Normally, families leave for a one-week vacation at the beginning of spring break.
The Leblancs, however, are setting off this weekend for what will surely be no normal vacation. The family of five has packed their bags and their Mercedes Sprinter motor home for an epic 13-month excursion across Europe.
“It’s been a dream of ours for awhile,” said Brandee Leblanc, the intrepid female head of the family that includes her husband Hugo and their three children aged four, eight and 10.
They’ve been planning the trip for three years, originally trying for Hugo to get extended leave without pay but they could only secure a six-month pass on that.
“We thought, ‘Well that’s not really going to be enough for us. We’d like to do a full year.’”
They were able to make other arrangements with his employer for the year-plus duration of the trip. One might naturally wonder if the more difficult question would be how they intend on driving the Sprinter across the Atlantic Ocean.
“We’ve had that question a number of times,” Leblanc laughed. “We are actually driving to Halifax. We are shipping it out of the port in Halifax and it is going all the way to Antwerp, Belgium.”
This won’t be her first time across the pond. She previously lived in Paris for a year and also backpacked throughout the continent. She’s been three other times than those but Hugo has only been once while he was on leave from his tour of military duty in Afghanistan.
They do have designs to see most of Western Europe while a couple other locations in the eastern part are also on their radar. They even intend to visit the United Kingdom to see some of her family, which would seemingly require another sea jaunt across the English Channel for their vehicle.
“We’d like to hit as many as possible. There’s no plan. We don’t have to be in a certain place at a certain time.”
They have family and friends throughout several of the countries and so their map is dotted with many important stops.
Other than that, there’s nothing that has to get done. It’s just a year for us to relax and spend some time with our kids and just enjoy doing something other than working,” she laughed again.
“It’s not been an easy undertaking. I will not lie. There has been a lot of research and time put into phone calls and figuring out even just the shipping and the paperwork. Nothing is very straightforward.”
She has dual citizenship for England, which did much to help ease the paperwork, she said.
“It’s a bit daunting but we’re always up for adventure. We do things a little differently than a lot of people do. It’s a good chance for us to show everyone that this is totally feasible, even with three kids living in a motor home. We’re going to manage. It sounds a little bit crazy but we will manage and we’re going to have fun doing it.”
Even though the parents won’t be working, the children will still be home schooled. Leblanc has worked as a teacher in the past and neither she nor Hugo has any intention of letting the kids go without a proper education. They plan to let the kids Skype with their classmates.
“It’ll be good for them to show their friends where they are and keep in contact. I know that they’re a little bit hesitant about leaving all their friends and sports for a year. Hopefully, they’ll understand a little bit later, and even during the trip. Right now, they’re still young enough that they don’t really understand how big of a deal it is.”
There’s no word yet on what she has planned for field trips.
