While planning for our year, both in advance and on-the-go, TripAdvisor became our sixth family member. We poured over reviews and suggestions of restaurants, apartments, hikes, hotels, trains, and self-guided tours. As a school writing assignment, we even studied what makes a good review and published some of our own.

Because it was so useful to hear from those who have gone before, we want to share some of our recommendations for YOUR trips abroad. This is by no means an exhaustive list, just many of the great things that come to mind when we look back on our year.

Sorry there are no helpful comments here, but we wholeheartedly recommend all of these places and activities linked below (we DID have some disasters and some less-than-ideals, we just left them off the list). If you want the full story, feel free to email us and we will talk your ear off!

GENERAL TRAVEL

AirTreks Round-the-World Airfare

Renault Eurodrive Lease/Buyback Program

TripAdvisor

TripAdvisor CityGuides App

HomeAway Rentals

Holiday Lettings Rentals

AirBnB Apartment Rentals

Rick Steves Audio Europe

ICELAND

Iceland Camping Card

Hotel Keilir, Keflavik

Northsailing Whale Watching, Husavik

FRANCE

Hotel Esmeralda, Paris

Le Manoir Quinquis, Bannalec

Cro Bique, rental in Beynac-et-Cazenac

Font-de-Gaume Cave Paintings, Les Eyzies

Beynac Castle, Beynac-et-Cazenac

Transmanche Ferries

ENGLAND

Broadhembury Campground, Kent

Dover Castle, Kent

Farriers Arms Pub, Kent

London Eye

Tower of London

Blenheim Palace, Oxford

Helm Lune Cottage Rental, Bowness

Holiday Inn Maidstone, Seven Oaks

Car train through the Chunnel

BELGIUM

Maison Antoine Frites, Brussels

European Union Visitors Centre

SWITZERLAND

Chalet Im Batzenboden, Wengen

Trummelbach Falls, Lauterbrunnen

CROATIA

Montona Gallery Pizza, Motovun

Perfectly Charming House, Viganj

Antony Boy Camping and Windsurfing, Viganj

Jadrolinja Ferries

ITALY

L’Arcobaleno Apartment, Rome

Il Sorpasso Ristorante, Rome

MOROCCO

Riad Safir, Meknes

Rough Tours Company, Sahara

TUNISIA

Novotel, Tunis

GREECE

Hotel Phaedra

TURKEY

Villa Blanca Rental, Davutlar

Ephesus Archaeological Site, Izmir

Perge Archaeological Site, Antalya

Flintstones Cave Hotel, Cappadocia

Red and Rose Valley Trails, Goreme

Sedef Restaurant, Goreme

Hitchhiker ATV Rental, Goreme

Sahkulu Place Apartment, Istanbul

TANZANIA

Nomad Tanzania Safaris

RWANDA

Solace Guesthouse, Kigali

Kigali Memorial Centre, Kigali

Meze Fresh Burritos, Kigali

MALAYSIA

Petrosains Science Museum, Kuala Lumpur

Novotel City Centre, Kuala Lumpur

THAILAND

Thailand Elephant Conservation Center

Sojos Cafe, Chiang Mai

Khaomao Khaofang Restaurant, Chiang Mai

Free Burma Rangers

Medici Restaurant, Bangkok

Navalai River Resort, Bangkok

Bumrungrad Hospital, Bangkok

VIETNAM

V’Spirit Cruise, Ha Long Bay

Hanoi Charming 2 Hotel, Hanoi

CHINA

New Day Foster Home Guesthouse, near Beijing

Huanghua Great Wall of China

Olympic Water Cube Water Park, Beijing

Xian HQ Apartments, Xian

Mt Huashan Hike, Xian

Terra Cotta Warriors, Xian

JAPAN

Japan Railpass

Sakara Kyoto Guesthouse, Kyoto

Sakara Gion Machiya Rental, Kyoto

Musashi Sushi, Kyoto

Hiroshima Memorial Park, Hiroshima

Andersen Kitchen, Hiroshima

Toyota Plant Tour, Toyota City

Pepper Lunch, Tokyo

KOREA

Cozy Residence Apartment, Seoul

… AND SOME ORGANIZATIONS WE HAVE GROWN TO LOVE

St. James Muswell Hill, London

Friends of the Lakes District, Kendal, UK

Lakes Christian Centre, Bowness, UK

St. Paul’s Cultural Center, Antalya, Turkey

World Relief Rwanda

Sonrise School, Musanze, Rwanda

Akiba School, Nairobi, Kenya

Light and Power Centre, Nairobi, Kenya

The Ocean Church, Tanzania

Kenya Connection, Kenya

Dave and Lucy Chaves, Nairobi, Kenya

Christ Church Westlands, Nairobi, Kenya

International Justice Mission Thailand, Chiang Mai, Thailand

Grace International School, Chiang Mai, Thailand

Free Burma Rangers, Chiang Mai, Thailand

New Day Foster Home, China

HAPPY ADVENTURES TO YOU ALL!

I know it’s been many weeks since we were on safari … but we want to share this giant audio journey of our time with lions, elephants, hippos, vultures, hyenas, cheetahs, leopards, wildebeest, zebras, and the rest of Creation.

It’s a quick-moving yet ponderous 15-minute epic … and likely will mean the most to the seven of us in the jeeps … but it’s awesome, and we invite you to come along.

The clip begins with S playing a thumb piano on the eve of our first foray in to the bush …

Earlier this week, we said goodbye to dear, long-time friends Alex and Sherilynn and their three kids as we left Tanzania.  In our last few minutes together, we had a frantic 10 minute dance party, took some crazy PhotoBooth pics, and sniffled our way through hugs and goodbyes.  Good times, hard goodbye.

This scene is very familiar to us this year — the choking back tears, having one last look, trying to focus on when (not IF) we will see a certain special family again.

I did not imagine that this would be a year of goodbyes.  Goodbyes are not my forte (!), and it turns out that I have passed that trait down to the next generation.  No amount of preparation or self-talk or rationalization seems to help.  I know it is an indication of how we have touched or been touched in deep places, or wishing that the time had been longer, but it’s kind of like the saying, “Wrinkles are the trace of where smiles have been.”  That doesn’t mean it’s going to be pretty…

We have found this year that we have a much harder time leaving PEOPLE than leaving PLACES.  When we leave a PLACE there is a sadness (and I admit that a few of us may have shed a tear when leaving the Swiss Alps).  But when we leave PEOPLE, there is a longing.

And after just 48 hours in Rwanda, we are longing for people we have already said goodbye to here.  A great gift of wrinkles I wouldn’t trade for the world.

A shot from this morning’s Super Bowl viewing party in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Wake up call was 2:15AM … and the boys haven’t yet gone to sleep ….

We watched the game in a State Department home, thanks to American Forces Network … which meant no commercials, which was kind of nice.

In our travels so far, there’s little evidence that American football will ever replace football as a global game. We watched that theory play out recently in Zanzibar:

I previously posted about meeting Pastor John Komanya and some of the ministries his church community supports. (Unbroken, Unmoved.) Yesterday, we drove outside Dar es Salaam to worship with that church community — at the Cathedral of Joy.

Much of the experience was unfamiliar … but love is love and Love is Love, so we felt completely at home under a colorful multi-tarped tent in Kabahi, Tanzania, on stage — boys to one side, S and I next to Pastor John — singing, worshiping, and praying in both English and Swahili.

(Two pictures are pasted at the bottom of this post. One of lunch after the service, and another of a giant group shot before we returned home.)

The Cathedral of Joy community is praying for big things to happen in 2013: more families to support, people to be Saved, new church buildings, music and production studios, vehicles, more land, and so on. That kind of big thing praying and thinking and expecting is not unfamiliar to us … but I did learn something about the faith that fuels that praying, thinking, and expecting.

There were two singers who led the band and the congregation in worship at the Cathedral of Joy. Instead of singing each new song in a pre-arranged key, the singers would simply start singing … and the band would FOLLOW, taking a few seconds to find the key they should play.

That sort of worship leading gives people like us heart palpitations … but it was also refreshing. Each song was truly from the heart. The Heart, perhaps. And the congregation — with all its big plans for 2013 — followed.

–

Here’s a wonderful clip of the two singers leading the congregation in song after the power generator stopped working temporarily. Who needs electricity ….

48266 is the number once used by local operators to dial my father’s home in Shelby, Ohio.

Dad shared that detail with me recently while on safari. We were standing next to each other one afternoon as our safari jeep rumbled along, with our heads poking through its roof windows.

We talked of his birthplace, his parents, his home. It’s a conversation that leads to deep well of questions for me, like the bedtime story a child asks for over and over. The grandparents I never knew. Small town. Small church. Big industry. And … music.

Music was part of everything, Dad tells me. He played in a jazz band led by my grandfather. My grandfather led the church choir. My grandmother played the piano. My dad fell for music and the trombone early … and that passion has stayed with him to this day.

He toyed with pursuing music as a profession. At some point, though, my Dad decided to go a different direction. He went to the Navy, to law school, then a long legal career.

“My parents didn’t want me to pursue music,” Dad explained in the safari jeep. Music wasn’t sensible in those days. He was encouraged to seek out more practical professions.

Dad talked of some regret, yes … but it’s also true that he and his brother are now playing regular jazz gigs in a Brooklyn club. He’d always dreamed of being a paid musician in New York. Now he is.

Of the MOST interest to me, however, is how Dad has harnessed and wrestled with and tried to ignore and reignited his passion, passion, passion for music over the years. We talked of these things, too. Music is so powerful, so consuming, so emotional … that it is at the same time intensely exhilarating … and intensely painful. I want it so badly, but cannot engage with it in pieces that are too small  or too unpracticed or too unperfect.

It’s hard to explain … but I stumbled through an attempt to explain that afternoon with Dad on safari, as he stood next to me.

This is how he responded: “It’s that way for me, too.”

Some friends passed along this poem from Sir Francis Drake for our journey:

Disturb us Lord, when we are too well pleased with ourselves,

When our dreams have come true

Because we dreamed too little,

Because we sailed too close to the shore.

Disturb us, Lord, when

With the abundance of things we possess

We have lost our thirst

For the waters of life.

I met John Komanya in the airport in Dar es Salaam. It was typically awkward for my sons: we were leaving the airport cafeteria after a quick muffin lunch when I met eyes with a stranger, he stood up, we introduced ourselves to each other … and my children disappeared.

Turns out, John used to live and preach in Maryland … but he returned to his home in Tanzania to run various ministries full time. “I’d love to see those ministries,” I told him. We then exchanged numbers.

A week later, I was with John in his four-by-four on a gutted road in a Dar suburb. He’d assembled all the principals of his small church for a special tour – a tour for me, only me – to meet people they were helping:

Seven children who lived with their mother and grandmother in squalor. A baby who needed surgery outside the country to repair a hole in her heart. Abused women and young girls in a yet-to-be constructed home in the country.

Throughout the day, though … my heart remained unbroken, unmoved.

Who knows why? I was embarassed to take pictures … I was hesitant to engage in some sort of hardship tourism … I was tired. I kept expecting someone to ask me for money, to ask for help … to NEED my help … but that request, that need, never came.

Our tour ended at a home for teenage boys who’d previously lived on the street. John lived there, too, ministering to – and fathering – these boys. Many of the young men were being trained as musicians – guitarists, bassists, drummers, keyboard players – to play in a worship band led by John Komanya.

When they played for us … I am so grateful to say that my heart was lifted ever so slightly. It was MUSIC that finally moved my spirit off its center.

I’m still waiting for my heart to break.

–

(Here’s a recording of one of the songs played by the worship band. It concludes when John invites me to sing along.)

(NOTE: That’s not an inappropriate finger thing going on. It’s the FOURTH finger, the ring finger, celebrating Eugene and Elaine’s engagement. They’re the fourth and fifth folks from the right.)

Earlier this week, I was listening to a long-term missionary who’s now in Tanzania describe what she periodically longs for in the US. “I miss the mountains,” she told me.

Then – on a bus in Zanzibar – a fellow tourist talked of a different longing. Something triggered the recollection of a beautiful memory, of a time years before when her kids were young enough to travel with her and her husband: “I remember my son once had to ….”

I think it’s a good thing to LONG FOR the experience of a fond memory in this way, or LONG FOR the mountains of yesterday. These are the powerful forces that helped shape us, right?

I’ve noticed that we’ve started REMEMBERING, even longing for, portions of our journey. We sift through these memorable experiences together … of a time when, or that guy we met, or that meal we had, and so on.

We are now past the halfway mark of our journey … and perhaps what’s happening is this:

I seem to be trying to balance the emotions of remembering – with the hope of what’s to come – with an awareness of, a THANKFULNESS for, RIGHT NOW.

Two reasons why safaris aren’t just about seeing the Big Five — lions, leopards, rhinos, Cape buffalo, and the African elephant.

We met a couple from Wisconsin during our safari. They’d come to celebrate fifty years of marriage, having been on safari in Botswana years before with their three children.

They’d just returned from their first day of game drives and she was eager to share a story of joy. She explained how the Lilac Breasted Roller bird had been one of the most brilliant animals she’d seen in Botswana, then told us that she’d seen another Roller during the afternoon.

She shared with us how the experience had brought back vivid, meaningful memories of family time spent years before in the bush.

—

One of the first animals we saw on safari was indeed the Cape buffalo … but it wasn’t a buffalo in its prime leading a herd or mothering a newborn. It was an old animal, no longer of use to its herd, banished to the plain’s fringe with others of its kind.

Our guide named him “Old Soldier.”

I wondered about all the battles he’d won and lost over the years — and how much time he had left.

A wonderful, global moment this afternoon in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania:

A water slide. A handful of boys — from England, the US, Bolivia, and Malawi. Mud. Bathing suits. A hose. A new friend — a parent — who happens to know a former NPR colleague from college and time spent in Beijing.

Later, trampoline time was added to the mix.

E: “Do you think they have trampolines in Heaven?”