‘Oh my goodness,
look at this huge
cathedral!’
or stay put. With Poppie having just celebrated
her sixth birthday, Katie and Mark are conscious
of her schooling.
“Mark’s mum asks, ‘When is she going to school?’”
says Katie. “But we say, ‘She’s learning so much.’ If
you’re a semi-decent parent, you read to them at
night. It was Poppie’s job to push the right button
every time we got in an elevator, and in every
airplane I told her the row, gave her the ticket and
she’d nd the seat – so they’re learning from little
things like that. We’re not keeping them out
of school until they’re 10 or 14, it’s a small amount
of t ime.”Global le s
K
atie says the change in the kids has been
huge. Poppie snorkelled with sharks and
manatees, learned to ski in Montana and
held a snake in Marrakech. All of these experiences
have helped improve her con dence, as she was a
“very quiet and shy little girl” before they went away.
“She goes into the playground and says, ‘Hi, my
name’s Poppie,’” says Katie. “That’s such an amazing
skill to have, to be able to just go in and make friends
in a situation like that. We think this was the best
thing we could’ve done for her.”
Travel has also taught the girls to treat everyone
the same – no matter what background they’re
from, what they look like or how much money
they’ve got. “It’s opened their hearts to people from
all walks of life and different cultures,” says Katie.
The family saw a lot of women begging with their
children in Europe and the girls have learned to
offer food rather than money. “In Bosnia, Poppie
pointed out a woman and said, ‘Look Mummy,
there’s a lady and a baby with no food’, so we
went into a café, bought a bunch of food and gave
it to her.”
Katie encourages other people to take the
plunge and go overseas. “A lot of people say, ‘I wish I
could do what you guys are doing now with the kids’
and I’m like, ‘Hang on, I remember when we were
sloggingourgutsout working at the house everyweekend and you guys were swanning off around
Europe on your OE.’ So it’s just a different way of
doing it and it’s really about what you value in life
and what your priorities are.”
Katie and Mark have a new business in the
environmental industry launching next year – an
idea that was sparked while on their travels. But now
the whole family has caught the travel bug, they’re
already tempted to head back to warmer destinations.
She says they’ll return home a lot more appreciative
of how lucky they are.
“Having those experiences together has made us a
lot more grounded – silly, simple things like going to
a market and having fruit for breakfast and just
seeing how other people live. You hear so much bad
stuff about the world, but when you travel you really
see that the world’s a nice place.”
*INSPIRATION
48 NEXT / SEPTEMBER 2019