Bill Belew has raised 2 bi-cultural kids, now 34 and 30. And he and his wife are now parenting a 3rd, Mia, who is 8.
Traveling with Dad
I am a food and travel blogger. My website is Munch Passport. Today I am guest blogging at Do over Dad about the lessons I have learnt about traveling from my dad.
My dad has always worked in a job where he was posted in different locations throughout India. Due to which our family moved a lot every time my dad would get transferred. I have gone to some six-seven schools growing up. May be this constant change so early in my life made a traveler today. I am so used to just packing my bag in five minutes and going absolutely anywhere.
One of the things I learnt from my dad is organization. My dad is extremely organized and makes sure he has all documents ready before any trip. Whether the trip is moving our entire house to a new place or whether it is a vacation. He is the one in the family who would make sure we all have our passports, tickets and any other important documents. Because of which I make sure when I travel that I have all documents with me. It has now become a habit and I am so thankful to my dad for inculcating this in us.
My dad also taught me the art of packing suitcases. He is excellent at packing suitcases. He can put so many things in a super organized manner that you can find anything easily and you won’t forget to carry the important basic things. Even when I was coming to the US to study, my dad packed my gigantic bags with every minute things that I may need here. He even made a file for me with all important documents put in an organized manner so that I can find it easily. Now that I travel a lot both for work as well as for leisure, I am very good at packing. I carry one small roller bag but manage to fit in everything in an organized manner. I would have struggled and would have definitely forgotten important stuff if it had not been for my dad’s training.
The other important thing that my dad always made sure we did while on vacation is to always take care of our health. Not to go overboard that we fall sick. He made sure that we eat right and healthy at least one meal a day and drink lots of water and that we get enough sleep. These are some basic things I practice while traveling and I feel my trips are way more pleasant!
Talk to Bill and others about their experiences raising bi-cultural Japanese-American kids.
