Featured Speaker: Katie Balthrop - Founder and Owner, Savannah Sport and Wellness | Adventures and Lessons: A Balthrop Family Sabbatical (with Three Teenagers) Halfway Around the WorldView recording of her talk here • Link to photos & presentation: The Balthrops’ (partial) World Tour 2024
Metro Rotarian and owner of Savannah Sport and Wellness, Katie Balthrop is excited to share discoveries, highlights, and lesson learned when she, her husband Paul, and their three teens took a two-month sabbatical to southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand this summer. A major discovery is the wonders of Vietnamese cuisine, a highlight of sea turtles at the Great Barrier Reef, and lessons learned (7 days of skiing is one too many). What began as a gap year plan for their graduating senior shifted to thoughts of a family sabbatical when he opted to go straight to college. The pipe dream was coaxed and negotiated into reality (Paul and Katie still needed jobs waiting when they returned home) and became an epic summer of travel, adventure, and re-engaging with each other in ways they never expected. From the hot and bustling streets of Hanoi to the peace and quiet of the southernmost tip of New Zealand in a dark sky sanctuary, see how two months abroad reshaped a family's perspective on life, culture and ever-growing appreciation of our planet and its people.
Their recent trip involved 57 days, 14 flights, 5 countries, 15 different beds, and a once in a lifetime family adventure. It was inspired by their son expressing frustration with high school when it was online and they started planning for a gap year for him. Although he went on to college, Katie and Paul had hung onto the idea of traveling so they used the savings for the gap year to fund this adventure.
Destinations were chosen based on locations: Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore, New Zealand & Australia.
Lessons Learned: Be satisfied doing nothing. Be okay to be alone. Put your phone away. It’s okay to be different. Sometimes you just have to wait and sometimes you get stuck in the mud...laugh it off and get a drink! Dance more... Wherever your life takes you, remember that these are the people who will always be there for you.