"My daughter didn't say a word for the first hour on the train from Cusco. Then she turned to me and said, 'Mum, the world is so much bigger than our street.'"

We almost didn't go. The altitude was a concern, the logistics seemed overwhelming, and the flight cost made me wince for weeks. But there we were, the two of us at 3,400 metres, watching the sun turn Machu Picchu gold. My daughter, who had barely looked up from a screen for a year, was completely silent — not from boredom, but from awe. That was the trip that reset everything.

"He ordered his own meal in Thai on Day 4. We'd been nervous he wouldn't eat anything. We needn't have worried."

Our biggest fear taking our picky-eater 7-year-old to Thailand was the food. Within 48 hours, Liam was obsessed with pad see ew, had tried mango sticky rice three times, and was bravely pointing at items at street food stalls. Something about being in a place where the food is just there, everywhere, made him braver. He still eats Thai food every week at home. Travel changed his palate — and his confidence — in ways we couldn't have manufactured at home.

"The kids fought the whole flight there. They cried when we said it was time to go home."

We are a family of four with an 8-year age gap between siblings — which means constant negotiation at home. Costa Rica somehow dissolved all of that. The zip-lining required teamwork. The wildlife walks needed quiet, and both kids found they could do it. There was a moment on a boat through a mangrove at sunset, watching a crocodile drift under us, when both children were holding hands without realising it. I will carry that image for the rest of my life.