Another year, another adventure
Well, it’s another year of travel for the Cliffords to a place that has become like a second home to us. Distance does indeed make the heart grow fonder, and to be honest…this year’s trip is giving a much needed break from some of the intensity that’s happening in the U.S. We are incredibly privileged to be able to take this trip, but we have by no means forgotten about some of the really horrific things that are happening to our friends and neighbors at home. Our nervous systems are getting a reset while here, but I know the same is probably not true for many of you who are reading this. At best, I hope our sharing a bit of our adventures this year helps you get just a couple brief moments of mental escape.
So…I guess we’ll start at the beginning of the trip. I’m writing this on Monday, February 16th, 2026 in our local Thai time zone, so it could be a few posts before I’m caught up since we’ve been here for nearly a week at this point.
We left our house around 5:00am on Monday, February 9th (central time) and arrived in Thailand at 12:15am on Wednesday, February 11th (Thai time). I’m not sure what it was about this trip, but I have to say…the prep to get ready to be gone for just 2 weeks felt way more intense and stressful than it did to prepare for being gone for a month last year. So many chores to do, a ton of loose ends to tie up at work for both Adam and I, and a list of regularly scheduled events that needed to happen. Did I sleep the night before our departure? Not really. Did I get to sleep on the plane rides…not as much as I would have liked.
This year, we were blessed to have an additional traveler with us! My step-dad, Dean, made the journey with us since my mom had already been here for three weeks prior to our arrival. I have to say — it was SO NICE to have an extra set of hands and eyes to help us through all the customs and security checkpoints, and all the bathroom breaks. It was also kind of fun to be able to bring someone along with us to share our love Seoul/Incheon Airport, and to bring him along into our favorite airport lounges along the way.
Speaking of the Seoul/Incheon Airport — have I mentioned lately how much I love it? The floors are so clean they sparkle, they have luggage carts EVERYWHERE to help make moving around with multiple carry-ons easier, they have children’s play zones scattered around the terminals, and their customs and security checkpoints are easy-breezy. My only issue with the place is that it’s heated to like, 78 degrees…so dressing in layers while flying through there is a must.
Most people ask how Miriam does with the long flights. To answer that, there’s a couple things you should know:
She loves screen time
She’s a serial snacker
Keeping everyone in our party hydrated while flying is a high priority of mine
Juice is a sugar-filled delicacy that is only present in our household maybe 2 times per year
Now that you know these things, I can confidently share with you that Miriam LOVES long-haul flights and really rocks them every time. She gets minimal limits on screen time (we make her turn off her movies to sleep, but that’s it), she has someone bringing snacks to her seat every few hours, and because of my worry about hydration, she gets to drink all the juice she wants. On top of that, the only expectation that is put on her is that she has to get up to go to the bathroom every few hours. I will say…the only concern we have about Miriam’s ability to handle travel is that we are setting unrealistic travel standards for her. Two years in a row now we have splurged on our air fares and flown Premium Select, and we get Priority Pass lounge access through our credit cards. That being said, our child is going to have a hard landing in reality once she realizes how much base airfares cost, and that lounges access isn’t standard.
One of the great joys I have in our international travel as a family comes in watching Miriam interact with other kids. As an only child who is also a pastor’s kid, she is very accustomed to being the only kid in a room full of adults. Because of that, she has developed really strong skills in meeting new kids and engaging in play wherever she goes because it comes from a place of relief and joy in just seeing other children. At the play zone in the Seoul/Incheon Airport it was incredibly fun to see how she went from parallel play with other children in the area, to actually playing with them, to inspiring them to use their English speaking skills with her, to her then leading the way in their play. This is a pattern we have observed again and again, no matter what country she is in. So far we have seen it happen in Mexico, South Korea, Thailand, and Canada. My only regret as a parent is that currently she is a one-language wonder…perhaps this year will be the year we finally enroll her in some language courses so that she can have some additional tools in her toolbox for making international friends.
In total I believe we were en route to Bangkok for around 30 hours. Because we had more people and luggage than normal, we went with the easiest option to get to our hotel — a taxi - rather than our usual Grab (which is an equivalent to Lyft or Uber). Honestly, it was so easy that it will probably just be the thing we do upon landing after 30 hours of travel.
All in all, the travel to our destination went as smoothly as it possibly could have!
