What is on your Travel Bucket List?

[essnce629]

We only have 3 summers left before DS1 leaves for college! On my/our list:

Japan (DS1 is studying Japanese and lives and breaths anime and manga. His Japanese school takes a trip to Japan every other year so he'll get to go next year with them at least, but we'd love to go as a family also).

Iceland
Germany/France/England (we've only been to Greece and Rome so far)
Turks and Caicos
Maui (we've only been to Kauai)
Alaska
Costa Rica
Vietnam (because DH's brother lives there. He just had his first baby 3 months ago so this will probably be our next big trip).


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[marinkitty]

My twins have severe tree nut allergies. This last trip to Mexico City proved I was right to stick with traveling to countries where we speak the language. I don't speak Spanish and I had a very difficult time confirming that all the foods the kids ate were tree-nut free. Every meal was a battle speaking to waiters and cooks. I do speak fluent french so for the past 5 years we have been spending 2 weeks each year exploring various regions of France. We are doing that again in a month and I'm looking forward to not having the language battle.

Add to our bucket list that our entire family would love to spend time exploring England, Scotland and Ireland. We would also like to see more of the United States. And my kids and I would love to see Australia and New Zealand. Also, because I have a several friend who live near the Vatican and promised to help us, we would love to take our children to Rome. We will probably do that in the next few years. When we travel the focus isn’t so much on sports or exercise. For us the focus is on seeing and trying to understand the history and the people who live there. We usually try to meet some locals when we travel and invite them to dinner to get to know them and their feelings about their governments, culture, history, etc. we also like to explore places that help us understand our faith (Catholicism) better. Other than the places I meantioned, I can't wrap my mind around going anywhere else because of the food allergy issues. Besides, exploring those places will be more than an enough of a goal to shoot for before my oldest leaves for college in 3 years!!!

Before I was married I spent 2 months in Denmark and Sweden. I lived with a French family as their nanny for 2 years. I also visited Croatia, Slovenia, Germany, Switzerland, Holland and Belgium. Many of those places I don't feel a need to go back with DH or take the kids. And DH has traveled the world with work so we have already checked off a lot of places we wanted to see.

Eta- I forgot that DH and have wistfully discussed spending time in Greece and Montreal. When we talk about it we add, "When the kids are grown and gone.."but then the kids jump in and say, "NO! we want to go too!" So maybe we will take them too.

Gatorsmom - My DD also has a tree nut allergy. One thing I've done when we travel is print up a card that explains that she has a life threatening allergy to all nuts (and I list the more common ones) and that she cannot eat anything that contains nuts, nut flour or nut oils. I've shown that to waiters and often end up with someone who speaks English and the native language coming over to help, but even in the absence of that - it has made me more confident that we're being understood and it has been taken very well. I will say I think it was taken way more seriously when she was a little girl but even as a teen I've been pleasantly surprised with how seriously waitstaff and chefs have taken it and how helpful and accommodating they have been. Of course we also try hard to order in a way that makes it unlikely there will be any hidden nuts involved, but sometimes you need that extra assurance (baked good, pesto like sauces etc). Just something to consider next time you are in a spot without English/French speakers.

[jbbhb]

Gatorsmom - My DD also has a tree nut allergy. One thing I've done when we travel is print up a card that explains that she has a life threatening allergy to all nuts (and I list the more common ones) and that she cannot eat anything that contains nuts, nut flour or nut oils. I've shown that to waiters and often end up with someone who speaks English and the native language coming over to help, but even in the absence of that - it has made me more confident that we're being understood and it has been taken very well. I will say I think it was taken way more seriously when she was a little girl but even as a teen I've been pleasantly surprised with how seriously waitstaff and chefs have taken it and how helpful and accommodating they have been. Of course we also try hard to order in a way that makes it unlikely there will be any hidden nuts involved, but sometimes you need that extra assurance (baked good, pesto like sauces etc). Just something to consider next time you are in a spot without English/French speakers.

Gatorsmom and Marinkitty- not really travel related (sorry to hijack) but we’re about halfway through the Tolerance Induction Program (different form OIT) to treat my ds3’s nut allergy at SoCal Food Allergy. Thought I’d throw it out there in case you haven’t heard of it Lots of folks travel for treatment and we are having great results so far (I’m not affiliated at all, just totally commiserate with traveling with a kid with allergies and super looking forward to food freedom).

https://socalfoodallergy.org


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[gatorsmom]

Gatorsmom - My DD also has a tree nut allergy. One thing I've done when we travel is print up a card that explains that she has a life threatening allergy to all nuts (and I list the more common ones) and that she cannot eat anything that contains nuts, nut flour or nut oils. I've shown that to waiters and often end up with someone who speaks English and the native language coming over to help, but even in the absence of that - it has made me more confident that we're being understood and it has been taken very well. I will say I think it was taken way more seriously when she was a little girl but even as a teen I've been pleasantly surprised with how seriously waitstaff and chefs have taken it and how helpful and accommodating they have been. Of course we also try hard to order in a way that makes it unlikely there will be any hidden nuts involved, but sometimes you need that extra assurance (baked good, pesto like sauces etc). Just something to consider next time you are in a spot without English/French speakers.

Having a card print off with an explanation if the allergy would have been a really good idea. Instead, I had a friend teach me a sentence to say explaining their allergies. Except that no one seemed to understand my pronunciation. And I had assumed that the tour guides could translate for me but the group was so big and I couldn’t always find the guides for every meal. I ended up doing a lot of tasting the twins’ food. Most of the time they just skipped dessert since most of the Mexican entrees don’t have tree nuts (except for occasionally having almonds). It was just so hard. I think the next time we go to a country where I don’t speak the language, I’ll take your advice and come with a card that explains their allergy and foods we need to avoid. It’s a good idea!

[gatorsmom]

Gatorsmom and Marinkitty- not really travel related (sorry to hijack) but we’re about halfway through the Tolerance Induction Program (different form OIT) to treat my ds3’s nut allergy at SoCal Food Allergy. Thought I’d throw it out there in case you haven’t heard of it Lots of folks travel for treatment and we are having great results so far (I’m not affiliated at all, just totally commiserate with traveling with a kid with allergies and super looking forward to food freedom).

https://socalfoodallergy.org


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Thanks for this info. I’ll ask our pediatric allergist about this. I would LOVE food freedom!

[jbbhb]

Thanks for this info. I’ll ask our pediatric allergist about this. I would LOVE food freedom!

The science of it is super fascinating to me. I’ll try and find the video of Dr R talking about it and PM it to you. Be warned- many peds allergists (including the ones I work with at a children’s hospital and our previous allergist) aren’t supportive of the program as it’s still considered investigational.


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[jbbhb]

Hey gatorsmom, your inbox is full


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[KrisM]

I have a lot of places I'd like to go. I did a fair amount of traveling when I was single, some when married before kids, and we've tried doing more now that it's easier with the kids. I've been doing a lot of US travel to places I've never been and I've enjoyed that a lot. We would like to go to the National Parks in the southwest. I would love to go back to Alaska and go to Hawaii. I haven't put any other countries (except Canada) on our list yet, but maybe I should consider that. I just figured flights will be crazy expensive for 5 of us.

[marinkitty]

Gatorsmom and Marinkitty- not really travel related (sorry to hijack) but we’re about halfway through the Tolerance Induction Program (different form OIT) to treat my ds3’s nut allergy at SoCal Food Allergy. Thought I’d throw it out there in case you haven’t heard of it Lots of folks travel for treatment and we are having great results so far (I’m not affiliated at all, just totally commiserate with traveling with a kid with allergies and super looking forward to food freedom).

https://socalfoodallergy.org


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Our allergist does it and has tried to talk DD into it but she wants no part of it (she's 16). We know quite a few people doing it around here and the results have varied - some have had tremendous success and others have not. We have one friend whose DS had a horrible reaction and ended up hospitalized and they had to discontinue (he was doing it with a different allergist) and that totally turned DD off. DD also had a traumatic experience with a food challenge when her rast numbers fell to almost nothing but after hours in the office eating tiny amounts, she had a reaction and had to be epied. Now she says she'd rather just live with the allergy. I'm glad to hear it is going so well for you.

[smiles33]

Sorry to continue the off-thread convo re: this, but I'm intrigued since my DD2 (allergic to peanuts, fish, and sesame) did an OIT clinical trial for kids with multiple food allergies with Stanford's Parker Center. She was given Xolair and gradually built up dosages of 4 foods (her fish allergy is "treated" with both cod and salmon). She's now taking daily maintenance doses (which is a PAIN when traveling overseas). But we never did any food challenges and she's still never had one--only blood and skin tests. Her Stanford Ped Allergist doesn't even want to challenge her until after 2-3 years of daily maintenance dosing. I figure the OIT just helps prevent accidental ingestion of cross-contaminated food. I'm not sure she'll ever eat sushi or peanut butter!

Anyhow, when we were considering the OIT trial, I talked to a friend's friend who said her son did it 8+ years ago. He vomited every single day of the trial (they were taking HUGE doses where the only food he had all day was nuts) but now he can eat nuts so it was worthwhile for them. She also told me families were flying in from NYC and TX every week to do this trial! A friend of his quit the trial because of the severe side effects but her son was thankful he stuck it out since he can now hang out with friends and eat at restaurants.