For those of you who don't know me...

Let me introduce myself and my family.

So there's me, Anna, a primary school teacher for 14 years, a mother for nearly a decade and a pusher of boundaries for most of my life. I'm married to Hamish, founder of Mind the Gap, a small travel company specialising in successful and, crucially, sustainable volunteer tourism.

Together we share the belief that the world can be a better place.

We have three fantastic children: Freya, 9, Fergus, 7, and Martha, nearly 3. They have had the good fortune to be born into a wonderful life, surrounded by friends, family and an active community. It is really important to us that our children grow up appreciating that not everyone has the privileges that they enjoy - a loving family, a great school, a lovely home, food in the fridge and water in the tap.

Freya is equipped with a great sense of determination and bravery. She gets very irate if she thinks things aren't fair. She's worried about seeing people who are hungry and perhaps unwell. She's really excited about seeing elephants and camels.

Fergus is a charming, gorgeous and sensitive boy (like his father!); he gives the best hugs and loves poking around in the woods with sticks and playing rough n tumble on the trampoline. He's very sociable. He's worried about missing his friends, but is looking forward to playing lots of cricket with the friends he will undoubtedly make.

And there's Martha. She's either utterly gorgeous or a total nightmare. She makes us laugh and frustrates us in equal measures. She'll miss her friends, her possee of dolls and her family. She'll love having us all together.

Together we're spending two months in India. We considered six months but then remembered that a two week holiday can be a long time for kids to be away from home. Having thought long and hard about this, we figured that a lot can happen in eight weeks - we don't live quietly, we invite experiences into our lives at every opportunity. So, in 56 days, we think we can give our children some memories to last a lifetime and some insights into another culture at might just help to shape the way they turn out. Either that, or we'll have kids that grow up only ever wanting to go on package holidays!

I am convinced that there is a plethora of 30, 40, 50 somethings who all had amazing times travelling pre-kids but now think those days are over. I want to prove that they're far from over. Just different. Very, very different.