Recent Posts
Uzbekistan: Samarkand, Bukhara, and Khiva
You may be wondering… Uzbekistan? Really?! What an odd choice, Silleck family. It feels a bit random – 4,000 kilometers in the opposite direction of any sensible route from Tokyo to Colorado. Rest assured, your confusion is entirely justified, as we had the exact same reaction! A former Soviet republic and only open to foreign…
Japan: Fujikawaguchiko, Takayama, Yamagata, and Tokyo
Completing the Kumano Kodo, the last big scheduled trek of our sabbatical year, left our family with a lot of feelings. At this point in our year of travel, it felt like we had been away from home forever, but also simultaneously that we had just left our home in Colorado – our sense of…
Japan: Kyoto, Nakasedo, and the Kumano Kodo
Following our brief stay in Shanghai, we boarded our next flight for Osaka, Japan! We were all excited to arrive, as Japan was near or at the top of our list of destinations to visit for the whole family (H in particular had been dreaming of it for several years now). We had high expectations…
China: Xingping, Zhangjiajie, Xi’an, Huangshan, and Shanghai
As we have exited each destination throughout this year of travels, we have always felt ready to move on to the next chapter of our adventure. Those same feelings were not present as we prepared to depart from New Zealand – the idea of leaving the tranquility of a place so comfortable and familiar mingled…
New Zealand: South Island
After nearly six months of travel across Asia, the moment we set foot outside of the airport in Christchurch felt as if we had arrived back home. This year of adventure has been many things for our family – exhilarating, at times challenging, surprising, frequently stunningly beautiful … but very rarely has it been comfortable.…
Vietnam: Hội An, Ninh Binh/Tràng An, and Hanoi
After our adventurous two week family “snorkelfest” through the islands of West Papua in Indonesia, we headed back north to Vietnam. Our time spent here was coordinated with the Lunar Lantern Festival in Hội An (January 13th) and the Vietnamese New Year (Tết, the week-long period around January 29th)! We had originally considered adding the…
Indonesia: West Papua and the islands of Raja Ampat
Our self-induced family hostage crisis in Laos, aka the weeks spent waiting for our replacement passport, came to a chaotic end on the afternoon of December 23rd. On the morning of Christmas Eve we began our journey to Indonesia. Due to the limited last-minute flight options, we found ourselves traveling for 24 hours straight to…
Eight Boots Abroad 