Charles Esther
We are married and in our 30s.
We want children someday.
But for now, I’m not ready to start a family until I’ve gone on all my dream trips.
My husband and I have spent the past ten years travelling whenever we could in between his military deployments.
We hope to be parents one day.
For the moment, though, we are embracing the chance to go on once-in-a-lifetime adventures together.
When we got married in 2018, I imagined that we would begin our family within a few years.
Seven years later, it’s still just the two of us and our dogs.
Many friends our age have children, and we feel the pressure to start a family now that we are in our 30s.
However, we have chosen to prioritise pursuing career opportunities and travel experiences over settling down quickly.
Over the last decade, we have eagerly checked off destinations from our travel bucket list — and I do not regret taking more time to focus on our marriage, careers, and travel dreams together.
To us, having children will mark the end of a chapter filled with freedom, spontaneity, and adventure.
That is not a decision we take lightly.
Travel Has Been Central to Our Relationship From the Start
My husband and I have visited many countries together.
As a little girl, I fantasised about exploring the world — and when I met my now-husband in college, I was thrilled that he shared the same dreams.
Soon, we fell in love with travelling together.
He applied for his first passport just to meet me in Morocco and England while I studied abroad.
Throughout college, we worked summer jobs to save for a bucket-list cruise to Asia.
A few months later, he proposed on a bridge in Venice during that Mediterranean cruise.
Within the first months of marriage, we honeymooned in Italy, experienced the magic of Christmas markets in Prague, and took a spontaneous weekend trip to Tokyo.
However, our travel plans changed when my husband began his military career less than a year after our wedding.
Although we managed a quick two-night trip to London during a training break, we couldn’t travel together again for nearly two years.
Then, a pandemic and another deployment further limited our chances to chip away at our travel bucket list.
Focusing on Careers and Travel to Make Up for Lost Time
Because we never knew where we would live or when we could travel, starting a family seemed impossible to imagine.
Between deployments, we squeezed in as many adventures as we could — starting a family was still not on our radar.
While my husband was away for months at a time, I kept busy with my data analytics career, worked on my MBA, and travelled with family and friends to Japan, China, and Austria.
I planned trips to Hawaii, Scotland, the Caribbean, Alaska, and England.
I also began freelance writing about my travels, which soon turned into a paying career.
My husband was supportive and relieved that I made the most of his time away, embracing new opportunities.
After his second deployment, we took a much-needed trip to the Canary Islands — a destination that had topped our bucket list since we first met.
As many friends began planning for children, we continued to plan trips to Iceland, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, and back to the Canaries.
Over the next few years, we have once-in-a-lifetime adventures planned in India, Sri Lanka, Thailand, New Zealand, and Australia.
Planning to Start a Family After Crossing Off Our Last Travel Destinations
By prioritising ourselves now, our marriage may be stronger by the time we add a child to the equation.
We still dream of travelling the world with kids if we have them, but we know it won’t be the same.
For now, we enjoy the freedom and flexibility of planning trips just for the two of us.
Prioritising ourselves and quality time has only made our marriage stronger.
This isn’t the timeline we originally envisioned.
But I don’t regret taking these years to focus on ourselves and our travels.
I hope our future children will be proud that we followed our dreams and ticked all the destinations off our bucket list before starting a family.
