February 8, 2025 • 24 mins
This episode brings forth the inspiring story of a family that chose to change their lives by traveling the world. The discussion revolves around the motivations behind their decision, the planning process, the experiences gained during the journey, and the impact of their adventures on their family and future.
Charles Achampong
- Instagram: @aroundtheworldinfamilydays
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/charlesachampong
- Website: https://www.charlesachampong.com
- Email: info@charlesachampong.com
• The decision rooted in early experiences and reflections on life
• Emphasis on valuing experiences over material success
• Years of planning culminated in an adventure amidst a pandemic
• Specific destinations chosen for their educational and sentimental value
• Addressing concerns about education and health during travel
• Adjusting back to life post-travel and insights gained
• Plans for the upcoming book and its themes of adventure and growth
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Voiceover (00:03):
Tales from the wild, stories from the heart.
A journey into the mind andsoul of fired up business
professionals, where they sharetheir vision for the future and
hear from a different non-profitorganization every month as
they create awareness of theirgoals and their needs.
Dive into a world of untamedpassion as we join our host,
(00:27):
Shireen Botha, for this month'sepisode of Friends from Wild
Places.
Shireen Botha (00:36):
Right.
So it sounds like you had agood corporate life and it was
going strong.
So what was it that suddenlymotivated you to make that
specific choice to just up andleave everything behind, take
your beautiful little familywith you and go and travel the
world?
I mean, that is a massivedecision that I'm sure a lot of
(00:59):
people in your in you know, inyour position, that might have a
really good paying job and havea beautiful family at home
would find that a really harddecision to make and many times
the pressure of knowing thatthey put the food on the table
would prevent them from makingsuch a risky choice.
(01:20):
So, yeah, share with us a littlebit about that.
Charles Achampong (01:23):
Sure, of course.
I mean there are a number ofthings that we did.
So this, I think, the biggestthing that we I really tried to
emphasize to folks is that thisisn't something that we just
decided on a whim and thendecided to say you know what?
Let's, what are we doing?
Next weekend?
Let's decide to go on a triparound the world with our family
and uproot them and take thattime away.
This is a decision, you know, Ireally have to credit my spouse,
(01:45):
janice it was, you know, we hadtaken our honeymoon to Rio de
Janeiro, in Rio de Janeiro inBrazil, many years ago, and we
had both, and I don't think atthe time we didn't realize it,
but we both watched this elderlyman with, I think, what looked
like to be an oxygen tank, climbthose last few steps to get to
the feet of Christ, the Redeemerstatue in Rio de Janeiro.
(02:07):
There's this amazing view ofthe entire city down below, and
so later on at dinner, we bothkind of talked about what you
know our experience when we sawwe were again on our honeymoon
and that's where my wife hadsuggested that we you know, life
is short this gentleman here iswhat looked to be his last few
days or weeks.
You know, it just seemed to behealth-wise, quite in a lot of
(02:31):
ailment.
And so you know, we said, youknow she had suggested why don't
we take our future kids on atrip around the world?
Like I want to make sure thatwe live life and experience life
?
And for me I was like, oh mygosh, like we're on our
honeymoon here.
I almost kind of like, are youcrazy?
Like we haven't even.
(02:51):
We haven't even found a placeto live permanently.
We haven't bought a house.
You know our work.
We just started working.
We don't have any kids.
We're already planning ontaking our future kids on this
trip around the world, the kidsthat don't even exist at this
point.
So, but I have to say, the kidsthat don't even exist at this
point.
But I have to say, like it wasreally her who came up with the
idea and kind of planted thatseed to say I really want to
make sure that our life is builton experiences and not things.
(03:12):
And so you know, her suggestionsparked that idea of a 10-year
journey of saving and planning,from our honeymoon time to doing
that.
And you know we squirreled awaymoney for this grand adventure,
but I'll admit I treat it morelike a fantasy fund more than an
actual travel budget.
It's one of those aspirationalgoals, like when people say they
(03:35):
want to become fluent inSpanish or build their own
pottery studio.
It sounds wonderful, but Ireally feel that it rarely
happens.
So, you know, we went ahead.
I made that gesture to showthat I was committed to secretly
, you know even though Isecretly thought that this was
not going to actually happen.
(03:56):
But over time we just begansetting aside money for this
trip around the world and I'dsay you know, we wanted to
ensure, as we got closer towardsmaking that decision, a few
things kind of got in the way ofderailing.
That you know, covid, again wetouched on earlier.
But this idea that we were allin a close knit quarter with our
immediate family and this ideaof traveling seems so remote or
(04:18):
foreign to all of us at the time, thinking that we would never
leave.
Right, but if anything, we werevery fortunate in the fact that
we were both working in greatjobs, jobs that we enjoyed,
because we weren't spending alot of money like many people
staying at home.
We were able to save a littlebit more than we had anticipated
, so we were able to acceleratethis idea and what was going to
be maybe you know, a few weeksor a few months in a particular
(04:42):
location, just kind of grew andgrew and grew.
I think the pandemic made usthink that you know what.
Rather than take off a fewweeks or a month and go to a
particular place, let's dreambig.
We have the opportunity to doso.
So it was extremely challengingbecause you know, your identity,
as you said earlier, is tied toyour, especially in the Western
world, is tied to who you areand what you do for employment
(05:03):
and for work right, and so wewanted to make sure that, if we
started telling everyone that weput in place the safety nets
that we needed to ensure that wewere going to succeed in terms
of pulling this trip off, therewas concerns and worry about
what our parents would say.
My parents are immigrants toCanada and this is not something
that they ever anticipated.
You work hard so your kids cando well and succeed and thrive
(05:25):
and all of a sudden it seemslike you're quote-unquote
throwing everything away andtaking your kids on the trip
around the world.
So that poses a bit of achallenge or an issue there, so
having to work through thoseissues.
I mean, there was a sense ofyou know, a part of me was
feeling kind of bad in terms ofI didn't want to brag, I didn't
want others to be jealous ofwhat we were doing.
I wanted people to know thatthis is the thing that we had
been planning for a long periodof time.
So that was something that alsokind of entered into my mind
(05:47):
too as well.
We worried about kids, takingthem off of school.
Was that going to be an issue?
Would they be falling behind asa result of that?
What would happen to our house,you know, while we were gone,
for the seven months that wewere gone.
But again, you know, when youput all these issues and
concerns out into the universe,it's amazing how quickly people
gather around to support you andmaking that dream come true.
(06:09):
We were able to rent out ourhouse to a family just down the
street that was doing a majorrenovation at the time, where
the time periods laddered upexactly, so that provided some
additional income, again, thekids being at a school.
As a result of the pandemic, alot of the material that they
were doing was now availableonline.
(06:29):
So before the pandemic, thiswas never the case, and now we
were able to follow along andkeep track with everything that
they were doing at school andtry our best to try and keep up
with the things that they weredoing so they wouldn't fall
behind.
Our employers were, fortunately,very grateful, gracious in
terms of allowing us to do thisas well.
There are few individuals moresort of outliers in terms of
saying what are you doing?
You're throwing your careeraway.
This is a huge gamble you'retaking, but I really felt that
(06:52):
you know, regardless of what wasgoing to happen, that we would
be able to find employment whenwe returned.
Like we are so established inour careers, we had enough
unique experiences that findinga job to me was never much of a
concern.
So I mean, those are all thethings that we had to
contemplate with deciding toleave and go on this trip.
But I'm so happy that we didand I'm so happy that my wife,
(07:15):
you know, put that idea in ourhead and we kind of followed
through with it and we did it.
We had a phenomenal experience.
Tanya Scotece (07:22):
That's so wild.
And how did you choose whereyou were going?
Like, was that, was thatdefined ahead of time, or did
you kind of go and where did youstay?
Like, did you do like yourhotels, or you know what did
that look like?
Charles Achampong (07:36):
so I would say that, um, there was a couple
of things that we did.
There were a couple of criteriathat we were trying to follow
in terms of deciding where to go.
We knew that we wanted toreally follow the sun, and so
our whole thing at the end ofthe day, was to ensure that
we're taking less packing halfthe amount of stuff and taking
twice the amount of money followthe sun.
So we knew that we were goingto keep as few things as
(07:58):
possible and carry warm weatherclothing everywhere.
So we decided on wanting tomove westwards.
We're based in Toronto.
We were going to leave early inthe new year, so we left about
a year ago, early January, midto late January 2024, and we
(08:21):
wanted to spend time in warmdestinations.
So we would spend a lot of ourtime in the Southern Hemisphere,
where the seasons, of course,are reversed from us here in the
Northern Hemisphere.
So we went to Australia and NewZealand, which I guess was
really on our bucket listforever and are conveniently
close to each other.
So we wanted to spend the monthin each of those locations.
We decided on the Philippinesbecause for us that was sort of
(08:43):
a classic underdog, really thehidden gem of Asia and, if
anything, that was a pleasantsurprise there for the
Philippines.
Thailand for us was something, aplace that we had gone to and
traveled to as a couple myspouse and I before kids and we
wanted to kind of that nostalgicreturn of returning 15 years
ago when we were there and itwas a bit different with kids in
(09:04):
tow but it was kind of likere-watching your old favorite
movie, but now with kind of thislive commentary from two very
opinionated critics being mykids, in terms of what we were
seeing and doing.
So we spent some time inThailand as well.
We've, of course, south Africa,shireen's hometown, home
country, and because you knowwho doesn't want to see the Lion
(09:27):
King come to life in real life,we really wanted to enjoy
seeing a safari.
We spent some time in Ghana aswell, where my family is from.
It was fun trying to explain tomy kids why all these
quote-unquote aunts and unclesare actually related aren't
actually related but somehow arestill family, so being able to
introduce them to seeing myparents' family, extended family
as well.
(09:49):
Uh, we traveled to jordan and so, despite some initial
hesitation about the region'sstability, uh, the promise of
floating in the dead sea, andgoing to petra and akaba was
very enticing as well.
And then we wrapped up the tripin in albania.
It was probably the mostentertaining random selection
that we had made becauseliterally we sort of stared at
(10:11):
the map of Europe.
We found it.
We looked up a few photos andvideos and said, well, that
looks nice, so we decided to gothere.
So really, that was the.
That was sort of the trip interms of following the sun
places that were affordable,places that were.
You know, that would be aneducational experience for the
family and myself as well.
So yeah, that's really how wekind of ended up deciding where
(10:34):
we were going to go to in termsof our travel.
Tanya Scotece (10:38):
That's amazing.
That's amazing.
I just, I mean, everything isjust like so, like positive as
far as like how you'redescribing like the universal
energy and law coming together.
But I have one question.
So, like in that type ofexperience with your wife and
the two children, like you know,for example, like if someone
takes ill, or like what do youdo Medical care, like is that a
(10:58):
concern, or is that somethingyou think about ahead of time,
or you just kind of go andyou'll find out what you, how do
you plan for that kind of stuff, or do you?
Charles Achampong (11:06):
yeah, yeah, yeah, you do plan for these
things.
I mean, one of the things thatmy wife and I are very good at
is planning things in advance,like we are.
Often we have friends who jokeand say, oh, you know, well, we
can't go with, you know, charlesand janice and the family,
because they've already figuredout what they're doing in the
summer of 2027.
So, uh, there's no way we haveto book several years in advance
.
I mean, we've always beenplanning because we like having
things to look forward to orthings to save towards.
(11:29):
In the case of, um, you know,health care, we bought travel
insurance before we left to makesure that we were fully covered
for the entire trip andduration, um, and we had all the
information available that weknew what we needed to do in
case of emergency.
Fortunately, you know, knock onwood but 95 percent of the trip
went well.
It was only, funnily enough,towards the last two weeks of
the trip that we you know, mywife and kids got seriously ill.
(11:51):
They had a stomach bug, stomachflu, and so they were not
feeling too well towards the endof our trip.
But, for all intents andpurposes, we ate everything,
drank, everything, experienced,you know, just a wide array of
cultures and people and food,and it was just a phenomenal
experience.
And just to see how much mykids have changed as a result of
(12:12):
it too was just fantastic.
How we all change, but inparticular, my kids too.
So, um, and you know, travel isso.
The idea of traveling around theworld, even traveling in
general has become sodemocratized.
It's much easier than it wasseveral decades ago.
You know, low-cost airlines,information is available online,
(12:32):
you know, and there's you canfollow, along with other stories
of individuals who've donesimilar things or gone to places
that you want to go to.
So the information, theexperience, is there.
It's really kind of the our own, our own handicap, our own sort
of reluctance to try and dothese things for fear of things
going wrong or awry, which canhappen anywhere.
So you just prepare, you followwhat others have done and use
(12:55):
it as a guideline and aframework, and then off you go
right I'm gonna.
Tanya Scotece (13:01):
What was it?
Oh no, sorry.
What was the reverse?
Did you experience a reverseculture shock having returned to
Toronto after this time away?
And what was that like?
What did that look like for you?
Charles Achampong (13:31):
seeing the sun, swimming, eating, it was
just amazing.
And so the culture, you know.
It's amazing how quickly youbecome a culture, sort of a
product of your environment, andso how quickly you acclimatize
and assimilate back toeverything, as if you know
everything is.
You never left.
And so it was seven months,which is long, but not really
that long.
I mean, mean, the kids beganschool.
If anything, they had the mostseamless back to school
(13:51):
experience that I can remember,and I don't know if it's as a
result of the trip or the factthat they're older and more
mature.
For me, you know, I'm a veryoptimistic and glass half full.
You know type of person andmentality.
So there were a few instanceswhen we would chat with people.
Very rarely you chat withpeople and say, you know, oh,
and mentality.
So there were a few instanceswhen we would chat with people.
Very rarely.
You chat with people and say,you know, oh, it's great to be
(14:11):
back.
And you know we'd embrace andtalk and say like, oh, you know
enough about us.
How was, how was your summer?
What have we missed?
Oh, you know.
You know well, we didn't haveas much of an exciting time as
you did, and it was almost thiskind of competition and that was
the thing that kind of saddenedme a bit.
I'm like this is not acompetition.
I'm generally interested inwanting to know how you're doing
and how things have gone, youknow, and what did we miss while
(14:33):
we were away?
So, um, you know, the kidsmissed their friends, so it was
good for them to be back, butreally I don't think there was
much of a.
The impact the biggest thing Iyou know to be very frank and
transparent was my return wasbeing able to take what we had
learned as part of ourexperience and to see what we
could do to embed that back intothis new life of ours or what
(14:54):
this life was going to be, andnot to go back into our old
routines of I don't know, just,you know, kind of sleepwalking
through life and to make surewe're much more intentional and
purposeful about everything thatwe do and spending time with
people we wanted to spend timewith and not just putting up
with appearances.
We just wanted to be much moreintentional about the life we
wanted to live and I think thatthat has been the biggest
(15:17):
challenge of trying to infusethe sense of excitement and
enthusiasm and just happinessfor things in life and not
revert back to the woe is mementality?
Not that we were like that, butI didn't want us to get sucked
back into that kind of mindsetor sort of that kind of
framework.
For me, the biggest thing wasthe fact that when I returned
back, I learned that my employerhad downsized to basically half
(15:38):
and I knew that it was always aconsidered chance that I
wouldn't go back to work.
But that was the biggest thingfor me not going back Because in
my mind, as I came towards theend of the trip, I already had
ideas about what I was going todo, the projects and people are
going to work on places I wasgoing to go to as a result of
work, and to then be told thatyou're not returning back, it
was a bit of a blow to the gutand so, for like the 24 to 48
(15:58):
hours after finding out, I wasupset, disappointed, cranky, but
you know, I just I justrealized like we've just come
back from this amazingexperience.
There's so much to tell fromyour experience of traveling
around the world, yourexperience as a dad, as a
husband, your own personalexperience as an individual.
You need to tell that story andso, yeah, I mean that's really
(16:23):
for me was the fact that thework situation, but other than
that, I think we've all donereally well in terms of our
re-entry back home to Toronto.
Tanya Scotece (16:33):
That's awesome, that's wild.
Yeah, what a journey.
What a journey.
I just want to plot in here.
Shireen Botha (16:39):
Sorry, we have to put a little buzzsprout ad
right in the middle here beforewe continue with Charles, but so
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because that's what it was whenI was a little girl.
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succeed.
So, charles, because so I'mreally interested to get
(17:49):
straight into your book youmentioned how, when you got back
, you didn't have your jobanymore and you had had this
awesome experience, but all thisknowledge and power that you
had now accumulated and a storythat was obviously bursting from
(18:11):
your wild heart.
So tell us about your book andmore about it.
But when will it be releasedand where can we buy it?
Charles Achampong (18:22):
Of course.
Yeah, thanks, shireen.
So it's interesting it's justtouching on in our conversation
with Tanya about this idea ofreturning back and what I was
going to do next and the factthat I wasn't returning back to
my former employer, and so evenbefore we left, I was trying to
think of the best way to tellour story.
Without you know, people arebusy when it comes to social
(18:45):
media.
I am a neophyte when it comesto social media.
I am a neophyte Even in termsof Facebook.
It would be my spouse wouldpick up a picture of us
celebrating my birthday and Ididn't even know what my
password was to get intoFacebook or any of the other
social media platforms, becauseI really couldn't be bothered,
and so it was interesting.
Before we left, I was like Ineed to figure out a way.
I didn't want to take thepictures and all that.
(19:07):
So I just thinking and I justrealized like I really enjoy
writing.
It's not something that I wasactively encouraged to do
because, as the notion goes,there's no money in writing is
what I was told, so I kind ofmoved on to other things, but I
enjoyed being able to sendupdates to friends, peers,
colleagues in terms of what wewere doing and I tried to keep
(19:29):
them as short and pithy andinteresting as possible, based
on our experience, and so I wasblown away by the positive
feedback I had received by theblogs.
I was sitting back on our tripand along the way, a friend of
mine that I grew up with, whoruns a publishing company, had
said you should put together abook.
I was like I don't want to puttogether a book, even putting
together these blog posts, as mywife reminds me, like I would
(19:51):
spend a good day typing up andthinking about what I was going
to say and how I was going tosay it.
She goes you spent so much timeon that you would forget about
enjoying the moment, right, andso it got easier as we went
along.
So it's not something, a musclethat I had worked on a lot, or
I put it to the side and, justyou know, I just got a lot of
good feedback.
She's like when you come back,let's talk about writing a book,
and I thought I was going toreturn back to work.
The book situation thingwouldn't be happening until like
(20:13):
later down the road, if at all.
You work none of the Friday 9to 5, and the last thing you
want to do is quote unquotewrite a book.
And so when we came back anddidn't realize I wasn't going
back to my former employer, Igot in touch with a friend of
mine and said listen, this ideaof writing a book, how would it
work?
What do I need to do?
I wrote down and she hadactually encouraged me to write
(20:39):
more than beyond the blog, so Ihad a whole section of things on
the laptop, of other thoughtsand ideas and suggestions and
things that had come up alongthe trip my own musings that I
didn't put in the blog because Ithought it was too meandering
and quite long.
And she says you know, I hopeyou were taking additional
thoughts and notes and writingadditional content, because I
think we could put together afantastic story about what you
did.
And so I thought about itseriously.
(21:00):
Let's work together in makingthis happen.
And so I treated it like afull-time job from September
through till just before theChristmas holidays of 2024.
Furiously writing and goingthrough and editing and staying
up late, you know it.
Just, it felt very strange tofocus and pour my whole sort of
life and soul into this idea ofthis book, and so this book that
(21:23):
we put together or I puttogether is called Around the
World in Family Days what welearned when we left it all
behind and traveled the globe,and so it's really become a
labor of love for me in terms ofthis book, in terms of putting
it together, and I'm just so, soexcited to be able to tell our
(21:44):
story and bring it to life aswell.
And really, for me, it's a bitof a blend of a travel memoir
and a guide to really embracinglife's pauses and then improving
your failure immunity.
So we talked a little bit aboutthis as well.
But this idea of finding yourpause and the power of pausing
(22:04):
and the fact that you don't needpermission to pause or you
don't even need a passport topause so we talked about gap
years earlier.
But really you have to thinkthrough, like what is the thing
that brings you peace, likefinding that time for yourself
every morning or at some pointin the day to just reflect and
to pause is just reflect and topause.
We spend a lot of time in themorning, you know, working on
our outer appearance, our hair,makeup, shower, shave, whatever
(22:28):
it is, as part of your routine,maybe exercise and all that, but
these are all things that youtypically focus on for your
outer you know, sort of being.
What do you do to sort of focuson your inner person, your
inner being?
And so that's this idea ofembracing life's pauses and
taking time to breathe and torelax and to think and reflect,
whether it's, you know,spiritually, through prayer,
whether it's through meditating,whether it's through, you know,
(22:50):
whatever your practice is.
And I think that, for me, isreally the piece that I touch on
a little bit in terms of how Iappreciate or how I enjoyed or
the importance of life's pauses.
And I also touch on this ideaof improving your failure
immunity, and so I talk aboutfailure immunity from the
(23:25):
perspective of not necessarilybeing immune from failure, but
being immune from the feeling ofmaking mistakes.
In sports activities, engagingwith people, they're much more
outgoing, curious, inquisitive,and so all this is is in my book
here around the world andfamily days where we talk about
our experience, and so it'scoming out, uh, january 28th um
of this year, 2025, of course,and it'll be available on amazon
, um, you can get it through my,you can purchase the book
through my, my website, charlesachampongcom, uh, so there'll be
a link there for you topurchase the book through my
website, charlesachampongcom, sothere'll be a link there for
you to purchase the book andavailable there.
(23:46):
But I've been, I've been, soit's been almost therapeutic in
many ways of telling our storyand sharing our story.
And, yeah, I'm so excited.
I'm hoping to use that, thisidea of the book, to be able to
use it as a platform to be ableto speak more publicly and tell
our story about the importanceof finding life's pauses and how
, you know, by finding life'spauses you can also improve your
(24:08):
failure immunity as anindividual.
So it's, it's exciting.
I'm just.
If you had asked me a year agoif I was going to write a book
as a result of traveling theworld, I would have said
absolutely not.
You know, go back, look at yourcrystal ball.
There's clearly a typo there.
You're not talking about me,you're talking about someone
else, and so I feel very humbledand grateful to be able to tell
(24:29):
her story through this book.
Tanya Scotece (24:32):
Right, right.
Wow, what a beautiful,beautiful journey, beautiful,
beautiful.
Charles Achampong (24:36):
Thank you.
Shireen Botha (24:37):
Tune in next week for part three of Friends from
Wild Places.
Voiceover (24:46):
You've been listening to Friends from Wild Places
with Shireen Botha.
Be sure to subscribe to thepodcast from the links to catch
every episode and unleash yourpassion.
Tales from the wild, stories from the heart.
A journey into the mind andsoul of fired up business
professionals, where they sharetheir vision for the future and
hear from a different non-profitorganization every month as
they create awareness of theirgoals and their needs.
Dive into a world of untamedpassion as we join our host,
(00:27):
Shireen Botha, for this month'sepisode of Friends from Wild
Places.
Shireen Botha (00:36):
Right.
So it sounds like you had agood corporate life and it was
going strong.
So what was it that suddenlymotivated you to make that
specific choice to just up andleave everything behind, take
your beautiful little familywith you and go and travel the
world?
I mean, that is a massivedecision that I'm sure a lot of
(00:59):
people in your in you know, inyour position, that might have a
really good paying job and havea beautiful family at home
would find that a really harddecision to make and many times
the pressure of knowing thatthey put the food on the table
would prevent them from makingsuch a risky choice.
(01:20):
So, yeah, share with us a littlebit about that.
Charles Achampong (01:23):
Sure, of course.
I mean there are a number ofthings that we did.
So this, I think, the biggestthing that we I really tried to
emphasize to folks is that thisisn't something that we just
decided on a whim and thendecided to say you know what?
Let's, what are we doing?
Next weekend?
Let's decide to go on a triparound the world with our family
and uproot them and take thattime away.
This is a decision, you know, Ireally have to credit my spouse,
(01:45):
janice it was, you know, we hadtaken our honeymoon to Rio de
Janeiro, in Rio de Janeiro inBrazil, many years ago, and we
had both, and I don't think atthe time we didn't realize it,
but we both watched this elderlyman with, I think, what looked
like to be an oxygen tank, climbthose last few steps to get to
the feet of Christ, the Redeemerstatue in Rio de Janeiro.
(02:07):
There's this amazing view ofthe entire city down below, and
so later on at dinner, we bothkind of talked about what you
know our experience when we sawwe were again on our honeymoon
and that's where my wife hadsuggested that we you know, life
is short this gentleman here iswhat looked to be his last few
days or weeks.
You know, it just seemed to behealth-wise, quite in a lot of
(02:31):
ailment.
And so you know, we said, youknow she had suggested why don't
we take our future kids on atrip around the world?
Like I want to make sure thatwe live life and experience life
?
And for me I was like, oh mygosh, like we're on our
honeymoon here.
I almost kind of like, are youcrazy?
Like we haven't even.
(02:51):
We haven't even found a placeto live permanently.
We haven't bought a house.
You know our work.
We just started working.
We don't have any kids.
We're already planning ontaking our future kids on this
trip around the world, the kidsthat don't even exist at this
point.
So, but I have to say, the kidsthat don't even exist at this
point.
But I have to say, like it wasreally her who came up with the
idea and kind of planted thatseed to say I really want to
make sure that our life is builton experiences and not things.
(03:12):
And so you know, her suggestionsparked that idea of a 10-year
journey of saving and planning,from our honeymoon time to doing
that.
And you know we squirreled awaymoney for this grand adventure,
but I'll admit I treat it morelike a fantasy fund more than an
actual travel budget.
It's one of those aspirationalgoals, like when people say they
(03:35):
want to become fluent inSpanish or build their own
pottery studio.
It sounds wonderful, but Ireally feel that it rarely
happens.
So, you know, we went ahead.
I made that gesture to showthat I was committed to secretly
, you know even though Isecretly thought that this was
not going to actually happen.
(03:56):
But over time we just begansetting aside money for this
trip around the world and I'dsay you know, we wanted to
ensure, as we got closer towardsmaking that decision, a few
things kind of got in the way ofderailing.
That you know, covid, again wetouched on earlier.
But this idea that we were allin a close knit quarter with our
immediate family and this ideaof traveling seems so remote or
(04:18):
foreign to all of us at the time, thinking that we would never
leave.
Right, but if anything, we werevery fortunate in the fact that
we were both working in greatjobs, jobs that we enjoyed,
because we weren't spending alot of money like many people
staying at home.
We were able to save a littlebit more than we had anticipated
, so we were able to acceleratethis idea and what was going to
be maybe you know, a few weeksor a few months in a particular
(04:42):
location, just kind of grew andgrew and grew.
I think the pandemic made usthink that you know what.
Rather than take off a fewweeks or a month and go to a
particular place, let's dreambig.
We have the opportunity to doso.
So it was extremely challengingbecause you know, your identity,
as you said earlier, is tied toyour, especially in the Western
world, is tied to who you areand what you do for employment
(05:03):
and for work right, and so wewanted to make sure that, if we
started telling everyone that weput in place the safety nets
that we needed to ensure that wewere going to succeed in terms
of pulling this trip off, therewas concerns and worry about
what our parents would say.
My parents are immigrants toCanada and this is not something
that they ever anticipated.
You work hard so your kids cando well and succeed and thrive
(05:25):
and all of a sudden it seemslike you're quote-unquote
throwing everything away andtaking your kids on the trip
around the world.
So that poses a bit of achallenge or an issue there, so
having to work through thoseissues.
I mean, there was a sense ofyou know, a part of me was
feeling kind of bad in terms ofI didn't want to brag, I didn't
want others to be jealous ofwhat we were doing.
I wanted people to know thatthis is the thing that we had
been planning for a long periodof time.
So that was something that alsokind of entered into my mind
(05:47):
too as well.
We worried about kids, takingthem off of school.
Was that going to be an issue?
Would they be falling behind asa result of that?
What would happen to our house,you know, while we were gone,
for the seven months that wewere gone.
But again, you know, when youput all these issues and
concerns out into the universe,it's amazing how quickly people
gather around to support you andmaking that dream come true.
(06:09):
We were able to rent out ourhouse to a family just down the
street that was doing a majorrenovation at the time, where
the time periods laddered upexactly, so that provided some
additional income, again, thekids being at a school.
As a result of the pandemic, alot of the material that they
were doing was now availableonline.
(06:29):
So before the pandemic, thiswas never the case, and now we
were able to follow along andkeep track with everything that
they were doing at school andtry our best to try and keep up
with the things that they weredoing so they wouldn't fall
behind.
Our employers were, fortunately,very grateful, gracious in
terms of allowing us to do thisas well.
There are few individuals moresort of outliers in terms of
saying what are you doing?
You're throwing your careeraway.
This is a huge gamble you'retaking, but I really felt that
(06:52):
you know, regardless of what wasgoing to happen, that we would
be able to find employment whenwe returned.
Like we are so established inour careers, we had enough
unique experiences that findinga job to me was never much of a
concern.
So I mean, those are all thethings that we had to
contemplate with deciding toleave and go on this trip.
But I'm so happy that we didand I'm so happy that my wife,
(07:15):
you know, put that idea in ourhead and we kind of followed
through with it and we did it.
We had a phenomenal experience.
Tanya Scotece (07:22):
That's so wild.
And how did you choose whereyou were going?
Like, was that, was thatdefined ahead of time, or did
you kind of go and where did youstay?
Like, did you do like yourhotels, or you know what did
that look like?
Charles Achampong (07:36):
so I would say that, um, there was a couple
of things that we did.
There were a couple of criteriathat we were trying to follow
in terms of deciding where to go.
We knew that we wanted toreally follow the sun, and so
our whole thing at the end ofthe day, was to ensure that
we're taking less packing halfthe amount of stuff and taking
twice the amount of money followthe sun.
So we knew that we were goingto keep as few things as
(07:58):
possible and carry warm weatherclothing everywhere.
So we decided on wanting tomove westwards.
We're based in Toronto.
We were going to leave early inthe new year, so we left about
a year ago, early January, midto late January 2024, and we
(08:21):
wanted to spend time in warmdestinations.
So we would spend a lot of ourtime in the Southern Hemisphere,
where the seasons, of course,are reversed from us here in the
Northern Hemisphere.
So we went to Australia and NewZealand, which I guess was
really on our bucket listforever and are conveniently
close to each other.
So we wanted to spend the monthin each of those locations.
We decided on the Philippinesbecause for us that was sort of
(08:43):
a classic underdog, really thehidden gem of Asia and, if
anything, that was a pleasantsurprise there for the
Philippines.
Thailand for us was something, aplace that we had gone to and
traveled to as a couple myspouse and I before kids and we
wanted to kind of that nostalgicreturn of returning 15 years
ago when we were there and itwas a bit different with kids in
(09:04):
tow but it was kind of likere-watching your old favorite
movie, but now with kind of thislive commentary from two very
opinionated critics being mykids, in terms of what we were
seeing and doing.
So we spent some time inThailand as well.
We've, of course, south Africa,shireen's hometown, home
country, and because you knowwho doesn't want to see the Lion
(09:27):
King come to life in real life,we really wanted to enjoy
seeing a safari.
We spent some time in Ghana aswell, where my family is from.
It was fun trying to explain tomy kids why all these
quote-unquote aunts and unclesare actually related aren't
actually related but somehow arestill family, so being able to
introduce them to seeing myparents' family, extended family
as well.
(09:49):
Uh, we traveled to jordan and so, despite some initial
hesitation about the region'sstability, uh, the promise of
floating in the dead sea, andgoing to petra and akaba was
very enticing as well.
And then we wrapped up the tripin in albania.
It was probably the mostentertaining random selection
that we had made becauseliterally we sort of stared at
(10:11):
the map of Europe.
We found it.
We looked up a few photos andvideos and said, well, that
looks nice, so we decided to gothere.
So really, that was the.
That was sort of the trip interms of following the sun
places that were affordable,places that were.
You know, that would be aneducational experience for the
family and myself as well.
So yeah, that's really how wekind of ended up deciding where
(10:34):
we were going to go to in termsof our travel.
Tanya Scotece (10:38):
That's amazing.
That's amazing.
I just, I mean, everything isjust like so, like positive as
far as like how you'redescribing like the universal
energy and law coming together.
But I have one question.
So, like in that type ofexperience with your wife and
the two children, like you know,for example, like if someone
takes ill, or like what do youdo Medical care, like is that a
(10:58):
concern, or is that somethingyou think about ahead of time,
or you just kind of go andyou'll find out what you, how do
you plan for that kind of stuff, or do you?
Charles Achampong (11:06):
yeah, yeah, yeah, you do plan for these
things.
I mean, one of the things thatmy wife and I are very good at
is planning things in advance,like we are.
Often we have friends who jokeand say, oh, you know, well, we
can't go with, you know, charlesand janice and the family,
because they've already figuredout what they're doing in the
summer of 2027.
So, uh, there's no way we haveto book several years in advance
.
I mean, we've always beenplanning because we like having
things to look forward to orthings to save towards.
(11:29):
In the case of, um, you know,health care, we bought travel
insurance before we left to makesure that we were fully covered
for the entire trip andduration, um, and we had all the
information available that weknew what we needed to do in
case of emergency.
Fortunately, you know, knock onwood but 95 percent of the trip
went well.
It was only, funnily enough,towards the last two weeks of
the trip that we you know, mywife and kids got seriously ill.
(11:51):
They had a stomach bug, stomachflu, and so they were not
feeling too well towards the endof our trip.
But, for all intents andpurposes, we ate everything,
drank, everything, experienced,you know, just a wide array of
cultures and people and food,and it was just a phenomenal
experience.
And just to see how much mykids have changed as a result of
(12:12):
it too was just fantastic.
How we all change, but inparticular, my kids too.
So, um, and you know, travel isso.
The idea of traveling around theworld, even traveling in
general has become sodemocratized.
It's much easier than it wasseveral decades ago.
You know, low-cost airlines,information is available online,
(12:32):
you know, and there's you canfollow, along with other stories
of individuals who've donesimilar things or gone to places
that you want to go to.
So the information, theexperience, is there.
It's really kind of the our own, our own handicap, our own sort
of reluctance to try and dothese things for fear of things
going wrong or awry, which canhappen anywhere.
So you just prepare, you followwhat others have done and use
(12:55):
it as a guideline and aframework, and then off you go
right I'm gonna.
Tanya Scotece (13:01):
What was it?
Oh no, sorry.
What was the reverse?
Did you experience a reverseculture shock having returned to
Toronto after this time away?
And what was that like?
What did that look like for you?
Charles Achampong (13:31):
seeing the sun, swimming, eating, it was
just amazing.
And so the culture, you know.
It's amazing how quickly youbecome a culture, sort of a
product of your environment, andso how quickly you acclimatize
and assimilate back toeverything, as if you know
everything is.
You never left.
And so it was seven months,which is long, but not really
that long.
I mean, mean, the kids beganschool.
If anything, they had the mostseamless back to school
(13:51):
experience that I can remember,and I don't know if it's as a
result of the trip or the factthat they're older and more
mature.
For me, you know, I'm a veryoptimistic and glass half full.
You know type of person andmentality.
So there were a few instanceswhen we would chat with people.
Very rarely you chat withpeople and say, you know, oh,
and mentality.
So there were a few instanceswhen we would chat with people.
Very rarely.
You chat with people and say,you know, oh, it's great to be
(14:11):
back.
And you know we'd embrace andtalk and say like, oh, you know
enough about us.
How was, how was your summer?
What have we missed?
Oh, you know.
You know well, we didn't haveas much of an exciting time as
you did, and it was almost thiskind of competition and that was
the thing that kind of saddenedme a bit.
I'm like this is not acompetition.
I'm generally interested inwanting to know how you're doing
and how things have gone, youknow, and what did we miss while
(14:33):
we were away?
So, um, you know, the kidsmissed their friends, so it was
good for them to be back, butreally I don't think there was
much of a.
The impact the biggest thing Iyou know to be very frank and
transparent was my return wasbeing able to take what we had
learned as part of ourexperience and to see what we
could do to embed that back intothis new life of ours or what
(14:54):
this life was going to be, andnot to go back into our old
routines of I don't know, just,you know, kind of sleepwalking
through life and to make surewe're much more intentional and
purposeful about everything thatwe do and spending time with
people we wanted to spend timewith and not just putting up
with appearances.
We just wanted to be much moreintentional about the life we
wanted to live and I think thatthat has been the biggest
(15:17):
challenge of trying to infusethe sense of excitement and
enthusiasm and just happinessfor things in life and not
revert back to the woe is mementality?
Not that we were like that, butI didn't want us to get sucked
back into that kind of mindsetor sort of that kind of
framework.
For me, the biggest thing wasthe fact that when I returned
back, I learned that my employerhad downsized to basically half
(15:38):
and I knew that it was always aconsidered chance that I
wouldn't go back to work.
But that was the biggest thingfor me not going back Because in
my mind, as I came towards theend of the trip, I already had
ideas about what I was going todo, the projects and people are
going to work on places I wasgoing to go to as a result of
work, and to then be told thatyou're not returning back, it
was a bit of a blow to the gutand so, for like the 24 to 48
(15:58):
hours after finding out, I wasupset, disappointed, cranky, but
you know, I just I justrealized like we've just come
back from this amazingexperience.
There's so much to tell fromyour experience of traveling
around the world, yourexperience as a dad, as a
husband, your own personalexperience as an individual.
You need to tell that story andso, yeah, I mean that's really
(16:23):
for me was the fact that thework situation, but other than
that, I think we've all donereally well in terms of our
re-entry back home to Toronto.
Tanya Scotece (16:33):
That's awesome, that's wild.
Yeah, what a journey.
What a journey.
I just want to plot in here.
Shireen Botha (16:39):
Sorry, we have to put a little buzzsprout ad
right in the middle here beforewe continue with Charles, but so
Friends from Wild Placeslisteners is a place to share
stories from other businessowners and professionals like
Charles, a safe space to showsupport for other business
owners as well.
We feature non-profits everymonth to try and make a
(17:03):
difference or give a helpline tosomeone in need.
Do you have a message you wantto share with the world?
Or maybe you want to thinkabout something fun that you'd
like to have your own talk showor podcast or radio show,
because that's what it was whenI was a little girl.
Now times have changed andpodcasting is now very easy and
(17:24):
inexpensive and fun way toexpand your reach online.
So to start your own podcast,follow the link in the show
notes.
This lets Buzzsprout know thatwe sent you and it helps support
the show.
The team at Buzzsprout ispassionate about helping you
succeed.
So, charles, because so I'mreally interested to get
(17:49):
straight into your book youmentioned how, when you got back
, you didn't have your jobanymore and you had had this
awesome experience, but all thisknowledge and power that you
had now accumulated and a storythat was obviously bursting from
(18:11):
your wild heart.
So tell us about your book andmore about it.
But when will it be releasedand where can we buy it?
Charles Achampong (18:22):
Of course.
Yeah, thanks, shireen.
So it's interesting it's justtouching on in our conversation
with Tanya about this idea ofreturning back and what I was
going to do next and the factthat I wasn't returning back to
my former employer, and so evenbefore we left, I was trying to
think of the best way to tellour story.
Without you know, people arebusy when it comes to social
(18:45):
media.
I am a neophyte when it comesto social media.
I am a neophyte Even in termsof Facebook.
It would be my spouse wouldpick up a picture of us
celebrating my birthday and Ididn't even know what my
password was to get intoFacebook or any of the other
social media platforms, becauseI really couldn't be bothered,
and so it was interesting.
Before we left, I was like Ineed to figure out a way.
I didn't want to take thepictures and all that.
(19:07):
So I just thinking and I justrealized like I really enjoy
writing.
It's not something that I wasactively encouraged to do
because, as the notion goes,there's no money in writing is
what I was told, so I kind ofmoved on to other things, but I
enjoyed being able to sendupdates to friends, peers,
colleagues in terms of what wewere doing and I tried to keep
(19:29):
them as short and pithy andinteresting as possible, based
on our experience, and so I wasblown away by the positive
feedback I had received by theblogs.
I was sitting back on our tripand along the way, a friend of
mine that I grew up with, whoruns a publishing company, had
said you should put together abook.
I was like I don't want to puttogether a book, even putting
together these blog posts, as mywife reminds me, like I would
(19:51):
spend a good day typing up andthinking about what I was going
to say and how I was going tosay it.
She goes you spent so much timeon that you would forget about
enjoying the moment, right, andso it got easier as we went
along.
So it's not something, a musclethat I had worked on a lot, or
I put it to the side and, justyou know, I just got a lot of
good feedback.
She's like when you come back,let's talk about writing a book,
and I thought I was going toreturn back to work.
The book situation thingwouldn't be happening until like
(20:13):
later down the road, if at all.
You work none of the Friday 9to 5, and the last thing you
want to do is quote unquotewrite a book.
And so when we came back anddidn't realize I wasn't going
back to my former employer, Igot in touch with a friend of
mine and said listen, this ideaof writing a book, how would it
work?
What do I need to do?
I wrote down and she hadactually encouraged me to write
(20:39):
more than beyond the blog, so Ihad a whole section of things on
the laptop, of other thoughtsand ideas and suggestions and
things that had come up alongthe trip my own musings that I
didn't put in the blog because Ithought it was too meandering
and quite long.
And she says you know, I hopeyou were taking additional
thoughts and notes and writingadditional content, because I
think we could put together afantastic story about what you
did.
And so I thought about itseriously.
(21:00):
Let's work together in makingthis happen.
And so I treated it like afull-time job from September
through till just before theChristmas holidays of 2024.
Furiously writing and goingthrough and editing and staying
up late, you know it.
Just, it felt very strange tofocus and pour my whole sort of
life and soul into this idea ofthis book, and so this book that
(21:23):
we put together or I puttogether is called Around the
World in Family Days what welearned when we left it all
behind and traveled the globe,and so it's really become a
labor of love for me in terms ofthis book, in terms of putting
it together, and I'm just so, soexcited to be able to tell our
(21:44):
story and bring it to life aswell.
And really, for me, it's a bitof a blend of a travel memoir
and a guide to really embracinglife's pauses and then improving
your failure immunity.
So we talked a little bit aboutthis as well.
But this idea of finding yourpause and the power of pausing
(22:04):
and the fact that you don't needpermission to pause or you
don't even need a passport topause so we talked about gap
years earlier.
But really you have to thinkthrough, like what is the thing
that brings you peace, likefinding that time for yourself
every morning or at some pointin the day to just reflect and
to pause is just reflect and topause.
We spend a lot of time in themorning, you know, working on
our outer appearance, our hair,makeup, shower, shave, whatever
(22:28):
it is, as part of your routine,maybe exercise and all that, but
these are all things that youtypically focus on for your
outer you know, sort of being.
What do you do to sort of focuson your inner person, your
inner being?
And so that's this idea ofembracing life's pauses and
taking time to breathe and torelax and to think and reflect,
whether it's, you know,spiritually, through prayer,
whether it's through meditating,whether it's through, you know,
(22:50):
whatever your practice is.
And I think that, for me, isreally the piece that I touch on
a little bit in terms of how Iappreciate or how I enjoyed or
the importance of life's pauses.
And I also touch on this ideaof improving your failure
immunity, and so I talk aboutfailure immunity from the
(23:25):
perspective of not necessarilybeing immune from failure, but
being immune from the feeling ofmaking mistakes.
In sports activities, engagingwith people, they're much more
outgoing, curious, inquisitive,and so all this is is in my book
here around the world andfamily days where we talk about
our experience, and so it'scoming out, uh, january 28th um
of this year, 2025, of course,and it'll be available on amazon
, um, you can get it through my,you can purchase the book
through my, my website, charlesachampongcom, uh, so there'll be
a link there for you topurchase the book through my
website, charlesachampongcom, sothere'll be a link there for
you to purchase the book andavailable there.
(23:46):
But I've been, I've been, soit's been almost therapeutic in
many ways of telling our storyand sharing our story.
And, yeah, I'm so excited.
I'm hoping to use that, thisidea of the book, to be able to
use it as a platform to be ableto speak more publicly and tell
our story about the importanceof finding life's pauses and how
, you know, by finding life'spauses you can also improve your
(24:08):
failure immunity as anindividual.
So it's, it's exciting.
I'm just.
If you had asked me a year agoif I was going to write a book
as a result of traveling theworld, I would have said
absolutely not.
You know, go back, look at yourcrystal ball.
There's clearly a typo there.
You're not talking about me,you're talking about someone
else, and so I feel very humbledand grateful to be able to tell
(24:29):
her story through this book.
Tanya Scotece (24:32):
Right, right.
Wow, what a beautiful,beautiful journey, beautiful,
beautiful.
Charles Achampong (24:36):
Thank you.
Shireen Botha (24:37):
Tune in next week for part three of Friends from
Wild Places.
Voiceover (24:46):
You've been listening to Friends from Wild Places
with Shireen Botha.
Be sure to subscribe to thepodcast from the links to catch
every episode and unleash yourpassion.
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If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.