The Carisch family
David CookWhen I grow up, I want to be the Carisch family.
"We're a typical American family that woke up one day and decided to do something different," said mom Tracey.
Seven months ago, the Carisches - Tracey, dad Brian, Emily (10), Liv (7) and Alison (5) - sold their five-bedroom North Chattanooga house and Craigslisted everything else. That is, everything that couldn't fit inside four suitcases and five backpacks.
They were going on an adventure.
A big, bodacious adventure.
"This family is going to travel around the world together," Tracey said last spring.
It came after months of soul-searching: What kind of family do we want to be? What experiences do we want for our children? Are we really - truly - teaching them about the world around them?
The Carisches have always been interested in living life to its fullest. Moving here from Utah, Brian worked as a software engineer while Tracey was knee-deep in nonprofit work, helping form STEM School Chattanooga.
But they knew that the real treasures of life - the pearls, Tracey called them - are always found off the beaten path.
Way off.
So that's where they went looking.
Calling it "100 Ways To Change the World," the Carisches mapped out a service-based itinerary that would take them across continents. Not cruise ships and pina coladas, but honest, sometimes scary, boots-on-the-ground travel, all centered around 100 different volunteer projects.
It meant leaving a world you know for one you don't.
"Holy shasta," Tracey said, quite often, in the weeks before they left.
In April, they left Chattanooga for Europe.
Four months later, they had traveled to 11 countries using nine different forms of transportation. They had crashed in hostels and hotels and spare bedrooms. Spent five different forms of currency. Snapped 14,000 photographs. And traveled nearly 18,000 kilometers.
In Spain, they volunteered at an animal shelter; at night, they experienced the fiery Night of St. John festival.
In Norway, they hiked fjords, including a spectacularly high one. Most kids quit before the top. (The Carish girls - you three rock - didn't.)
In Ireland, they turned strangers into friends for life. Same was true in Croatia. And really everywhere.
"In this day and age where our national television media feeds us only the most controversial and fear-mongering stories they can find in their efforts to boost ratings, it's easy to start to think the world is an unfriendly and dangerous place," Tracey said. "Our family has found it to be very much the opposite. This trip has shown us and our girls how safe and welcoming the world really can be."
In Prague, they worked at a homeless shelter, visited the city's Rotary club, and helped restore a grassland meadow.
They saw Venice by boat and Cinque Terre by foot.
They encountered dead policemen (Croatian term for speed bump) and accidentally stumbled onto a nude beach (also Croatia).
And they hadn't even made it to Africa yet.
"The best part of this trip is the way it's changing us to make us better people and the way we're connecting with each other as a family," said Emily.
She's 10. Wouldn't you give your last dime for your 10-year-old to talk like that?
"I've learned it's not hard to make friends in new places," said Liv, who's 8.
(Ditto.)
It isn't always a picnic; they're staying in tight quarters, and every day is Family Day. Brian is still working. Tracey is homeschooling the girls while also documenting their trip in a fabulous blog (www.100waystochangetheworld.com).
But that sweet crucible of travel is transforming them.
They've turned Gandhian about stuff - "didn't need all of those clothes, toys, furnishings and gadgets," Tracey said - and their family has bonded in Super Glue ways. The kids even do their own chores.
"Unprompted," Tracey blogged.
These days, they're in Africa. They spent Thanksgiving in Ethiopia. They climbed a sacred mountain alongside thousands of other white-shawled religious pilgrims. They worked in an orphanage, then a school.
Soon, they'll travel to South America. Then Asia. Australia.
And wherever they go, it seems more and more like home.
"Looking back, it's easy to see the treadmill we were on, running from work and school to sports and activities. We didn't realize it at the time, but we had gotten sucked into the chaos of modern family life," said Tracey. "This travel has slowed us down, brought us together, and gotten us to operate as a team. It's made us a true family unit."
Contact David Cook at dcook@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6329. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter at DavidCookTFP.