So Many Miles to Paradise - From Clare to There

by Christine Breen

So Many Miles to Paradise is the engaging, inspirational account of a 9 month trip around-the-world Breen and author husband Niall Williams took with their 2 kids. Excitement, joy, disappointment, wonder and fear are brought to life. Whether trapezing through a Costa Rican jungle, or toasting with 10,000 ice in Patagonia, readers join the dream and travel with them, celebrating adventure.

As a New Yorker living in the remote townland of Kiltumper in County Clare for almost 20 years, Christine Breen knew it was time to start afresh. She was itching for an adventure. As an antidote to her restlessness she convinced her husband, the Irish novelist Niall Williams, (author of Four Letters of Love) to embark on a 9 month-long journey of discovery around the world with their two children, aged 11 and 15.

In 2002—as the author neared her 50th birthday—she and Niall and their kids began the adventure in New York on the eve of the first anniversary of 9/11. From their comfortable home in the west of Ireland their trip took them to the beaches of the eastern seaboard of the US, to the far reaches of the forests of the Pacific Northwest, on then to California, Costa Rica, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, New Zealand islands, Australia, the Far East and Europe, ending with a mishap, the last of several, in the South of France.

Among the usual cock-ups with accommodation, the interminable hassle with customs, Bolivian Belly, and the occasional lost luggage there are some genuinely hairy moments. Like the time they found themselves as passengers on a small boat adrift on Lake Titicaca with a drunken boatman and a squall blowing in. Or when they were stuck in Bali when the first bird flu cases were reported in China and their trip to Shanghai threatened.

Breen writes about her children's reactions to new worlds: from the blue pools of Yellowstone, to the 3-fingered tree-sloths, orange land crabs, Jesus Christ lizards in the Costa Rican jungle, to the floating villages on Lake Titicaca. And all the while her novelist husband is writing his fourth novel, Only Say the Word.

So Many Miles to Paradise is Christine’s engaging and inspirational account of this journey, the like of which most of us will only dream about. Excitement, joy, disappointment, wonder and fear are intensified. Questions are asked and answered about the pros and cons of travelling with children and what's it like to live 24/7 for 9 months as a family of 4 through the highs and lows of life. Whether to take vaccinations? And where does a vegetarian 15 year old eat in South America?

Whether trapezing through a Costa Rican jungle, celebrating Christmas on a farm in Chile, or toasting life and family with a glassful of 10,000-year-old ice in Patagonia, Christine's travelogue reminds readers that some risks are worth taking.

Genres: Travel, Nonfiction, Memoir, Biography Memoir

279 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Her Name is Rose is Christine's debut novel.

Born and raised in New York and educated in Boston and Dublin, she now lives in the west of Ireland. In addition to being a writer, Christine is an artist, homeopath and garden designer. Along with her husband, the novelist Niall Williams, she co-authored four bestselling non-fiction books on country living in County Clare, which were published by Soho Press in New York. O COME YE BACK TO IRELAND is now available as an ebook.

In 2002, Christine and her family travelled around the world for 9 months. A travel memoir, SO MANY MILES TO PARADISE was published in Ireland the following year, and is now also available as an ebook. At various times Christine has been a houseplant doctor for Neiman Marcus, a copyeditor for 'The American Journal of Medicine', an administrator of writing workshops, the author of a monthly column ‘The View from Kiltumper’, and the founder of an artist cooperative and gallery where she sold her paintings.

Reviews

[Cheri · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 Stars

In the years before she met and married her husband, and they left NYC for Ireland - the land of her ancestors, and the land of his birth, she worked for Little, Brown and Company. She left to pursue a masters’ degree in Anglo-Irish Literature at University College in Dublin, where she met the man who would become her husband, Niall Williams. They married, and lived for a time in New York, where she worked as a copy-editor, as well as a freelance editor, and gardener. After a time, they moved back to Ireland, living in County Clare where she was one of the founders of Clare Craft and Design. In the years that followed, she also became a practicing Homeopath.

In the years that followed, they had two children, a daughter and then a son.

’As we wrote in our first book,O Come Ye Back to Ireland, we wanted to make a house of words, and paintings, and music and flowers. And we have done so, Niall’s books line the shelves in several languages, music drifts through the house, our son’s fiddle sings traditional tunes while the sweet notes of our daughter’s flute still ring (when she’s home) in the red music room. A garden surrounds the house on all sides.’
‘It is, and will always be, a little piece of heaven, albeit sometimes a rather wet one.’

As this begins, their daughter would soon be heading to university, and life would change for them all.
’I wanted to spend time with her in ways that would bring us closer together…It was a time I knew would never come again.’

’And like that, in the middle of the evening, the window opened. Out flew caution. In flew an invitation to adventure.’

And what an adventure! They would be gone somewhere around 9 months, the time to give birth to a life. In their case these 9 months would change them and their view of the world, and offer them the gift of a newfound appreciation of their life, the places they went and the people they met - well, perhaps not all of them, but the majority.

Leaving NYC, flying to Seattle, connecting to a flight to Kalispell, Montana where they drove to West Glacier where they’d booked a log cabin. Three days in the woods in a log cabin as autumn was settling in, followed by West Yellowstone, and so many more wonderful places around the world.

’Our lasting memory, apart from fly-fishing with my brothers, saw Niall drinking a coffee on the edge of the skating rink while his family skated on the empty ice under a cerulean blue sky. A combination of slips and slides, of moments of grace and panic as we pushed off, making soft clacks of the blades on the ice. The public address system was switched on and there was Fred Astaire’s voice clear and loud with its easy romance and gaiety singing: ‘I’m in Heaven’. Truly. You couldn’t make that up.
And so we were. In Heaven.’

New York, Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, California, Seattle, Costa Rica, Australia, New Zealand, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Bali along with other several other places where they not only were introduced to new food, new places, cultures and adventures - including some unwelcome ones - but overall, a year of both fun and bonding as a family while experiencing a year none of them will forget.

’There are journeys within journeys and sometimes the journey is within yourself. Lessons unfold. Truths are revealed.’

It’s been a while since I’ve traveled far from home, longer still since I’ve traveled outside of the country. For me, this was a celebration of life, of learning about other places and cultures, and most of all, a celebration of family, the lifelong bonds we form, and the memories that remain.

[Roberta · Rating 3 out of 5]

This really deserves a 3.5 but is not quite a 4 for me. It's a well written and touching family memoir. Breen has a way of bringing the world to life through the experiences she and her family have on their 9 month journey around the world. I found that the last few chapters dragged a bit and she made a few too many assumptions about her children's experience.

[Armelle · Rating 2 out of 5]

Although their 9 month journey sounded great, the book was a disappointment.

There were numerous editing issues (it’s Cannon Beach, not - as the author says over and over - “Canon”) and I just got to the point where I could hardly, again as the author says, “bare” it. There were a couple of sentences that I never could untangle.

There was an awful lot of angst-y gnashing of teeth (although the trip took place not long after 9/11, which was an angst-filled time for many). I was particularly annoyed by her complaints that her hosts for Christmas just didn’t celebrate how she thought they should and by her snide comments about how the woman somewhere in Asia who was worried about SARS was such a drama queen. Had she read her own words about SARS? I thought the closing chapters were odd, with a lot of ink given to how miserable she was to go home again. It gave a different feeling to the three books her husband had written about their life in rural Ireland.

Still, I wish I were brave enough to make such a trip!

[Patti · Rating 4 out of 5]

So Many Miles to Paradise is Breen's memoir about her Irish family of four taking a nine-month trip around the world. She and her husband are writers. Her son is 11 and her daughter 15 when the trip starts. Their first stop is Port Washington, NY, with Cap d'Antibes capping off the trip before the family returns home to Kilthumper, Ireland. SARS is breaking out, as is the war in Iraq. I was hoping for some deep reflection about family relations, personal growth, and world conditions. However, Breen keeps it light - a bit of a disappointment. I enjoyed her earlier work more.

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved reading this book. What an adventure with great moments and terrifying moments. I was greatly relieved when the Williams-Breen family made it back to Kiltumper. The offspring were good sports (ages 11 and 15).

I hope to read some of the intervening memoirs between the first one and the In Kultumper (garden book). They don't seem to be available as ebooks but I have found some out of print at used bookstores.

I feel as if I know the family--and want to know how they are doing in 2023!

[Gail · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the books set in Ireland better than this one. Some of the travel information was interesting, but parts were sort of boring and negative.

[John Hellman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this journey traveled by a Irish family around the world .