PLEASE NOTE: We don’t have a place for travelers to sleep but we are happy to meet up or recommend hotels. Please do not request last minute as we need to plan our schedules
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CURRENT MISSION

Serving the poor and nurturing our children to be world citizens.

ABOUT US

Update: currently we are empty nesters serving the refugees in northern Iraq.

Su Family Backpacking Adventurers: http://sufamilyadventures.com
Presented at TEDxTalk Yunnan, China: https://youtu.be/PEDVrY-mDf8
Showcased as a Passioneer: https://www.paxxioneer.com/paxxioneer/jonathan/home

We are a family full of adventure that hopes to teach our kids to live life to the fullest.

As a team of five, Jonathan is the team leader. Annie is the cheerleader, Olivia is the team facilitator (age 23), Nathan is the team human geologist (age 20), and Joani (age 18) is the team fitness coach.

from 2020 to 2021 for 342 days (despite pandemic), we explored the mysteries of Africa, including South Africa, Uganda, Kenya, and Morocco; the passion of Spain, Portugal; and the ancient cultures of Central America. Along the way, we volunteered and did workaway as a family, such as harvesting grapes and making wine in Portugal, and teaching conversational English to students in Morocco.

From 2015 to 2016, we backpacked as a family of five for 12 months through 42 countries in Central Asia, Middle East, and Europe. Out of 365 nights, we slept 21 nights on the train, 9 nights on the bus, 1 night on the plane, 6 nights in the airport, 37 nights in the tent, 2 nights on the sailboat along the Nile, 42 nights couchsurfing, 25 nights at workaway, 28 nights in inns, 42 nights in hostel/homestay, 66 nights in Airbnb, and guess what 87 nights with friends! We got to know the people of these regions firsthand, as who they really are, and to appreciate the diversity of the culture, language, food, and sceneries.

We got to run out of the ancient gate that exit China to the western world; sit on top of a bus in Nepal; pray and camp on the wild part of the Great Wall; wash laundry as volunteers at the centers Mother Teresa set up in Kolkata; hike through mountains of snow to reach a monastery in Georgia; enjoying the day at the Eiffel Tower; and making it back to LA from London after 365 days of the Silk Road Journey. We slept in parking lots, on grassland, and on top of sand dunes. We rode in a hot air balloon and jumped on a running train. Even I couldn’t believe that we did it. I couldn’t believe we did it as a family with three teenagers!

We began this journey of team building in 2008. After years of running a typical field family life since working in China from 2001, we needed something different that worked for the 5 of us. With Jonathan at 38, Annie at 37, Olivia at 11, Nathan at 9 and Joani at 6 in March of 2008, we dived into the world of Backpacking! Our first adventure was backpacking through 8 countries in South America for 3 months on a shoestring budget while homeschooling bilingually on the road, living out of backpackers hostels, bus stations and the kindness of others. Since 2008 we continued to backpack yearly through Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, Korea, Hong Kong, biked around Taiwan, scaled 6000-meter mountains, trekked through river valleys, oceans and seas.

Please write: “GAPYEARS” at the end of your request message so at least I know you have read a bit of my profile. Thanks.

Jonathan: Team Leader

Jonathan has been serving the poor of China since 2001 with World Vision, an international NGO. Community development has been his passion since getting his Master in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University and an MBA at Kellogg Business School. Over the last 19 years, he started a center for street children, a microloan center for unemployed workers in the city, supervised projects in 3 provinces, and finished a 4-year term of managing education, health, livelihood, and environmental conservation projects in the remote mountains of Yunnan with the Hani people group. For his last role, he spearheaded strategic planning, fundraising, and marketing for the entire organization. Starting April 2022, Jonathan and his wife Annie will begin their new season in Northern Iraq (Kurdistan) helping the Yazidi refugees in the camps with Habibi International (www.habibi-international.org)

From the life of designing flash memory chips, being a business consultant to designing village toilets, pig pens, education and health projects, Jonathan’s career/ministry development has been an adventure. At home, he is a full-time dad of three kids, tutoring them in math, sciences and Chinese writing composition skills. He is a family man, plays basketball, loves Amazing Race and Geocaching, backpacked to more than 90 countries/regions, climbed snow mountain peaks, and follows NBA basketball and is a fan of Jeremy Lin.

Annie: Team Cheer Leader

Annie has been married to Jonathan for 25 years. She has been in the career of family building, vision casting, spiritual formation, homeschooling, worship dance, intercession, bilingual translation, and dream making.
She has become a recreational farmer during the 4 years of living in the village raising ducks, turkeys, chickens, veggies, egg-laying hens, maggots and compost worms. Her passion is to become a chef, a professional counselor, blogger, and writer. Her first book was on our 2008 gap year trip and she is currently writing the book on our second gap year in 2015-16.

Olivia Su: Team Facilitator

At age 23, Olivia just graduated from the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada from the School of Business focusing on Human Resource Development. Through her four years of college, she realized she has a passion for people development. Her motto is "to change the hearts of billions of people one person at a time". During the one year trip in 2020, she plans to do her "#The_Story_Well" project: interviewing people in each country to hear their personal stories and to weave their stories into a beautiful fabric of culture and life.

Nathan: Team Human Geologist

At age 20, Nathan finished two years of studies in Human Geography at the University of British Columbia. He will be taking a year of break to see Human Geography in action! He loves understanding history, politics, and how the world's cultures came to be the way they are. He also enjoys talking to people, especially strangers, to get to know them and to learn from them. His inventive spirit carries to his music life as he have already written several piano pieces. Nathan hopes to teach high school students in different corners of the world after he graduates from university.

Joani: Team Fitness Coach

At age 18, Joani hopes to study Kinesiology at the University of British Colombia after this one year trip to prepare to eventually become a physical therapist. She already has a head start by becoming a paid fitness coach for our family during our 2015 gap year and beyond. Joani is very athletic and was the captain of her school volleyball and basketball team for several years. Joani is also quite musical, likes to work with her hands (including juggling) and has the heart to care for people. She is also the most persistent member of the team. Once she makes up her mind, nothing can stop her!

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

Once we saw a touring cyclist couple on the street in our town located in remote rural area and invited them to stay with us. They told us about Couchsurfing and ever since we have hosted many Couchsurfers in our homes.

We enjoyed hearing their amazing stories and exchanging experiences. We often cook together and play instruments together. One Couchsurfer even taught us how to juggle!

From 2015-2016, we as a family traveled for one year along the Silk Road throughout Asia, Middle East, and Europe through 42 countries. We learned so much more about the people from the countries that we visited through Couchsurfing.

Interests

1) Worked with street children in China picking garbage with them to understand their life and lived among the Hani minority in China to partner together in changing the lives of children.

2) Homeschooled our three children exposing them to both the Chinese and Western education systems.

3) Backpacking around the world. We had been to 76 countries as a family. We just completed our one-year backpacking trip to Africa and Central America as a family despite pandemic.

• backpacking
• basketball
• food
• trekking

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

1) Lived 6 months in a remote village in Yunnan, China where our family of five cooked with firewood on the open floor, had no toilet, no shower place, wash our faces with ice, and bought a horse.

2) Backpacked 3 months in 2008 in South America with our 12, 8, and 6 year-olds going to 8 countries, while living in 36 hotels and slept 18 nights on buses.

3) Backpacked for 12 months from 2015-2016 with our 18, 15, and 13 year-olds through Central Asia, Middle East, and Europe traversing 42 countries, 114 locations, and 58,000 kilometers. We slept 21 nights on trains, 9 nights on buses, 1 night on plane, 6 nights in airports, 37 nights in a tent, 2 nights on a sailboat, 42 nights Couchsurfing, 25 nights working for room & board, 4 nights in a temple, 28 nights in inns, 42 nights in hostels, 66 nights in Airbnb, and 87 nights with friends & strangers. On average we spent USD 6/person/day for accommodation & food.

4) Biked around Taiwan as a family in 2010 for 7 days riding over 660km and biked in 2017 from Seoul to Busan for 8 days, 680km following the 4 river trail. Olivia biked in 2017 with her friend for 16 days, 1500km from Portland to San Francisco along the coast.

5) We wrote our first book together as a family about parenting through traveling, called: "No work, No School, A Family's Journey to the Ends of the Earth" published in 2015.

Teach, Learn, Share

General Common Skills that all five of us possess
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- Teaching or conversing in English and Chinese
- Business skills
- Computer and office skills (MS Office, email, answering phone, data entry)
- Farm, livestock and garden work
- Long distance biking
- Horseback riding
- Cleaning
- Caring for children

Specific Individual Skills
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Jonathan:
- NGO Project management (18 years of experience in education, health, economic dev, env conservation)
- Business management & operation, fundraising, marketing
- Speaking on family & marriage building and family traveling
- Electrical engineering (can teach math & science)
- Build website and computer & network troubleshooting (Windows, MacOS, iOS)
- General household miscellaneous fixing (plumbing, electrical wiring & appliances, carpentry, etc.)
- Driving car and motorbike
- Scuba Diving
- Sailing
- Teaching guitar

Annie:
- Cross-cultural communications, networking, relations building
- Speaking on family & marriage building and family traveling
- Translation
- Writing
- Watercolor painting
- Homeschooling children
- Cooking
- Dancing
- Playing piano
- Scuba Diving

Olivia: (age 23)
- Human Resource Development
- Business strategy and planning (especially social enterprises)
- Facilitating panelists, discussion, mentoring, personal development
- Planning and organizing activities and games
- Playing piano
- Acting
- Scuba Diving

Nathan: (age 20)
- Teaching on politics, cultures, and geography
- Researching history and facts
- Cooking
- Creating jokes
- Playing piano
- Scuba Diving

Joani: (age 18)
- Fitness coaching
- Volleyball and basketball coaching
- Playing piano, guitar, and ukulele
- Working with animals
- Juggling

What I Can Share with Hosts

We are happy to share our experience in backpacking to more than 76 countries as a family.

Jonathan can share his 19 years of NGO experience in community development and fundraising in China, Annie is happy to cook Chinese meals, Olivia can teaching about how to facilitate small group discussions, Nathan can tell jokes he made up, and Joani can play the guitar and juggle.

Countries I’ve Visited

Albania, Argentina, Armenia, Austria, Bahrain, Belgium, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Latvia, Lebanon, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Macao, Macedonia, Malaysia, Mexico, Monaco, Mongolia, Montenegro, Morocco, Myanmar, Nepal, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Oman, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Scotland, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Syrian Arab Republic, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Venezuela, Viet Nam

Countries I’ve Lived In

China, Iraq, Taiwan, United States

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