The story of our Trip to Thailand Part 1

How it starts

It was the day of my wife's birthday when we made the decision to take our whole family to Thailand. When I say whole family, I mean me, my wife, and my two children a 12-year-old teenage girl and an 8-year-old boy. We were very excited about the idea of doing something we never did before. We felt like we just had to do it, especially because of all the stress and anxiety of living in Israel for the last couple of years. It hasn't been easy, and we felt like we needed a real break from everything.

So, we took some of our savings and started planning our trip. At first, it was just the four of us, but then we thought it would be nice to offer other family members to join in. We started with our mother-in-law and father-in-law. They had never been to Thailand before, and we thought it would be a good experience for them. We also thought about the kids it would be a great memory for them to have a big vacation with Grandma and Grandpa.

Then we checked with my wife’s sister and her husband. They also have two kids, so we thought maybe they would like to come too. At this point, I really didn't think that everyone would actually want to go. I didn't think the dates would be good for everyone, and I thought maybe some people would be afraid of the long flight or the cost. But I was wrong. Everyone said yes. Everyone approved and said they were in.

That evening, I called my mother and told her about it also. She has also never been to Thailand and, honestly, she has never taken a flight that long in her life. I was really hoping she would like to go with us because I wanted her to be part of this big family thing. After a couple of days of thinking, she also agreed. So now we had to book her a separate ticket, but on the same flights so we could all travel together.

From 4 to 11

This is where things started to change. Planning a trip for 4 family members is very different from planning a trip for 11 different people with different ages, different wills, and different capabilities. We now had a group that ranged from a 5-year-old girl all the way to an 80-year-old grandfather.

I sat down and started to think: How are we going to plan like that? How can I make sure that everyone will enjoy themselves? It’s not just about the fun, either. For example, my mother is diabetic. She needs to have her insulin close to her all the time and she needs to keep it cold. On a long flight and in a hot country like Thailand, that is a big deal to manage.

I started thinking, "What the hell was I thinking to plan such a trip?" It is hard enough to plan for your own root family just the four of us-but now it was something else entirely. We had to consider so many different things for so many people. I was worried: Am I going to find activities that all of them will like? Is it even possible to make an 80-year-old and a 5-year-old happy at the same time? When I realized this was the situation, I thought I had made a huge mistake. I thought that instead of a nice family vacation, I had made myself a nightmare. I was stressed just thinking about the logistics of moving 11 people around Thailand. But, as it turned out later, I was wrong about that.

7 months of planning

So even though I was a bit scared, we were all very excited. We opened a WhatsApp group for the whole family and we started planning the trip for real. To my surprise, the planning was actually less scary than I thought. It even started to be fun. The kids were the most excited of all - they kept asking me every day, "How long is it until the trip?" and "When are we going?"

I started looking for hotels and places where we would stay. Thailand is huge and we only had two weeks, so we really needed to plan it carefully so we didn't waste time. We had to choose which islands to go to and how long to stay in each place.

I also remembered how this whole idea started. Before we knew that the whole family was going to join in, we actually thought about sleeping at a friend’s house. I have a friend who lives in Koh Samui; he bought a house there a few years ago. He has a son who is the same age as my older daughter and they are even in the same class at school.

He talks a lot about Samui and how great it is there. I think he was actually the one who was planting the whole Thailand idea in our brains in the first place without us even knowing it. He offered us to stay in his place for the whole time so we could save money on hotels and just enjoy ourselves on the island. That was the very first idea: just buy a ticket and stay on Samui island for most of the trip. It sounded so simple back then. But all of that was before we knew we would be a group of 11 people. You can't really fit 11 people into one friend's house! So the plan had to change completely, and the 7 months of planning became much more intense as we looked for big villas and ways to keep everyone together.

Every time I looked at the flight tickets or the hotel pictures, I felt the pressure, but I also felt the excitement. We were really doing this. We were taking three generations of our family to the other side of the world. Even with the insulin, the different ages, and the stress of the situation back home, we were moving forward. We spent hours talking in the WhatsApp group about what clothes to bring, what food we would eat, and if the kids would be okay on the long plane ride. It was a lot of work, but it felt like we were building something special before we even left the house.