Traveller of the Month: Elena from Travel by Example

Welcome back to my Traveller of the Month series! Each month I’m interviewing a fellow world traveller and travel blogger so they can share their inspiring stories, travel wisdom and best tips with all of you!

Without further ado, let’s get to know June’s Traveller of the Month, Elena (she/her).

And if you missed last month’s TotM, get to know Christina here!

Please introduce yourself! What’s your travel story?

Hello! I am Elena, the main blogger behind Travel By Example, a blog by a family that loves to travel.

We are a family of four – me, my husband and our two boys – currently residing in New Zealand. Besides New Zealand, we have lived in Ukraine, Ireland, Netherlands and travelled to many other countries.

How did you decide to start your travel blog and what sort of stories do you share there?

Initially, as we moved cities and countries, I shared our travel stories with friends and family via Facebook posts. But as the stories and list of friends grew, I decided to start a travel blog.

I hope to inspire other people to travel more and make it easier by sharing our travel tips, experiences and example itineraries.

What do you do when you’re not travelling or writing about travel?

Even though our family loves travelling, we don’t do it full time. We live in Auckland, both myself and my husband work in IT, our boys go to school, and we even have pets – a dog and a cat – who we miss dearly when travelling.

What’s your earliest travel memory?

My earliest travel memories are about road tripping with my parents back when I was primary school age.

Once or twice a year, my parents and I would go on long trips to other cities (within what was a USSR back then). I loved that we were travelling by car, had lots of snacks with us (yep, that’s what makes a child happy) and made a lot of spontaneous stops on the way.

During the long drive we would play word games, sing songs and just have great family time on our road trips. Perhaps, those warm childhood memories are the reason for my wanderlust in adult life.

What’s your best travel memory of the last five years?

Recently we visited our first country in Asia – South Korea – and had a great time there. We went to Seoul, Busan and a few other cities.

We learned about Korean culture, tasted lots of great food, saw many historical landmarks, and visited some of the beautiful parks and nature spots. Travelling to South Korea was one of the best trips we made in the past few years.

What is the best weekend trip you’ve ever been on?

We had lots and lots of great weekend trips when we lived in Europe. But one that comes to mind now, was that one time when we lived in the Netherlands and my dad offered to look after our boys for a weekend so that my husband and I could go stay somewhere just the two of us.

We instantly thought about Paris, booked train tickets and a hotel just a few days in advance and off we went! It was the first time in 10 years that we travelled without kids.

We spent a very nice and memorable weekend in Paris, had late night walks, romantic dinners, visited Versailles and the Louvre – such good memories.

What is still on your travel bucket list? What have you recently checked off?

I think my family’s bucket list is ever growing! For example, my boys always wanted to visit the USA, and just recently we went there for a 2 week road trip.

Do you think we crossed it off the bucket list? Nope! We still have the US on the bucket list, it’s just different states that we’d like to visit next time.

We have many countries and places on our bucket list – a couple of countries in Africa, countries in Asia, a cruise to Antarctica, South America, and many many more places.

What is the longest trip you’ve ever been on?

We lived in the Netherlands for 3 years. While it’s not a trip per say (we had full-time jobs and our kids were attending International school in the Netherlands), sometimes it felt like we were having a super-long trip.

We used every long weekend, holiday and day off to go someplace new – within the Netherlands as well as to other countries in Europe.

Now, when I think about the time we spent in the Netherlands it feels like we travelled 3 years non-stop!

What’s one thing people don’t understand about travel blogging?

Travel blogging doesn’t need to be your full-time gig or the main source of income. I personally blog when I have time and inspiration, and consider travel blogging my hobby.

But many people imagine travel bloggers as some hard-core non-stop travellers that make travel and blogging the center of their life. Nope, we have other interests and other things in life too!

What destination totally surprised you?

Paris totally surprised me! Somehow I didn’t expect anything special from Paris, thinking that it’s an overhyped and oversold travel destination.

But when I visited it for the first time, I loved it! Its atmosphere, sights, food and vibe – I knew I would visit Paris again (and I did, only a few months after my first visit).

What destination would you go back to over and over again?

There are many places I would love to visit again. Like I mentioned above, the USA is one such destination – it’s so huge and has so many places I’d like to see that I would definitely go there again.

Another example is Norway – I simply loved its landscapes and nature and would love to visit again. Or Iceland – we visited it in summer, but I would love to come back in winter when it’s covered in snow and see this beautiful country in a different light.

I loved Spain and France during our travels, and so would visit again. I think the list can go on and on!

What destination is calling your name in 2024/2025?

Japan! We had planned to visit Japan back in 2017, but then we decided to move to the Netherlands that year and so we postponed our plans for Japan.

Then again a few years ago we started planning our visit and itinerary for Japan, but it has stayed closed for visitors due to covid for so long, that instead we planned and booked our trip to South Korea.

So, 2024-25 will definitely see us visiting Japan!

How do you see your travel life changing in the next 5-10 years?

I think our travel life is constantly changing. Our very first overseas trip was to Egypt, where we went only to group and guided tours, because we didn’t know any better. Over time our travel style changed dramatically.

Before kids every trip was packed with activities, walks and sightseeing. We didn’t stop travelling after we had kids, but our travel style changed – more relaxed, no long drives, adding playgrounds and parks to our itineraries, and other things to accommodate travel with small kids.

As the boys were growing up, they started influencing our travels depending on their interests – visiting military and science museums in cities we travel to, going to dinosaur exhibitions, going to adventure parks, staying in hotels with pools, visiting water parks, and so on.

I expect in 5-10 years, when our boys will be grown up and stop travelling with us, our travel life will change again. Who knows, maybe we’ll even move countries again in 5-10 years’ time!

Lastly, where can we find your online?

You can read about our travels at https://travelbyexample.com/ and connect with us via Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or Pinterest.

Thank you for joining my Traveller of the Month series, Elena! Head on over to Elena’s blog to hear more about her family’s incredible adventures and stay tuned for July’s Traveller of the Month!