Choosing the Kid’s First Trans-Atlantic Adventure

While Sarah and I travel quite a bit, most of our trips last a week or less. We can usually only manage one (slightly) longer trip each year. We’ve always tried to fit in a proper adventure during that longer trip, be it a safari in Namibia, a volcano trek in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a pig roast in Micronesia or a wedding in Croatia. Of course, this year we have a new travel buddy… and the kid complicates things.

If you follow the blog, you know that we’ve already done a couple trial runs with baby E to Puerto Rico and Curacao. Now it was time to plan a summer journey across the Atlantic. We set our sights on Europe since we both have a fair bit of experience on the continent, and it seemed like a manageable region to explore with a six month-old baby. Naturally, my own obsession with visiting new countries limited our options, but there were still several contenders vying for our baby’s first European adventure. 

The Ambitious Plans of a Man with No Baby:

I set about brainstorming options while baby E was still in the oven. The destinations at the top of my list were relatively obscure islands in the middle of the Atlantic. One dream was/is to combine the Azores with Cabo Verde. Both island chains were once Portuguese colonies. In the second half of the 20^thcentury the Azores was absorbed by Portugal, while Cabo Verde, which is located just off the coast of Senegal, opted for independence. Unfortunately, the more I looked into the logistics, the more impractical the trip began to seem, particularly given the poor service record of Azores Airlines, the cheapest and most frequent airline linking the islands with North America. Who wants to deal with frequent flight delays when packing a six month-old?

The other dream location was the Faroe Islands, a sparsely inhabited Danish constituent country located in the north Atlantic roughly equal distance between Iceland, Scotland and Norway. Think Iceland without all the tourists. Better yet, they use state subsidized helicopters to transport people between the islands! The downside is that all the itineraries I could find from Nashville necessitated four flights and over 24 hours of travel. I still held out hope, but Sarah was doubtful.

The Reassessed and restrained optimism of a new father:

By February, baby E had arrived, and it really began to sink in that life, as I knew it, had drastically changed. In 2017 our big trip included several days in Pohnpei, Micronesia. That particular destination required four planes, a touchdown on the Chuk Atoll, and lengthy layovers in Guam, Honolulu and Denver to get home. It was a horrible 36 hours of traveling (which started in the middle of the night by the way), but it was worth it. Sometimes you have to suck it up to go somewhere interesting. 

At the end of 2018, I knew that we would need to alter our travel style, but grand trips beyond the fringes of mainstream tourism still seemed possible. Now I had a fragile newborn who screamed at me every time she needed to burp or fart. That trip to the Faroes began to look like a pretty silly idea, and god knows what I was thinking with Cabo Verde.

The more sensible planning of a family man:

So, far-flung island adventures in the Atlantic are temporarily tabled. It was time to set some travel criteria: no more than one connection and less than 15 hours of total travel time. When combining those restrictions with my desire to visit a new country in Europe, three potential trips jumped to the forefront. 

Northern Spain and Andorra

Andorra is a micro nation squeezed in between the Spanish and French Pyrenees. It seems to be known for its duty-free stores and skiing, but as an independent state it would allow me to check a new country box. We looked at flying into Barcelona, renting a car and spending the majority of our time in Basque country with a two-night pit-stop in Andorra for some hiking. The issue is that tourists have swamped Barcelona in recent years, and value flights from Nashville (in cash or points) to Spain were pretty thin on the ground for August. 

Vienna and Slovakia 

Another viable option was to fly Austrian Airlines into Vienna, then make our way though Slovakia. I last visited Austria in 2003 and loved it. Sarah has never been, and Slovakia would be new to both of us. The trip I laid out would require a lot of time in the car, though. At this point our wee one had taken to screaming every instant that she was in a car seat. Also, Vienna can get hot in August. I certainly don’t want to leave the horrid summer heat of Nashville to go to someplace with equally crap weather. 

Belgium and Luxembourg

Belgium and Luxembourg were the final contenders, but they started off on the back burner. I’d been to Brussels for a night back in 2011, so I had a weak claim on visiting Belgium. Luxembourg was new, but I had always associated that country with a high on-the-ground price tag. Three things pushed me into booking the flight, though:

1. The distance between southeastern Luxembourg and northwestern Belgium is roughly equivalent to the distance between Nashville and Memphis. During our kitchen remodel back in 2017 we took several day trips to the Ikea in Memphis… not so bad.
2. While much of Europe gets crowed and expensive in August due to inter-European tourists, Brussels and Luxembourg City are major government and financial centers. They actually get cheaper due to the dip in business travelers. 
3. Then I checked the average temperature in the region during August. The high is 74. Hot damn we have a destination. 

In Conclusion

I booked the flight using United MileagePlus and then started to research what to do over there. Do you know what Belgium and Luxembourg have in spades? Beer, fried food, chocolate and castles. How is this place not at the top of everyone’s radar? More to come…