Would you take your young family on a “Crazy Gap Year”?

My Family's Crazy Gap Year

Last night I stumbled across a new series on Channel 4 called “My Family’s Crazy Gap Year“. Each week they feature a family with young children who have decided to take time out to travel and see the world.

This first episode featured the Willmotts who spent an entire year travelling round the world with their three children age 12, 9 and 6. They travelled through Pakistan, the Himalayas (trekking up to base camp), Mongolia where they spent three weeks living and working with a local family, they met the Dalai Lama and even lived with a remote tribe deep in the Papua rainforest.

As a parent of two young children myself, I thought they were pretty brave!  But despite the risks of travel to such remote destinations, the language barriers, the long distances and, at times, difficult conditions, the children seemed mostly upbeat and extremely keen to absorb the experience.

I’m sure there were many moments (probably off-camera) when the children had had enough. I am sure they had their fair share of tantrums, moods and sulks! But the programme left me with a renewed desire to take my children travelling somewhere exotic. To take them out of their comfort zones. To let them have a life-changing experience.

I just wonder if my children would be quite as well behaved!!