5 years, 5 people, 7 continents, and a lifetime of memories
By Leah Shaffer

Wednesday, November 23, 2005

	Bryan, Becca and Monica at Port Douglas, Queensland, Australia in 2003.

Jon Ebert, his wife, Jody, and their three children, Monica, 17; Bryan, 14; and Becca, 11, are on their way to Antarctica, the final stop in their five-year journey to visit all seven continents and 50 states. During this journey, they've watched New Year's Eve fireworks from Sydney, Australia; camped out in a tree house in southern Washington; spent a welcoming Christmas Day in Malaysia; logged hours in beaches, cities and deserts and documented their experience on their Web site www.7continentsclub.com.

"Having an international job, I have a great respect for people thinking outside of just the U.S.," said Jon Ebert in describing how it all got started. Ebert works for an Eden Prairie company called Digital River, and his job and previous consulting work have involved a lot of travel to Asia.

"I want my kids to have that international experience," he said.

How it started
How does one pay for five year's worth of trips around the world? Three words: frequent flyer miles. To date, Ebert said, he's earned 3.7 million through his job. So in five years, he wanted a way to use the miles up and spend time with his family. After he left his job at NetPerceptions in 2001, he became a consultant, which left him the flexibility to travel (after returning from Antarctica, they will have spent 28 weeks on their trips). That translates to 2 million frequent flyer miles to get five "coach class seats, I might add," said Jon.

He joked that "I earned them [the miles] the hard way; we're flying them the hard way."

Adventures abroad
First off was Japan. Jon just happened to have work scheduled in Japan during spring break.

"So we went along and played while he worked," said Jody.

At the time, Becca was 6, Monica was 11 and Bryan was 9. Such extensive travel with young children might seem tricky, but Jon and Jody were ready. One thing he wanted his kids to learn, said Jon, was how to be good travelers. He and Jody made a notebook with travel tips. The general travel tips are also listed on their Web site.

Jon said they learned early, "you can't do everything."

"If you try to, you're not going to have a good time," he said.

There's also some tricks of the trade, that Jody thought up, such as always packing something new for the kids in their pack. Plus, noted Jon, the kids are good readers.

They noted that on one car trip, Bryan read one of the Harry Potter books three times through.

Also, to keep the children from fighting, each kid would get a roll of quarters. If they started fighting, said Jody, she and Jon would start to take quarters away, "and it just stopped it from happening," she said.

That's not to say the trips were without excitement. Visiting seven continents in five years is bound to lead to some incidents. However, one scary moment actually happened in Idaho.

Monica, their oldest, decided to go on a glider ride.

"Shortly after she takes off, a storm blows in," said Jody.

The glider company was scrambling to pull the planes in and "they lose contact with the glider," said Jody. She said that it was supposed to be a 30-minute flight and 30 minutes went by and 35 minutes went by and they didn't have contact.

After a nerve-wracking wait, however, they spotted her and the glider touched down safely. Monica had no idea that they were worried. Jody said as soon as she got out of the plane, they hugged her very hard and asked, "How was it?" And she answered, "Oh, it was great."

Another incident happened in Mexico City where their son, Bryan, started having breathing difficulties (he's severely allergic to shellfish). Jon rushed him to a children's hospital late at night where they received excellent care and Bryan was able to relax and breathe normally. Jon went to pay the bill, expecting high costs for late-night care and was surprised to find that, with zero insurance, the bill came to $8.

The latest adventure will take them to the tip of Chile and then a plane ride will take them to Antarctica. It's late spring on that continent, so the family will spend a night in a tent. Jon said they also plan to visit the research stations there.

Now what?
What act could possibly follow seven continents in five years? Now that their children are growing up, they've got another plan.

The spring break of each one's senior year, they can select any destination in the world that they haven't been to. "They're going to pick and then we're all going to go."

Monica said her pick is a tossup between Norway, Scotland, India, Russia, Iceland and Greenland …

"Yeah, we'll never run out of places to go to," said Jody.

Least comfortable moment: Having to take his son to a hospital in Mexico City after Bryan started hyperventilating.

Special skill on trips: Trip planner (using an Excel spreadsheet no less). Also a jet lag master. He said he's been commuting to Asia for so long he doesn't get jet lag. "So I want to make sure A, they (his family) get that skill and then B, so it doesn't slow us down for three days while they're sitting there sleeping and I'm ready to roll."

Jody Ebert
Favorite destination: "I guess one of them would be Hawaii." The ocean the water, the snorkeling. Then there's the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. "Anything around the water."

Least comfortable moment: A "mad decision" in China to take a taxi that was not properly marked. They were trying to get back to the hotel and there were so many people and it was raining and they ended up hiring a man who was not an official taxi driver. "Not only that, he really didn't know how to drive the car." They eventually got out of the cab safely, however.

Special skill: Packer. For five people and a trip to Antarctica, one must be efficient. For this trip, they have to keep it to five suitcases (with all their winter clothes and swimsuits for Rio de Janeiro).

Monica Ebert, 17
Favorite Destination: "My favorite state in the U.S. is Alaska." Czech Republic is another favorite "because I want to go to college there." She said she likes Sydney, because she could navigate and "really understood it."

Least comfortable moment: The Chinese taxi and, "I'm kind of uncomfortable on planes after seven hours."

Special skill: Documentation. "I like to write a lot." And "I take my fair share of pictures."

Becca Ebert, 11
Favorite destination: She liked Greece or Tanzania. Greece, because it was really cool and pretty. And in Tanzania, she liked seeing all the animals, like lions, elephants, giraffes "and my favorite animal, warthog."

Least comfortable moment: Taxi rides, because you can only sit four people "and I'm always the one who has to sit on someone's lap." Also, not being 12 years old has its problems because she is not old enough to do some activities, like scuba dive, or climb the Sydney Harbor Bridge.

Special skill: Making her family laugh. She also demands travel trivia from the trips. According to her father, she is always asking obscure travel questions like: What was the name of the spider on the railing of the hotel at Niagara Falls, Canada?

"It was Jerry."
Bryan Ebert, 14
Favorite destination: It's either Japan, Germany or France.

Least comfortable moment: Breathing trouble in Mexico City.

Special skill: "Taking too many pictures." Some have an interesting perspective, however such as one from the Great Wall of China where he had tennis shoes with the Great Wall in front of them.

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