Table Mountain

Visiting Langa

The Garden Route Game Lodge

The Garden Route in general, as experienced with BokBus

Groot Constantia

Surges of creativity and inspiration

Safari game drives

Chapman’s Peak Drive

La Colombe

Weekend markets

A family of monkeys on my back

Camps Bay Beach

Worshipping and fellowshipping with Life Church

Visiting Langa

Watching our kids serve and connect with others

Community House Table Tennis

Experiencing the Indian Ocean at Wilderness

Klein Roosboom

Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden

CitySightseeing bus tours

Penguins

Petting and feeding elephants

Eating regularly with our homeless neighbors

All-day breakfast, especially the Bootegger at Bootlegger

Wine, especially relaxing at Klein Roosboom while drinking it

Weekly massages at MyMassage

The Mossel Bay zipline

Latte art

The coffee

Bo-Kaap

Paragliding off Signal Hill

Seal Island

Cango Caves

Cape Point

Two Oceans Aquarium

The Robben Island tour—no words

Meeting Rumbo

Conversations with local entrepreneurs

Lunch at Belly of the Beast

Google Flight alerts are a great way to watch for the best fares and save money.

Flights are usually way less expensive out of LAX or other major hubs, so be open to flying in/out of other cities instead of your own.

Location and walkability matters so much. Do the research about where to stay in advance.

Talk with someone who’s been where you’re planning to visit, that should help you make a more educated go/no-go decision.

Adjust the Airbnb schedule a little here and a little there as you search for long-term spots. Stay flexible.

Short trips are far more expensive than longer ones, on a per day, per person basis.

Have a plan for getting to your first destination from the airport after you land.

Adults: communicate what’s happening, especially when one is taking the lead on getting the family to and from destinations. Everyone should be on the same page.

We did a solid job of packing the right amount; just one carry-on suitcase and a backpack per individual, with one bigger suitcase for other items.

If you’re making a stop beforehand, plan packing around that. Have day-trip clothes ready to go.

Check your airline’s baggage weight limits and weigh the (bigger) bags before leaving for the airport. We had to drop 8-pounds at the counter.

Hop on/hop off bus tours are a great way to get a lay of the land, especially if only in a city for a short while. They’re all over the world, too.

Lookup the tipping guidelines and other cultural etiquette before you land.

Even if your company allows for “fully remote” work, be sure to communicate with your team through the process and work out the logistics. Retrospectives help this.

Research and pay attention to the safety precautions before you go somewhere.

Plan for an extra day post-travel to not be available for work—both going and returning. Jet lag is real.

It takes about a solid week to settle into a good rhythm and schedule after you arrive.

Be bold. Make friends. Find a nearby church or other form of community as soon as possible.

Schedule opportunities to serve before arrival. It can take time to schedule those efforts, especially if you want to do so in a recurring way.

Always try the local food.

The restaurants in Cape Town are delish. We especially loved the fact that most restaurants served all-day breakfast.

Table tennis is everywhere. That especially made Tolan happy.

Load shedding! Research where you’re going and if you’ll have the wifi you need for work and school and staying in touch with folks. Local strikes made this worse in our case.

Don’t forget to download movies on your movie-streaming apps (and get those apps on your Mac!) so that you can watch movies as a family in the midst of wifi shortcomings.

Protest against injustice can take many forms. The painted houses in Bo-Kaap are an excellent example of that.

Generally speaking, steer clear of pizza in South Africa.

It’s really nice when the currency exchange is in your favor, as it was for us. We exchanged 16-17 ZAR to every 1 USD.

Have friends or family visit about halfway through your trip if they’re coming—it breaks up the longer stay nicely. Anticipate spending less time on work those days.

A guided tour through the Garden Route was the way to go, allowing us to experience much more than we would have otherwise in a very short period of time.

The Indian Ocean is much warmer than the Atlantic.

Using Google Maps to chronicle where we’ve been is awesome. We cataloged nearly everywhere we visited in South Africa.

Uber is very inexpensive in Cape Town. Very.

Paragliding is well worth it—and a reasonable cost all things considered. Do it.

Get couples massages as much as possible while in other countries. They’re more affordable, and it’s a great way to connect with your partner—and relax—while away.

If you’re going to go cage diving with sharks, remember that it’s up to the sharks whether they want to come out to play. This was our one disappointment on the trip.

Stop to appreciate the flowers. Cape Town is the only country in the world that enjoys a floral kingdom unto itself.

The tour at Robben Island is given by ex-political prisoners during the apartheid era. Buckle up for an emotionally overwhelming experience.

Wealth inequality feels unconquerable, especially as it exists in South Africa. But helping one person at a time is the only way we really can start to make a difference. Do something.

Being in another country isn’t the best time to launch a book. But it’s not impossible.

We got a little antsy after roughly 6 weeks. We plan to design around this timeline in our forthcoming trips, potentially having other shorter trips planned on either side of our main stay (like 1- or 2-week bookends).