Jessica Gee, The Bucket List Family - Family Travel Special
The Travel Diaries
Holly Rubenstein
4.6 • 758 Ratings
🗓️ 19 March 2024
⏱️ 65 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Today’s episode has a particular focus on family travel, and I’m joined today by Jessica Gee, the matriarch of one of the most well known travelling families in the world, The Bucket List Family, who I’m sure many of you follow on Youtube and social media.
The Bucket List Family’s story began back in 2015 when Jess and her husband Garrett decided to sell everything and leave home with their two children, for a journey around the world together. Eight years and another son later, they've visited more than 90 countries, have grown a following of 1.5 million YouTube subscribers and 3 million Instagram followers, and continue to find ways--big and small--to add to their lifelong travel bucket list.
As a family of five, they’ve swum with whales in Tonga, slept in castles in Ireland, lived on a houseboat in Amsterdam and eaten breakfast with giraffes in Kenya. Jess shares how having been raised “a traditional all-American girl” whose family favoured trips to Disneyworld over international travel, she never imagined she would end up seeing so much of the world. Now she’s partnered with National Geographic on her debut book, which provides all the know-how to fulfil your own family’s bucket list—including how-tos for picking a destination, packing, budgeting, and even surviving a 12-hour plane ride. And it’s these kind of practical questions as well as her Jess’s travel chapters, that now as a parent myself, I’m so excited to uncover today.
I’ve followed Jess and the family for years now, with a mixture of admiration and envy, and it’s so interesting to hear about life on the road with three little ones.
Destination Recap
- Tonga
- Swallow’s Cave, Tonga
- Rwanda
- Rwanda Genocide Memorial Building, Rwanda
- Soneva Fushi, Maldives
- Soneva Jani, Maldives
- Miavana, Madagascar
- Dominica
- Rosalie Bay Eco Resort & Spa, Dominica
- New Zealand
- Antigua
- Belize
- Alaska, USA
- Tordrillo Mountain Lodge, Alaska, USA
- Anchorage, Alaska, USA
- Homer, Alaska, USA
- Borneo
- Antarctica
- The Arctic
- South Georgia
- The Falkland Islands
- Hawaii, USA
- Kona, Hawaii, USA
- Maui, Hawaii, USA
- Honolulu, Hawaii, USA
- Kauai, Hawaii, USA
- Tahiti, French Polynesia
- Rangiroa, French Polynesia
Jess’s new book, National Geographic Bucket List Family Travel: Share the World with Your Kids on 50 Adventures of a Lifetime is out now and available wherever books are sold. You can follow Jess and her family’s travels on Instagram @thebucketlistfamily
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to the Travel Diaries podcast. |
| 0:09.1 | I'm your host, journalist Holly Rubinstein, and here each week I'll be speaking to a very |
| 0:14.6 | special guest about the seven chapters in their life's travel diaries. |
| 0:19.1 | From their earliest childhood travel memory and the first place |
| 0:22.5 | they fell in love with to their hidden gem and what's at the top of their travel bucket list, |
| 0:27.8 | we'll be uncovering their adventures around the world and the travel experiences and destinations |
| 0:33.3 | that have shaped their lives. Today's episode has a particular focus on family travel, |
| 0:39.8 | and I'm joined today by the matriarch of one of the most well-known traveling families in the world, |
| 0:45.8 | the bucket list family, who I'm sure many of you follow on YouTube and social media. |
| 0:51.3 | Just before we get started, I wanted to share with you a huge family travel |
| 0:55.4 | discovery we had earlier in the year in the Dolomites. Of course, there are loads of beach-shide |
| 1:00.1 | resorts that cater to the needs of a family. But what I wasn't aware of is that in the winter, |
| 1:06.0 | and actually in the summer too, there are these luxurious hotels dotted through the Alps that are sometimes |
| 1:11.2 | known as Kinder hotels or family hotels that are specifically family focused. I didn't know what to expect. |
| 1:18.0 | A family friendly hotel would honestly have been something I'd actively avoid before having my |
| 1:22.9 | daughter. But this property was so special and sophisticated for parents that I have been waxing |
| 1:29.4 | miracle about it ever since. It's called Sonvise and it is set within the breathtaking |
| 1:35.9 | landscape of South Tyrol on a sunny hillside by the village of Lucan. One reason I had to mention it |
| 1:42.6 | on today's episode is that some visa has rooms |
| 1:45.5 | to accommodate families of all sizes, which is just so rare. It means that if you have a larger |
| 1:51.1 | family, there's actually scope for you to all travel to a hotel and be looked after. And there |
| 1:56.2 | are too many other things to list about what I really liked about the hotel, but I'll give you |
... |
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