It’s official – we have entered the YouTube family vlog world! If you’re new to vlogging – in its simplest form, it’s a video blog. Get it? Video… V…. Blog… Vlog. Ok, I digress. So if you enjoy our blog, we’re hoping you also enjoy our family vlog. The name? Family on Standby. But first (in true Julie Chen fashion), we should explain what the name means as it’s probably not the most intuitive.
Family on Standby
We post articles on this blog about family travel and kid friendly vacation ideas. They are some of our favorite articles to write because we love to travel. But what we haven’t really discussed too much is that we do 99% of our traveling on standby. It basically means we show up to the airport with all our gear in tow: stroller, car seat, bags. But we don’t actually know if we’re going to get on the flight until it’s practically pulling away from the gate. While we’ve gotten pretty efficient at packing with a toddler, it’s still disheartening every time we drive to the airport, make our way through security, and then don’t get a seat. The most obvious question is “why would we do that to ourselves?”.
I work in the airline industry, which makes flying easier on the wallet. The upside is that we get to travel to a lot of really cool places. The downside is that it can be chaotic. Like ‘fly through 4 airports to get from A to B instead of a direct flight from A to B’ kind of chaos. All with a toddler whose favorite activity involves running and climbing. But what’s life without a little chaos?
Why we Started a Family Vlog
A couple reasons, actually. One – it would force us to take some video on vacation and while pictures are great, video memories are super legit. Especially when vlogging is basically a form of organization (I cringe every time I think about organizing all my picture files). And two – before Olivia came along, we were told to hurry up and travel because it’s hard, impossible, stressful, expensive, insert adjective to describe all the reasons not to travel. That kind of talk is enough to scare the pants off anyone. I mean, before Olivia, travel was a huge part of our lives. So, if you take only one thing away from our blog or family vlog, it’s that kids are a reason TO travel, not a reason to avoid it. We don’t stay at the Four Seasons. Olivia has tantrums on the road. She isn’t great at sleeping in hotel rooms. She’s only two, so it’s likely her memories will mostly consist of videos and photos. But the benefits outweigh the costs. We learn and experience new cultures. We’ve made friends while traveling. We hear other people’s stories. We get away from routine. We teach Olivia how to adapt and be flexible. And we do it all as a family.
So we hope you’ll check out our journey and please share with us your own experiences traveling as a family.
