About Us: Wandering Wagars – Adventure Family Travelers

Honest stories, real photos, and road-tested advice from a dad who has hiked glaciers with his kids on his back and changed diapers on the ancient walls of the world’s wonders, so your family can go do something extraordinary too.

My family and I don’t collect passport stamps. We collect memories and turn them into stories, guides, and inspiration.

For more than a decade, my family and I have sandboarded through the dunes of the Sahara Desert, come face-to-face with polar bears in Churchill, Manitoba, snorkeled with sharks in the Galápagos Islands, and searched for the ruins of the Ancient Wonders of the World in Türkiye and Egypt. My wife, Christina, and I have hiked across glaciers with our babies in kid carriers, changed diapers on the ancient walls of Petra, Jordan, and raised two incredible boys who could now plan a trip around the world to perfection and travel the whole thing without blinking.

I started Wandering Wagars – Adventure Family Travel in 2015 as a place to share all of those adventures. It’s where I help families explore the world with tips, guides, and resources from someone who has been there and done that with his kids in some of the most incredible places on this planet.

I’ll always consider myself a traveler and adventurer first. But along with a love of exploring, traveling is more than my passion. It’s my career. Everything on this website is experienced first-hand and fact-checked. My work has been honored by the Society of American Travel Writers and the Travel Media Association of Canada. When you read it here, it has been lived by my family and told by a professional, so your family can travel with confidence and experience life-changing adventures for yourselves.

I’m Kevin: Adventurer, Storyteller, and Photographer

I’ve always been happiest at the edge of my comfort zone. That place where most sensible people decide to call it quits. Hiking to a remote mountain in Turkey at three in the morning to watch the sun rise, wondering who exactly decided that I was qualified to do this. Paddling a kayak in Churchill, Manitoba, while beluga whales surface and nudge the edge of my boat while I try to convince my four-year-old to sing to them. Lying on my stomach on Komodo Island while a 10-foot-long Komodo Dragon ambles toward me, asking Christina and the boys to stand close, but not so close that they can get bitten.

When most people turn left, I want to know what’s down the road on the right. Who lives in the village at the end of that dirt track. What that delicious smell drifting out of the market stall is, and whether I’m brave enough to eat it (I usually am). And what my boys will say when they see a sunset over the Serengeti for the first time. That curiosity has led me to more than 60 countries around the world, and has guided Christina and me across more than 40 countries on five continents with our boys in tow. Not every adventure has been perfect. There have been ups, downs, moments of wonder, and moments of complete disaster.

And I regret none of it.

Every trip changes me. But some stand out more than others. One happened knee-deep in the water on the shores of the Philippines, when my youngest son, Dylan, became terrified of the ocean and every adventure on the water somehow came with a side dish of anxiety. Helping him through that fear rewrote the way all four of us travel, and I told the whole story, warts and all, in A Child’s Fear of Open Water Rewrote My Family’s Travels.

Every story here starts with a moment too beautiful, too ridiculous, or too hard to keep to myself, like Dylan being the youngest person ever to launch himself off the longest zipline in the Philippines, or Cohen learning to solo-ride a horse through the mountains around Petra, Jordan, at five years old while his little brother learned to sleep on one. The photos you see throughout this page and this website are my family and our adventures, seen through my eyes. The words written are my way of bringing you along with us, with every practical detail you need to plan your own adventure, minus the mistakes I already made for you.

The Inspiration: My Family

I tell the stories. But Christina, Cohen, and Dylan are the reason there’s anything worth telling.

Christina: The Brains of the Operation

Christina was born in the Philippines and grew up in a family that never sat still. She’s the researcher, the planner, and the reason we have never (well, almost never) arrived somewhere without a bed booked well in advance. I travel on a whim and learn as I go. Before we land anywhere, Christina has already read up on the destination’s history, its culture, and, most importantly, where to eat.

If one of our family travel itineraries looks effortless, that’s because Christina put in a lot of work to make it look like that. She has a soft spot for Michelin-star restaurants and a good wine tour.

Cohen: The Professor and the Fisherman

Cohen took his first trip at three months old, a road trip to New York City, followed by an overseas adventure in Portugal two months later. He gained a sense of curiosity early and has been asking questions ever since. Today he’s 15 and has explored 43 countries on 5 continents. Put him on a tour, and he’ll be glued to the local guide’s heels from start to finish, soaking up facts like a sponge with a library card.

His penguin obsession is the entire reason we flew to Argentina to meet the Magellanic penguins of Punta Tombo. Somewhere along the way, he stopped wanting to watch penguins and started wanting to be one. Now he’s obsessed with catching fish, whether it’s on the lakes near our home in Ontario or out on the ocean in Mozambique and Thailand.

Dylan: The Human Tornado

Dylan started traveling at one year old and hasn’t stopped moving since. Now 13, he’s explored 41 countries and is happiest anywhere he can run or jump off something, preferably headfirst. He has his dad’s risk-taking gene and was the youngest person to launch himself off the longest zipline in the Philippines when he was just three.

He’s matured a LOT over the past couple of years, and while he still loves diving, running, and getting himself into situations where he’d better succeed or it’ll end badly, he has chilled out a lot. Dylan is also the reason we went looking for polar bears in Churchill, and traveled to Dubai to see the Arabian Oryx. When he isn’t jumping, he’s eating. Sometimes he’s doing both at the same time. The kid who once wouldn’t go past his knees in the ocean now can’t wait to dive off the tallest cliff he can find.

Bringing the Grandparents Along

Some of our best trips have included the boys’ grandparents. Multigenerational travel runs through our stories in Greece, Newfoundland, and Hawaii, because a memory hits differently when three generations make it together.

Why We Experience Family Travel the Way We Do

Travel has never been about ticking off bucket list boxes for us. In fact, we often choose a destination based on which places are having deals on flights. Instagram memories only last about as long as it takes to snap the photo. But the way a new experience makes you feel lasts a whole lot longer. That’s what I try to help my family collect during our travels: memories and moments. (I do love a good photo, though. You’ll find plenty on my Instagram page.)

What I see in every new destination or family travel experience is a chance for our family to grow, together, in three ways:

• Intellectually. We stood on a walkway overlooking the 12,000-year-old ruins of Göbekli Tepe, where people were carving monuments before humans had even discovered agriculture. In a place like that, our sense of history was rearranged on the spot. Through travel, Cohen and Dylan have learned geography, science, and language through living experiences, which beats memorizing them in a classroom by a country mile.
• Spiritually. The boys were honored with a chance to drum at a First Nations Pow Wow in Ontario. We’ve sat in silence in a centuries-old caravanserai in Cappadocia, Türkiye, as Mevlevi dervishes turned slowly through the sema ceremony. And we’ve given alms to Buddhist monks at sunrise in a temple overlooking Chiang Mai, Thailand. Experiences like this quietly change how we understand our place in the world.
• Emotionally. Travel is life-changing, inspirational, and dramatic. But it can also be hard sometimes. Missed connections, getting caught overseas during a pandemic or a protest, challenging hikes, and frightening moments have taught all four of us patience, resilience, and how to laugh together when the plan falls apart.

Like most families, we are very busy. Between school, sports, hobbies, family, and friends, time seems to fly by faster than any of us can truly appreciate. Sometimes, when we’re at home, it feels like Christina and I are desperately hanging on to weekends for fear of losing one more minute of the short time we get to spend with our kids. Travel is how we slow down and connect. At home, life pulls us in four directions at once. On a hiking trail in Iceland or spending six days on a Northern Lights cruise in Norway, it’s just us. Our schedules are busy, but every moment is spent with each other, and every meal is filled with conversation.

Christina and I have always believed in experiences before things. We don’t come home with suitcases full of fridge magnets (Although we do collect a few meaningful souvenirs). We come home with stories we’ll still be laughing about around the dinner table in thirty years. Our boys only live under our roof for so long, and I intend to fill every one of those years with as many memories as possible.

Our Four Core Values of Family Travel

We don’t usually take “vacations.” Instead, we build out exciting, sometimes exhausting, itineraries designed around building memories and challenging our preconceptions and sense of understanding about the world. Most family travel experiences that we plan are built around four pillars. If it delivers all four, and nobody cried for longer than an hour, we call it a win.

Inspiration

I want you to finish one of our stories and know what you’re in for if you book the same trip. So I tell the real story, including the hard stuff, because the honest story will show you that anyone can experience these things if they’re willing to make family travel a priority. To help you get started, I recommend reading 8 Reasons to Travel with Kids.

Adventure

We go looking for the things that make our palms a little sweaty: snorkeling with sharks in the Galapagos Islands, white-water rafting through Ottawa, standing on the summit of Mauna Kea and climbing to the ruins of Machu Picchu, Peru. Kids who face down a little fear and discomfort come home a few inches taller. Read Why I Recommend Adventurous Family Travel.

Education

The world is the best classroom my boys (and Christina and I) will ever have, and the field trips are awesome. From the pyramids of Giza to Kennedy Space Center, to realizing just how lazy lions really are, every trip is a lesson we don’t even realize that we’re learning. See Visiting the Pyramids of Giza with Kids.

Culture

We travel to meet people, not just to collect places. That means Indigenous-led experiences, local guides, home kitchens and festivals, so our boys grow up curious and respectful rather than just with a passport full of stamps. Explore our Indigenous Road Trip through Ontario here.

We Don’t Just Talk About Travel. We Do It.

Every story and travel guide on this site comes from a trip we have actually taken, almost always with kids in tow, usually with at least one snack-related crisis along the way. Unless I say otherwise, every word, photo, and video is mine. No rewritten press releases, no stock photos, and no pretending I’ve been somewhere I haven’t. If I’m mentioning something I haven’t experienced first-hand, I’ll tell you straight up.

Since I launched this website in 2015, my personal travels have added up to more than 60 countries across five continents. Today, more than three million readers have used these guides to plan their own adventures, and over 1,300 families swap stories and advice in my Family Travel Support Group on Facebook.

Adventures That Have Helped To Define Us

Share Your Family’s Travel Stories With Me

So that is my family and me. Now I want to hear about you. Where is your family dreaming of going next, and what’s standing in the way?

• Join the community: Share your photos and questions in our Family Travel Support Group.
• Follow along: Find us as @wanderingwagars on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook and Pinterest.
• Work with us: Tourism boards, brands and editors can commission award-winning writing, photography and video, or book Kevin as a speaker or expert source. Visit Work With Us.

The world is big, weird and wonderful. Let’s go show it to our kids.