‘No-fly’ family who allowed four months to get to Australia forced to take plane at end of journey
A “no-fly” family who allowed four months to get to Australia for a relative’s wedding were forced to board a plane for the last leg of their journey.
Shannon Coggins, Theo Simon and their 19-year-old daughter Rosa decided to stop flying in 2002 to reduce their carbon footprint.
So when Ms Coggins’ sister, who lives in Sydney, announced she was getting married, the family decided to make the 10,000-mile journey without planes.
Both Ms Coggins and Mr Simon gave up their jobs in order to make the trip with their daughter, leaving their home in Somerset on Aug 16 for the wedding, which was taking place in Sydney on Dec 28.
They travelled through Kazakhstan, China, Laos, Thailand and Indonesia using multiple modes of transport.
When they reached South East Asia, however, their travel options ran out and they were forced to take a flight from Dili in East Timor’s capital to cross the Timor Sea to Darwin in Australia.
Writing on the family’s blog, their daughter Rosa said: “It really was tough, having to get on a plane after all we had achieved without one.”
She said she hoped they had shown people “that so much is possible without hopping on a plane” and when you use one “you miss the world that makes up the spaces in between”.
“It takes away from what an amazing thing it is to be able to travel halfway across the world and see what an incredible, diverse and endlessly interesting planet we live on,” Rosa said.
Mr Simon told the BBC: “The travel was a thing in itself. It was a great experience.
“We wanted to do it with our daughter in her gap year – see the world.”
The family believes they have used five times less carbon travelling than if they had flown all the way.
