Today we’d like to introduce you to Anabel Newell.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
Our journey started 14 years ago when my husband took me and our oldest daughter to Italy on a work trip. She was only 1 year old at the time. I was excited to finally get to visit one of Europe’s most beautiful and famous countries, but had no idea how this experience would affect the rest of my life. The trip was a dream and Italy was even more magnificent than I had anticipated. The architecture, the history, the people, the shopping and the food – all divine. As we were returning home I was ready to plan the next trip. A new adventurous side of me had been unlocked and the wanderlust spark was forever ignited.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
As we had more children traveling as a family obviously became a little harder to do. Not only did we have to pay a higher premium to fly the family and pay for larger hotel rooms, but the struggle of hauling around more kiddos and keeping them happy also increased. Additionally, I don’t think any trip truly goes as planned. There are always situations that arise that test your patience and resilience. There have been a few times we have been stuck in less than ideal situations in the middle of foreign countries were we don’t have the luxury to call for help and have to rely solely on the kindness of strangers. From an exploded tire in the middle of nowhere in Iceland, getting food poisoning in Bora Bora, almost falling off the boat in Great White Shark infested waters in South Africa, being homeless on Thanksgiving night in Tahiti, being stuck in a Typhoon 3 storm in Hong Kong, to an emergency landing in Spain, we’ve had a variety of travel challenges come our way.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
While luxury family travel is quite common nowadays due to all the inspirational boards and social media sharing, our story began long before that. When we decided to start traveling as a family none of those mediums were available and honestly. most of our family and friends thought we were crazy for taking our children on such long invested trips. While everyone else would spend their family vacations at Disneyland, we were spending ours riding the toboggan down the Great Wall of China or climbing the Pyramids of Giza or visiting the Blue Mosque in Istanbul. Definitely not your most kid-friendly places or locations. We feel like if we can dream it we can make it happen. Children should not be a deterrent for seeing the world, they should be an added asset to the experience and the memories will be even more sweeter with them in it. As our travels evolved my infatuation with matching family outfits evolved as well. I am not quite sure how it started but it definitely made it easier to keep an eye on everyone, especially in crowded locations. It also made for better coordinated family photos! Our family is now known not only for our world travels, but also because of our color coordinated matching outfits that add a sprinkle of fun into our travel destination photos.
Is there something surprising that you feel even people who know you might not know about?
While I have been on what seems like thousands of flights in the last 15 years of my life, my very first flight was when I was 17 years old (the day I left for college). I did not come from a family were we had to luxury to fly or even travel much. My father had 3 jobs and vacations were not a priority. So my first flight was a short hop from San Diego to Salt Lake City, and while I was excited for the new experience I was equally nervous to take part in what seemed like at the times as a risky form of travel. Little did I know then that airports and airplanes would one day become almost like a second home to me.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://amorfortravel.com
- Instagram: @amorfortravel
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/amorfortravel
