We’re a family of four from Nashville, Tennessee with a passion for travel. We spent August through November 2015 on an around-the-world adventure of a lifetime.

More information about our trip–and our reasons for taking it–is in this article from The Tennessean, our local newspaper.  The Tennessean also published another version of this blog. More thoughts on our favorite parts of our trip–and the lessons we learned on the road–are available here.

This wasn’t the adult half of our family’s first experience with long-term travel:  We crisscrossed the globe for a year on our honeymoon, visiting 40 countries and writing about our journey at oneyearonearth.com.

Growing up in Nashville, Derek and his family spent weekends and school vacations traveling the country in their pop-up camper, an experience he credits with instilling in him an early love for discovery. He has been to more than 100 countries and is an expert at figuring out the right combination of planes, trains and automobiles to get us where we want to go.  In his real life, he is a business lawyer with his own law practice.

As the daughter of an Indian immigrant, Shanna grew up taking more trips abroad than the average kid from suburban Detroit. She has been to about 75 countries and is an expert at advocating for itineraries that involve being near the ocean. In her real life, she is a lawyer who has spent most of her career happily working in politics.

Walker, age 2 ½, loves anything involving running, throwing or destruction. His favorite thing about traveling is “cake.” His first international trip was to Mexico when he was six months old.