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Travel + Fun

09th Feb 2016

Meet the Irish Mum Who Spent Her Entire Maternity Leave Travelling the World

Katie Mythen-Lynch

For most women, maternity leave is a hectic combination of getting to know your brand new baby and trying to remember what you did before they arrived. 

For Karen Edwards however, it was a chance to discover faraway parts of the world with her eleven-week-old daughter Esmé tucked into her baby backpack.

With their new arrival less than three months old, Karen (31) and her husband Shaun Bayes, both experienced globetrotters who are based in the UK, decided to sell their car and take advantage of Karen’s maternity leave from the UK’s National Health Service, where she works as a nurse.

Explaining the decision on her website, Karen says: “Now this is going to sound selfish, when I realised I was pregnant with little miss (who I love unconditionally) I instantly thought- ‘that’s it, travel days are over’. Needless to say that has not been the case so far.”

With all their vaccinations up to date, the couple tested the waters with a brief trip to Ireland to see Karen’s family, then they jetted off to new Zealand to see Shaun’s family before hitting Singapore, Indonesia, Australia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Taiwan and Hong Kong.

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This week the family took off to Thailand and Cambodia, updating their thousands of fans daily on Instagram. Their trips are funded by Karen’s maternity leave payments and topped up with Shaun’s sporadic landscaping gigs at various destinations.

 

Karen and Shaun plan to continue to inspire other parents by detailing their baby-friendly journeys, complete with advice on road trips, long ferry journeys, long and short haul flights, stopovers and camping trips as well as sterling advice on how to pack all the essentials you need into a limited amount of luggage.

And more recent posts by Travel Mad Mum…

Bermuda in January? Why not.

My mini-me ?? #Bermuda

A photo posted by Travel Mad Mum (@travelmadmum) on

You can follow this lovely family’s progress on Facebook.

Tell us, did you travel during your maternity leave? Let us know on Twitter @Herfamilydotie.