Travel

The opportunity to travel was one of the reasons Kyle and I were excited about coming to Belgium.  Within a couple of hours we can be in several different countries, just like many of you in the US can be in several different states within a couple of hours.

What makes travel even easier for us is that SHAPE has a couple of organizations that do all the organizing for you.  There is SHAPE Trips and Tours which runs trips on Saturdays and longer ones during school vacations and there is SHAPE Travel Group which runs week day trips.

Trips and Tours offers Saturday day trips  to England, the Netherlands, France, Germany, and Luxembourg.  Typically these trips leave early in the morning and involve a bus ride of 2-4 hours, some structured tour time and some free time to do as one wishes.  During school breaks they organize longer trips - for the Christmas break they are offering a trip to Egypt and during spring break they are offering a trip to a resort near Barcelona.

SHAPE Travel Group is more of a wives' group.  Yes men are allowed but it is typically the women who are free to travel in the middle of the week.  When I went to Versailles I went with this group.  Their upcoming trips are to a spa in Belgium and for shopping in England and in Germany.

It is easy to travel when someone else does most of the work - picking the place, the activity and arranging transportation and driving.  We just pay the money and get on the bus.

While we dreamed of frequent travel, we aren't getting out as much as we'd like for the same reasons many of you don't bop around your neighboring states - you and your kids are busy.  Even so, we are trying to push ourselves to find the time and make the effort - after all Flat Stanley is begging to have his picture taken in front of more landmarks.