Scene 1: The Car
Motoring through the south of France, Zoe napping in the back and Maxwell’s brow furrowed in deep concentration as his latest lego masterpiece slowly takes shape. With the windows down and warm air ruffling through our hair it is a rare moment of peace, quiet and contemplation as fields of lavender flit past in a blur. Cheryl and I steal a quick glance and share a smile at this perfect travelling moment that seems to vindicate all the hard work involved in travelling with our little ones.

Then Maxwell becomes frustrated and the uncooperative red piece of lego (in the rear-view mirror it looks like the decapitated body of a construction worker with one arm ripped off) rockets... read full story

All infants need their inoculations (MMR, polio etc). Parents of toddlers will already have experienced the guilt of a trusting child sitting on your lap, big trusting eyes that believe in mum and dad completely and have no idea of the ordeal to come.

Then, a look of confusion as mum or dad grip the leg rather tightly and a white jacketed figure approaches with a big needle and brutally stabs them. Shock, pain, anguish, a look of 'Et Tu Brute?' and a deep realization that... read full story

There is something petrifying about being a parent. From the moment your little bundle of love first emerges squinting into the world every part of life serves up a new set of terrors and neurosis.

First order of business: work out how to hold your baby without a) dropping it or b) damaging its delicate little neck. By the time you sort this out you worry... read full story

Having kids means accepting that much of your previous carefree life will be packed away in the metaphorical attic, never to be seen again. Regular nights out with the boys / girls, movie dates to see the latest blockbuster, boozy ski breaks - gone. Even simple pleasures such as a Saturday morning "lie-in" past 6am can seem dimly remembered echoes from another life as turbo-charged babies take a pre-dawn bounce on your exhausted head.

Similarly, packing for a world trip with two boisterous toddlers we had to clear out our kit from previous adventures. To make room for all the extra nappies... read full story

Planning a trip around the world can be exhilarating: as you spin the globe romantic, mystical and remote destinations beckon with dreamy promise of exotic experience - Nepal; Timbuktu; Lebanon; Indonesia!

However, eliminating non-child-friendly destinations is a reality check that can leave a long weekend at the beach closest to home as the only option!

We considered a trip to Japan - but then a tsunami and nuclear reactor... read full story

One week into life with our new baby Zoe and we are handling the sleep deprivation pretty well.

Luckily for us, not only is she healthy and gorgeous but she seems to be a sleeper too (thank goodness!).

We are currently revisiting those baby routines such as oracle-like reading of poo-runes for various signs of consistency, colour and frequency!

18 months later, we have finished our roundabout migration from San Francisco to Scotland.

We are in the middle of the serious business of job and house hunting, but not before we enjoy the most fantastic October weather... read full story

Back home, everything seems familiar but everything is strange.

For a start, magazines are still full of stories about Britney Spears and Brangelina. Yet after 15 months on the road, it all seems pretty strange. Smooth tarmac is a delight - yet traffic is so congested that typically transport by car is no more efficient here than... read full story

For the last two weeks we have traipsed across Tanzania, in the shadow of Mt. Kilimanjaro, through the endless savanna of the Serengeti, hiked the lush mountains of Lushoto and zipped across the turquoise-blue sea to the spice-laden tropical shores of Zanzibar... read full story

On our last trip around Asia, disaster followed closely behind us: Chechen separatists caused a massacre in a Moscow theatre just after we visited, SARS broke out in southern China as we sailed unsuspectingly through, a major terrorist attack hit Bali just as we planned to go there and a bus of tourists were murdered on the Lao road we had passed through a week before. We were lucky, but the message seemed to be don't follow us around!... read full story

The north of Uganda has been trapped in a vicious civil war for two decades. The Lord's Resistance Army rebels are fighting to form a society that strictly observes the 10 commandments. In an irony apparently un-noted by the LRA command, their mechanism to bring about this utopia is to terrorize villagers, burn houses, rape women and kidnap children. Abducted kids are taken as sex slaves or indoctrinated as child soldiers. These traumatized youngsters are often responsible for the most brutal killings, creating a terrible cycle of violence... read full story

Our day starts with deceptive normality: a slice of toast, music on our i-Pod and a nice cup of tea. Things quickly take an 'African' turn as we step outside: furtively dodging the resident troop of vervet monkeys that delight in attempting to pee on our heads from the rooftop! ... read full story

It's almost a month since our last blog. Since then we've taken to living in Kampala, the capital of Uganda. It is a lively place but with rush hour pollution you could cut with a knife. A trip to the shops feels like the equivalent of smoking a packet of cigarettes every day! ... read full story

Uganda is home to thousands of Batwa, more famous as the forest-dwelling Pygmies of numerous dubious movies of the past. We joined a community development initiative to visit one of the tribes, unfortunately now displaced from the forest and exiled on the top of a hill without water supply (albeit in an utterly gorgeous location)... read full story

Rwanda is incredibly green. It's known as the Land of a Thousand Hills and the terraced fields all around are translucently verdant.... read full story

Buying tickets and arranging transport generally just got a little harder when we reached the untouristed south-west of Tanzania, with few people speaking any English... read full story

What with Malawi being the "Warm Heart Of Africa" and Tanzania famed for its reserved and peace-loving people, we were expecting a sedate border crossing between the two countries. A surprise lay in wait... read full story

This Is Africa - a byword for the different set of rules for doing business that seem to apply here... read full story

Zambia is reputedly the "Real Africa", which based on our experience here means: extremely nice people, luscious green countryside, very basic living standards (lots of very cool looking mud huts), plain food and horrifically bumpy and dusty roads on which no vehicle is able to travel for more than an hour without a seemingly terminal breakdown! .. read full story

The wildlife encounters here have been at times heart-stopping. Deep in the Okavango Delta, we paddled on a dugout canoe to within yards of a pod of hippos. These grumpy and territorial beasts are the biggest animal killers of man in Africa (mosquitoes notwithstanding) and on a frequent basis take exception to nosey tourist canoes, biting them in half with often fatal results! The two males in the group we saw were busy fighting for dominance, so we luckily escaped unscathed... read full story

Our guidebook told us Botswana is an amazing place to visit but very expensive. However, we have run into a succession of lovely people giving us rides on buses, trucks, boats (and even a lift on a light plane!) to the exotic-but-hard-to-reach areas of the country. The only disappointment was reaching the Kalahari Desert to find that the famous nomadic bushmen had been kicked off their land to make way for a game park. Another unique culture takes a pounding... read full story

A total contrast to the paranoid security fever at our worryingly pro-Apartheid hostel on a walking tour around the legendary township of Soweto. This place is home to more than a million people; vibrant, friendly and generally safe. We met old comrades of Mandela, inspiring local community groups fighting the spread of Aids and a rather bizarre religious group - the Zion Christian Church - worshiping amongst the tin roof huts with a wild leaping Zulu dance. The really odd part was that they did this dressed in Scottish Kilts! ... read full story

We are currently in Jo'burg, South Africa. It's a slightly surreal experience, with us corralled in a gated compound. If we want to go out, the electric gate opens and a vehicle whisks us out with everyone on high alert for car-jackings... read full story

After a month in vast, rhythmic and sexy Brazil, we are on our final night in the Americas. Tomorrow we head out to Africa for the final phase of our trip... read full story

For days we navigated the Amazon in dugout canoes searching for the elusive jaguar, anaconda and pink dolphin. The biggest surprise, however, came when trekking deep in the jungle, an ear-shredding shriek came from behind us. It was Cheryl. I struggled back through the thick foliage, cursing that i didn't have a machete handy as my hands tore on the razorsharp palm edges... read full story

Our trip to Rio coincided with the world´s biggest street party - Carnaval. By day the beaches were mobbed with gorgeous bodies wearing the skimpiest thongs (and that´s just the guys!). By night exotic transvestites cruised the streets, dressed in wild feathered outfits. That was all great but even better, the family Tourney (Dale, Barbara and Leah) jetted in from Bakersfield to join us for sun, samba and shopping! Add in one of the world´s shortest ever jungle treks, an incalculable number of caiparinhas and some endless card games of Hearts and a fantastic family holiday was had by all... read full story

The Pantanal was hot, sticky and - as expected - swarming with ravenous mosquitoes. In a shock turn of events, for once Cheryl took the brunt of their ire, taking quite a savaging... read full story

As we head north, the heat and humidity gets more oppressive each day. Traveling along lines of longitude is quite strange as in 3 short weeks we've gone from freezing Antarctic to the hot and sticky tropics... read full story

If you are what you eat, we are now two extremely large, juicy but lightly grilled steaks, after stuffing ourselves for weeks on the world´s best cuts of beef (liberally washed down by fine wines) in Argentina. It seems even vegetarian meals here come with blood sausage and t-bone steak on the side in this meat-crazy country! ... read full story

Slowly sobering up from a liquid diet in our visit to the Mendoza wine region, we are checking out whether Buenos Aires is worth all the fuss. So far so good - amazing steaks, cheap wines and friendly, charismatic locals everywhere. Our cheap-n-cheerful hotel rolls us straight onto one of the most exciting streets, surrounded by traditional parrilla restaurants, slowly roasting whole pigs in the windows... read full story

We just completed traversing the world from the Arctic north to Antarctica in the south! ... read full story

Today we visited the end of Terra del Fuego, 18,000km from the tip of the Pan-American Highway in Alaska. That´s a lot of rickety buses and rocking ferry rides. In a few minutes we tip off the end of the world and head out to Antarctica. In an act of soon-to-be-punished hubris, we scoffed at wiser council that suggested anti-sea sickness pills and are traveling au naturale. Our only protection against the wildest seas in the world is a soothing bottle of aged rum! ... read full story

We saw in the New Year on with the room spinning around us. For once this was not purely alcohol-related (though flaming sambucas did make an impromptu appearance), Gary and Kirstin´s boat bobbed woozily in the windy harbour of Ushuaia. The self proclaimed "End Of The World" seemed a suitable place to see in the Bells - and supposedly Robert de Niro was in the next yacht over! Unfortunately, Bobby failed to First Foot us (probably frightened of Magnus´ famously accurate Taxi Driver "You Talkin´To Me?!" impersonation...). Of course, it turns out there is another town, Puerto Williams, a teeny bit further south than Ushuaia but why let the facts get in the way of a good tourist attraction? ... read full story

We've just arrived to the southernmost town in the world, Ushuaia, meeting our great friends Kirstin and Gary on their boat Wandering Albatross. For us it is the end of the line of an amazing 8 month overland trip across the Americas - it's a strange but wonderful feeling to gaze out into the bay, knowing we have traveled every mile across the Americas and are about to fall off the end! Now we are working hard with our nautical friends: tasting fine wines, sampling yummy cheeses and preparing for quickly-approaching trips to Antarctica... read full story

We just stepped off the boat at Puerto Natales, ending a 3 day ferry trip through the fjords and past the glaciers of southern Chile, surviving the aptly-named rough waters of the Gulf of Pain. A gorgeous passage and near mirror image of the ferry trip we took to Alaska 6 months ago - just on the opposite end of the world! ... read full story

We are about to board a ferry to cruise through Chilean Patagonia towards the southern tip of the Americas - a region of misty fjords and glaciers. The standard of living in Chile is fantastic - right up at U.S. or European level. Unfortunately that also means everything is 4 times more expensive than in Bolivia, so we need to get out of here sharpish... read full story

We paused in the picturesque seat of Chilean government, Valparaiso, on the Pacific coast.

As we walked the streets, news came through that the former dictator Pinochet had finally died... read full story

Heading south towards Santiago, we stopped in the Atacama Desert... read full story

We just crossed the border into Chile following an off-road jeep expedition to the giant salt flats of Bolivia... read full story

We spent the last couple of days in the thin air of the Bolivian altiplano - including visits to the highest capital and highest golf club in the world. Outside our La Paz hotel is the Marketplace of Witchcraft, including bizarre potions and dried llama fetuses (to be burned for good luck) - yuk. The ladies in the marketplace look fantastic, dressed in traditional dresses topped off with pork pie hats - straight out of Tintin! ... read full story

Today we crossed the border from Peru into Bolivia and are staying on the shores of Lake Titicaca ... read full story

We are currently in southern Peru exploring the condor-filled Colca Canyon... read full story