Wish me luck!

Announcing a family road trip around Britain. Are we noble or nutty?

The Dream...

To combat 'city-living syndrome' and 'nature deficit disorder', this summer I am taking our three children on a tour of Britain. Since I come from the Midlands, I long to explore Island's extremities.

Imagine us traveling criss-cross, up north to the Shetland Isles in Scotland, south to the Cornish coastline in England, west to the castles of Wales and east to the flat beaches of Norfolk.

Six weeks. In a dreamy retro van...?

Noooooo. Time to be inventive. Let's hitchhike, or go by bike, tractor, go-cart, boat, or even donkey.

Ha! Only kidding. With two tweens involved, we'll likely end up in an oversized motorhome with a kitchenette, shower and auto rear parking. Actually, that does sound good.

It's only January and I'm being flooded with warnings: Are you brave? Can you change a tire? The roads have pot holes. Your campervan will get stuck in a bog. There's no cell phone coverage anywhere. I hope your van has a bathroom so you don't have to wade across a carpark in the middle of the night, or pee behind a tree. It's 2017, you realize kids don't play board games? Wait, are you the only adult? Oh, your husband will visit. Don't worry, there's still time to change your plan. Britain is too wet. Summertime is too crowded. Why not try sunny France?

Then my children remind me of why I dreamed of this adventure.

The Wilds are calling for us to let loose. Shed schedules. Be silly.

We'll go where the wind blows, to see the puffin colonies in the Shetlands, dance on the lake at the Port Eliot Festival, climb the fells of the Lake District, watch the wild horses of the New Forest, scale Mount Snowdon, play Rounders on miles of rolling Norfolk sands, eat fresh fish out of newspapers, skip stones on rushing mountain streams, sing around campfires and make some fine new friends. And when we get a tired of traveling, and our feet start to smell, we'll swing by old friends and family and sink into soft sofas, take long hot baths and raid their dress-up boxes.

Summers are made for stories. I can only imagine what ours will be. As a children's writer in Brooklyn, I will attempt to capture our adventures in ink and to turn them into fiction. What is certain, however, is that being a Brit, everything will depend on having lorry loads of chocolate biscuits, pots of hot coffee and buckets of strong British tea.

Check back in the fall to hear about our adventure. www.evstarkey.com

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