Weltreise + Co .: Single parent, emigrant, limitless happiness


How do you feel when you leave your family, your permanent job and your own four walls behind and go on a world tour with a child? Author and entrepreneur Janina Breitling revealed it to us.

Janina Breitling and her son Maxi have been living in Bali for a good three years. The former journalist now works as a freelance “digital nomad”, wrote a book and founded the company “Nookees” for reusable menstrual underwear. She talked to us about the somewhat different family life and how she enriches traveling as a single mom.

In your book “Bärti muss mit” you tell about the trip around the world with your then five-year-old son Max. On the trip you learned a lot about different values. For example: How much is property actually worth, the happiness of community or freedom.

I don’t know whether that also counts under values, but this feeling that we always achieve everything, no matter what happens, has shaped us a lot. Maxi has this self-confidence in us, in herself, in life, and that somehow everything will turn out well in the end. I think that’s an important asset that he took away. Another value, of course, is adaptability. My son can really be put anywhere in the world and he plays with all people and things he finds. In addition, Maxi has no tendency to evaluate people in terms of property or reputation. We are often invited by the locals here in Bali into their Spartan houses and Maxi loves that and is incredibly happy. He often takes a shower with his friends at the family home, even though they have little space and four of them share a room. Ultimately, he only sees the emotional value and not what the hardware store may have advertised at some point or something. That is really great.

What do we Germans do better or worse than others?

So the friendly and peaceful togetherness strikes me a lot here, that everyone here is always laughing and really friendly. Balinese love children and are much more understanding than Europeans or especially Germans. So it is in many countries of the world, whether this is somehow the case in South America or whether it is in Asia or something, the children are simply welcomed in a completely different way. Children are part of it and children are loud – yes, great. This is life and this is how we take it. But that is definitely very German and very “senior” to be able to see this excitement about everything and no longer the positive things. It’s not like that as a mom you wouldn’t be annoyed sometimes when the child yelps around.

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But is there anything that you lack about Germany? Certain structures, the healthcare system or something similar?

To be honest, not really. We already live a bit in our “bubble” here, I notice that more and more. We live a typical island life. In addition, because of Hinduism, life and togetherness are very peaceful. I am then often amazed how little I notice of the rest of the world and how little I care. I am concentrating on other things here and on my personal happiness.

So you don’t plan on coming back anytime soon?

Well, I don’t think we’ll be staying in Bali all our lives, but I don’t think we’ll be coming back to Germany next week either. I mean he’s going to school here now, I’ve got projects I’m working on here, we’re both happy. Only now, with a little distance, do I see many things in Germany more clearly. How much some people play it safe in their lives and work through an imaginary plan.

You achieve things for others, for external impact, but not because you really want them yourself. I find that a bit scary sometimes. For example, I currently work no less than before, just differently. I take the personal liberties that I fortunately need, even if it’s just a surf session at 5:30 in the morning. My life as a “digital nomad” is inevitably more efficient and unsteady, but more satisfied all round.

The best decision of your life

Taking the child with you on a trip around the world as your “personal Achilles heel”, leaving your steady job and the social network behind, didn’t that scare you?

No shit, that was the best decision of my life. I worked permanently in an editorial office, I could feel safe and plan a future – but despite the joy at work, I knew that it couldn’t go on like this. It was a slow process in which I gradually made myself more independent in order to be able to live completely independently today.

The work on my book alone is an example of how liberating it can be to part with old pigtails and entrenched patterns. On some days, I wrote so much, hour after hour, and all of this, although I made time for my hobbies and of course my son. I enjoy life and no longer focus on work that takes up most of the time.

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On your travels you have had to limit yourself in many ways – especially without a regular, fixed income. How do you live for two on 33 euros a day?

Wonderful. We lived perfectly on Bora Bora for less than 33 euros a day. If you consider what the average employee spends his hard-earned money on, then you can probably cut 80% easily because it is about expensive apartments, cars or status symbols. When you travel, you really realize how much more time is worth than money.

You just have to look at your own closet or the boxes in the basement or in the attic that have been forgotten. Every single part symbolizes the time that one has spent for something to earn money and then to buy it. At some point I thought: Huh, actually I only need 33 euros a day to live or go on vacation in Bora Bora and have the best time of my life with my child. Awesome!

What was the greatest fear for you while traveling?

I wasn’t so worried, in the end, that worried me at some point. Many acquaintances reacted much more panic: “Oh my God, you alone with child and blond and oh that can only go wrong”. And always these questions: What if you run out of money? What if you get sick? What if you are ambushed? What if you run into bad people and so on. And I always thought to myself: that has to happen first and if that happens, then we can always come back. But nothing ever happened. I mean, we’ve been gone for over three years now and nothing bad has ever happened to us.

That brings us back to the self-confidence that your travels have given you and Maxi too.

Yes that’s right, that’s the way it is. We really often sit here together and discuss our “new” life. Without this imaginary, social plan “job, house, family, pension”. Even at school, children are partially trained to think independently and to identify and implement their own goals. You are told exactly where, when and how you have to learn what. to get good grades. As if that is what counts in life alone.

When I talk to my friends at home, they often say things like: Well, but you have to see how you can make ends meet in retirement. Then I just think: people, yes and? Is that why I should sit behind my desk for the next 30 years and be unhappy, just so that I have a chic front garden when I retire and take regular vacations? No thanks!

This text first appeared in December 2019 on Gala.de.

Brigitte