The Outdoor-Road Trip Travel Mom: An In Depth Interview

Looking for a little travel inspiration? Look no further! Emilie from Love Life Abroad is my go to resource for all things hiking, Canada, and family travel. She is the adventure mom I aspire to be!

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Travel Mom Emilie By The Numbers

Canada based, Emilie, has been to 25 countries and more than 20 national parks in the US, Canada, and Iceland mostly with her kids! When she isn’t traveling she stayed busy working as a mechanical engineer and now focusing on her own business and raising two boys, ages 5 and 7. Proving you are never too busy for a little adventure!

Have You Always Loved Traveling?

Yes! I think it started pretty young. I might I’ve been 10 years old when I asked my parents if I could enroll in a summer camp that what 10 hours away from home. Since then, I’ve never stopped traveling, first with my parents (or on other summer camps outside my province), then on my own. I’ve also lived in Paris for 3 years with my husband (we had our first child there).

Why Is Travel Important To Your Family?

For me traveling is so much more than visiting new places, it’s about spending quality time with my husband and kids. It’s never the same when we stay home. There is the burden of chores and maintaining the house, kids’ playdates! When we travel, we really get to be together. For example, when we go for a camping weekend, we almost fully disconnect, we play board games and cards before bed, we cook together, and we tell stories by the fire.

I just posted about it recently, you can see it here. Travel is our priority, so we make sure we can save for it. Here is a video I made about it. We only have one car, cook most of our meals, buy second-hand clothes, do lots of camping and home swapping to reduce the cost of accommodation when traveling, and are flexible with our travel destinations. Meaning we’ll go somewhere if we find a good deal!

How Do You Find Time For Travel?

My boys are now in school, so as soon as we get to the school calendar, I look at all the days off and start planning our trips around it. We try to do local-ish trips (camping, road trip, etc) on long weekends and then plan longer trips during the longer breaks. We just went to Iceland during their April break and extended a little after agreeing with the school.

What is one piece of advice you would give families who are nervous about traveling with kids?

Start small. Your first trip doesn’t have to be an international 2-week trip, it can be a quick getaway somewhere. It could even be a staycation in a nearby town.

Also, it’s important to adapt our schedule, itineraries and even destinations when we travel with kids, so everyone has a great time. For example, pre-kids, we were really into city getaways (living in Europe was easy for that), but we did a few city trips with the kids, and it wasn’t that much fun. They were getting tired of walking, and they didn’t care about how pretty the architecture was.

But then, we tried an outdoor trip to a national park, and it was amazing. We found a type of travel that was both fulfilling for us as parents and the kids. So now, most of our trips include a campervan, hiking and beautiful mountains. We also make sure to add some downtime in our schedule and time for playgrounds.

Favorite travel destination and why?

Oh this one is so hard! I’ve loved all of our trips honestly, for different reasons. But with kids, one place I really loved was the California Coast. There is so much to see in such a small distance. There is the ocean, nature and also some urban cities. My boys love the water, so it was great to be by the ocean. Plus, the views are amazing!

What’s one travel mistake you’ve made? So we can all avoid it! 

One mistake I made so many times, and I think I’ve learned now, is to pre-book too many things in advance. I’ve lost sooooo much money in cancellation fees. One thing I love when traveling (and even more with the kids now) is to go with the flow. If we end up staying 4 hours at the beach and can’t make it to another activity we had planned, it’s totally ok. If we planned on staying 4 days in one location, but we arrive and we don’t enjoy it as much, well, it’s ok to leave and go somewhere else. But this is harder when your itinerary is fully planned and booked!

You spent 18 months traveling before deciding to settle in the Canadian Rockies, what drew you to that area?

We visited the Canadian Rockies during our full-time travels and loved it there. We first visited in 2020 and moved there a year later. After almost three years of living nearby, I’m still in awe whenever I drive to the mountains.  

It’s hard to explain and feels really “cheesy”, but there is something so special about driving through those majestic mountains. We all felt at peace. We visited a second time and spent a few months in the winter, and I just loved how active we were all becoming, getting increasingly into hiking. It’s been 3 years, and every time we drive to the mountains, we still can’t believe how lucky we are to live in one of the most beautiful places in the world.

Plus, since I’m from Quebec, Canada and my husband is from California, we are now halfway between both our families.

Tips for families who are thinking about selling it all and traveling? What’s one thing you wish you knew before you started on your epic road trip?

The most important thing is to think about the “after” right away. If you plan on traveling full-time for a gap year, I wouldn’t recommend selling it all, because you’ll need to come back and find a new place to live. It’s better to save the money upfront and rent your house instead.

Then, once you’re traveling, you want to ensure you’re slowing down. You can’t follow the same pace when you’re traveling full-time than when you’re on vacation. Try to stay a few weeks at the same place.

Also, try to implement a little travel routine. It will help everyone. For example, we took our morning slow, did some morning work, then packed a lunch and went exploring for the day. We would often return to our rental, cook dinner, and have an evening routine with the kids. Once in a while, we would go out at night (similar to what we would do back home).

I wrote an article here with the pros and cons.

Top three general tips for road tripping with young kids?

1. Stop often. We try to stop at least every two hours, unless kids are sleeping, for a fun activity, whether it’s a hike, a visit to a playground, or a park.
2. Pack lunch, instead of a restaurant. We always pack snacks, but also our lunches. We can either eat in the car (something to do!) or we’ll stop for a picnic. The last thing my kids want to do is to sit in a car and then sit in a restaurant.
3. Find ways to entertain the kids. It can be audiobooks, stories, fun games like “I spy”, the license plate game, whatever works for your family!

Here is the link to a road trip activity book I created.

Top three tips for families who want to be more ‘outdoorsy’ but don’t know where to start?

1. Just go outdoors, whether is on a small evening walk in your neighborhood, some fun at a local playground or an afternoon outdoor snack in the backyard.
2. Find an activity that all the family enjoys doing: it can be hiking, but it can be biking, roller blading, or anything else outside.
3. Integrate outdoor activities into your daily routine: walking the kids to the bus stop, planning an outdoor activity after school or after dinner, or dedicating a day to the weekend for outdoor activities.

Biggest misconception about hiking/camping with kids?

You don’t need to hike to a mountaintop to say you are hiking. We’ve been “hiking” with the kids since they were little, and we still call it a hike, even if it’s only 1 mile. The kids get proud that they hiked (instead of just walking).

Also, no need to invest in expensive gear and hiking boots-shoes when we get started, even more true if the kids are little.

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I loved getting to know Emilie more. She has been such an inspiration to me on Instagram, I hope she has made you feel like being an adventure mom is within reach!

If you’d like to learn more about adventure mom Emilie check out her Instagram profile or blog. Looking for more travel mom inspiration, don’t forget to learn a little bit more about me too!