A zine story, more about the vibe of travel with kids than where to go
One of my greatest supporters (and dear friend), Trish, shared a beautiful little zine by Louie Joyce with me. “Moments Like These” (2017) is available on his website here, but there is something extra special about reading this sweet but short tale in a physical zine format. The story itself is a double flashback: a callback to Joyce’s recent travel, which evoked older memories of travel with his dad. The colours, the layout, and the lettering are all great examples of how visual storytelling comes together, but these elements can be achieved in digital format, just like the link above. Instead, it’s the physical form that really hits me: Landscape print, the size of a postcard, with very minimal pages that you can easily flip through. In fact, it was the flipping of pages that transported me back to my own SE Asia travel with our young children. And that made the story even more potent.
The Story
“I recently went to Vietnam with my wife and son for 2 weeks.”
Anyone who has travelled with young kids can absolutely empathise with the opening scene. Joyce’s opening is a sweet introduction: him, his wife, and their almost-2-year-old son. It’s their first overseas holiday, a milestone that balances on the fine edge of insanity and love-filled nostalgia. In one simple page, Joyce throws me right back on the plane with a one-way ticket to memory lane. Clearly, it did a similar job for him as he soon recalled an older family trip with his father to Malaysia-Borneo when he was 10.
We did a similar trip to Malaysia-Borneo with two of our kids in 2011 (before our youngest and third child was born). Like Joyce with his father, one of our stays was in the shadow of Mount Kinabalu, in all its majestic glory. However, we stayed in Kota Kinabalu, a small city with a beach vibe. Something akin to the Sunshine Coast in Queensland (Australia). The city sits on the harbour, with easy access to a plethora of islands filled with day trippers from surrounding resorts and hotels. The business heart is populated with buildings, but it all gives way to the extensive Gaya Street markets, which spread across many city blocks on the weekend.
We also enjoyed giving our kids a little freedom to explore; though our eldest was five at the time, so the exploration always had an adult present. Nevertheless, both he and his then-two-year-old brother enjoyed talking with locals and looking down side streets.
How Geeky Interests Can Bring Us Together
I distinctly remember thinking how cool it was for our kids to explore and enjoy the world with far more confidence than I felt at the time. Kids bond over the darndest things, and often don’t let language, skin colour, or gender get in the way. Something as simple as an Angry Birds t-shirt, from the video game of the time, was enough to be an ice-breaker and start a casual conversation with another kid at the museum. I think a LEGO Ninjago t-shirt brought in a new friend at the markets the next day. I remember we bought our kids’ first-ever Pokémon cards from a store in Kuching, and they were carried everywhere and shown to everyone who even mentioned Pokémon. It started what is now a lifelong obsession, shared with both my history and my husband’s history with the franchise. I don’t know if we still have those original cards anywhere, but it remains one of my ‘smiles’ for our Borneo adventure – along with Pygmy Elephants, Orangutan, Hornbills, and more mud than I have ever seen in my life.
Travelling for the Next Gen
Now that Joyce is a parent, he both revels in his child’s exploration and hesitates about the same thing. I can completely empathise with this. But it’s a weird feeling, knowing you are responsible for seeding a passion for travel and then realising you have to give them the freedom for that passion to grow. Where Joyce talks about his family holiday to Vietnam, I am watching our eldest (now 19) plan his own holiday to Vietnam with his girlfriend. It will be his first trip with her; his first extra-family holiday. I kinda want to call Joyce and compare notes: both on Vietnam, and the ability to watch your heart travel all over the world outside your body.
Travel, for me, is about connections. Whether you are travelling solo, with family, or with friends, you will still find connections with the places you visit. Joyce remembers connecting with new local friends through a game of soccer/football. Our kids remember connecting with friends through t-shirts and music. I remember connecting with our kids through photos and wildlife.
Though Joyce didn’t write explicitly about Vietnam (or Malaysia-Borneo) in his zine, Moments Like These, he definitely captured the spirit of travel. The blend of the unknown, the unpredictable, and the unexpected. The joy of connection. And the freedom to discover something new, often about yourself.
I really hope Joyce explores more travel-inspired writing with his work. I love his art style: realistic people, with a casual, simple line that softens it. A bit like him, really; Louie Joyce is one of the nicest people in the Australian Comic Creator scene. His most recent work, Godzilla: Skate or Die, puts Australian skaters in the middle of a kaiju battle between Godzilla and Varan, while placing the reader in the middle of Port Kembla. Sure, it’s not your usual travel highlight, but I kinda want to visit just to compare notes. Also worth checking out Bye Bye on his website here: a story of two sisters in Bali (Indonesia) who created the initiative “Bye Bye Plastic Bags”. For anyone else who has travelled in SE Asia, you’ll understand exactly how important that is.
If you are curious to read more about our family trip to Kota Kinabalu, head over to my old travel blog: Backpack Fairytales.
