the french fries yeah but it's

good it's it's kid friendly but it's not it doesn't feel super family oriented yeah you know because the parks really are great yeah you could thrive there as your own family yeah but even in the parks i felt like quiet like our kids were like screaming and people were quiet people give us a lot of parenting advice in France people would give like drive-by tips like hey don't do that with your kid it's like thank you thanks uh anyway yeah it was like sprinkling not even misting one day and i was carrying bear and a like older lady stopped us and was so concerned she's like you have to put the baby in the stroller it's like we have 20 feet to our door and we're like thank you yeah Sean and I also kind of adhere to free range parenting is what we'll call it

And that's not really welcomed or understood everywhere. So our kids, they have a good time. You know? Next. Would you ever put together a full travel itinerary of what you did so you could go back and do it again? Well, we do have a full travel itinerary. We can share it with you, everything we did. But to use it to go back and do it again,

Andrew and I, I think you would agree with me, are not repeat vacationers. we will probably never go back there was there's been one place ever in the world that we've been that we're like

we should come back here where say it Turks yeah yeah and then for us as a couple

we've been to well we won't say it we won't need to say the name in East Tennessee oh absolutely but we're we like new experiences

yeah yeah And we have, Sean did an awesome job. I don't know how long in that itiner is. I'm going to guess 30 pages of what we did. Shout out to Lexi. Yeah. And then.

We're taking all of my ideas and thoughts and bookings and putting them on. We even have that from when we went to Europe in 2018. So, let us know if you want us to share that. Next, was the language barrier difficult? Honestly, not that bad with the technology we have. And I mentioned that I want to share all the useful apps that we had, but like even calling a car with Uber is such a different experience than waiting on a curb and trying to call a taxi or waiting a taxi line trying to get it or you know we have we have a couple translator apps

that really helped and so anytime you're really in a pinch you just like type it in it translates it to the language you show the screen to the other person that worked out great um I don't know I really didn't never feel like it was it was a restrictive thing I think we live in a day in age where it's like there are so many things to help with that that it didn't feel restrictive. I also, I'm pretty hyped about these. I got these fancy glasses that the Rayban meta things, I'm pretty sure it's the future. But you could look at it, a sign that's written in a different language and say, tell me what this says in English. And it just does it, like, without a, even a hiccup. I used them the night that Jet was sick, and I used them to read French

medication. It's insane. Yeah. Last. what did we miss most about being home our coffee probably honestly yeah nash nashy couldn't bring our dog we missed that guy yeah i really felt this was kind of a pivotal thing a pivotal trip for us because i felt like it really molded us together in a unique way like we're always with school and activities and friends and the you know the normal stuff that happens when you're in a beautiful community like we are here in Nashville but I felt like it was no we are this is our unit and it kind of strengthened that in a cool way I think it also solidified the idea that we had of we want to spend summers traveling you and I have talked about before kids wanting to like live abroad for

a while or live somewhere else and this kind of checked off a lot of passions that we have yeah of being together, traveling and visiting different cultures, not buying into just like the one city mentality for life all year around. Yeah. Taking our kids with us. I also feel like in the U.S., you kind of know how things work. You're used to it. Like, you know, how good or bad your cell phone service is at home.

In Europe, it was like, I can't look up anything, you know? No. Or even watching TV. It's like you got your normal. channels or the movies whatever there's like just the little comforts are love that yeah it was really magical but anyway that's we'll wrap it there for today stay tuned for more episodes because we'll be answering more questions about the olympics travel there was so many questions but this was a long enough episode so um also if you made it this far like comment and subscribe please

wherever you're listening and that's it we'll see you next time i'm andrew i'm sure peace