Seeing the world, one country at a time
Kellie McIntyre and her husband didn’t grow up traveling. In fact, neither of them left the country until they were in their 20’s.
McIntyre said many parents say they will wait until their kids leave for college to travel, but their family had a different plan.
“We’re not a sporty family, so we decided that traveling would be our sport,” McIntyre said. “We set a goal to take our girls to every continent except Antarctica before they finished high school.
While at the airport preparing for a three-week trip to Thailand and Cambodia, the McIntyre’s met a family who said they were going on a year-long trip. That’s what inspired them to do something similar, just not as long.
In 2013, McIntyre, her husband, Dale — who was born and raised in Mountain Brook — and two daughters (ages 12 and 14) each packed one suitcase and took a five-month journey around the world.
“It’s an amazing thing you can do for your kids– to travel the world,” McIntyre said.
Some of her favorite spots include Europe, Spain, France and Germany for history. For the cultural experience, she recommends anywhere in Southeast Asia, specifically Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Myanmar, Malaysia and Indonesia. For adventure, she describes New Zealand as the adventure capital of the world.
“All the places are great for different reasons,” McIntyre said.
It wasn’t until the pandemic that she decided to compile stories from their trip in a book. “The Passport Project” released in March and now McIntyre’s mission is to help other families travel boldly.
“I just thought, I have so many great life lessons of acceptance and tolerance and freedom and what it means to be an American and the privileges we have to travel. I felt called to write a book. It was not until then I felt like I had a story to share,” she said.
She began learning about writing and how to create a book and knew her audience would be teenagers, and she wrote it from her daughter’s perspective.
Her oldest daughter, Delaney, told her on the trip “thanks for ruining my life.” while her younger daughter, Riley, was adventurous and happy to miss part of 7th grade.
Traveling for months on end does make for a lot of togetherness. Being around each other 24 hours a day, seven days a week for months was a lot, McIntyre said. One day while in Vietnam, McIntyre found an international school and was able to drop the girls in for the day. They both loved it and asked if they could enroll.
During the trip, not only was McIntyre blogging, but so were her daughters. As part of their homeschool work, they were required to write at least one blog post for every country they visited. They also all kept personal journals, so that’s where the material from the book came from. She said she had this wealth of information she wanted to share and that their story was perfectly made for a book.
No one in the McIntyre family speaks a second language, but they did learn about ten phrases that would help them in each country they visited.
“I reassure people that just because you don't speak the language, that doesn’t mean you can’t travel,” she said. “You can learn 10 phrases and it will take you so far. They appreciate that you care enough to speak their language. The only place out of almost 50 countries that we couldn’t navigate without speaking the language was China.”
McIntryre wrote in private for the first month. After she had written100 pages, she shared it with her daughters who gave their blessing. After three months, she had her first draft and hired an editor from National Geographic to do a manuscript critique.
“I love reading travel memoirs, but none were written from a kid’s point of view for teens/tweens,” she said. I didn’t want the book to come across as a series of blog posts, that’s not a story. It was important to me to write something that incorporated all of this wonderful information and create a very entertaining and engaging story that reads like fiction but happens to be true.”
Each chapter in the book begins with a map of the country, a relevant quote and a text box of travel tips. The book is structured in three parts. Part 1 is the bubble (the McIntyre’s life). Part 2 is the world's big trip and part 3 is the difference.
I have so many great life lessons of acceptance and tolerance and freedom and what it means to be an American and the privileges we have to travel. I felt called to write a book. It was not until [the pandemic] I felt like I had a story to share.
Kellie Mcintyre
Since the book release, McIntyre has already visited Liberty Park Middle School, where her daughters attended and held a presentation about the book, did a Kahoot geography lesson with the students and also had a question and answer session. Afterward, the geography teachers told her they would be using her book in their 7th curriculum next year.
“The teachers said they cover every one of these countries and now they have a book that makes it interesting,” McIntyre said. “I would love to see this in every middle school in the country and hope that organically as educators share it it will grow to middle schools. I describe it as National Geographic meets Diary of a Wimpy Kid meets the Amazing Race.”
Liberty Park Middle School also hosted an international day where Delaney returned and shared how the trip changed her life.
Delaney, 22, is currently a senior at Auburn studying nursing and is planning an August wedding. Riley just turned 21 and is also at Auburn majoring in marketing and accounting.
Website: 4wornpassports.com
Now empty nesters, the McIntyres have more travel plans for the future, just the two of them.
McIntyre will hit her goal of visiting 50 countries by the time she turns 50. She said she may plan to visit 100 by the time she turns 100.
Always planning the next trip, McIntyre said she constantly watches airfare prices and that dictates where the next trip will be. A trip to Portugal is planned for September, and Israel, Japan and Ethiopia are also on the list. “Let the airfare dictate where you go,” she said.
For more information on the book, visit the family’s website at 4wornpassports.com