Abu Dhabi-born British twins travel over 30,000 miles across 5 nations — before celebrating their first birthday

Gulf Today Report

British twins Fionn and Fern have taken globetrotting to a whole new level. Thanks to their parents’ travel bug, they have already notched up 31,000 air miles, taken nine long-haul flights and stayed in five countries. What makes it all the more amazing is they saw the world’s lovely sights before they were even a year old! Interestingly, the twins were born in Danat Al Emarat hospital, Abu Dhabi.

However, their world sojourn’s record lags behind big sister Esme, 8, who’s, hold your breath, been to 53 countries on six continents while brother Quinn has 40 nations in his travel kitty.

Their parents Karen Edwards, a former NHS nurse, and dad Shaun Bayes, a builder, quit the rat race because they wanted to travel and show the joy and beauty of the world first-hand to the children, according to the British newspaper, Daily Mirror.

They cottoned on to the travel craze after her first baby, Esme, was born. They took her backpacking to South East Asia for a year. They returned to London but after the second child Quinn was born, they did the same thing.

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After they returned to the UK, the coronavirus outbreak put the brakes on their travel plans.

But the wish to realise their dream of globetrotting was very strong, and this is where her stint in the National Health Service during the pandemic helped.

They set off for Abu Dhabi in June 2021, where Karen got a job at the director level in a private hospital.

Soon Fionn and Fern were born, last January, in Danat Al Emarat hospital, Abu Dhabi.

The family loved their affluent life in the UAE. They loved their wonderful creature comforts.

Karen said that everything in Abu Dhabi felt “super luxe. It was often cheaper to eat out than buy food in because everything is imported, so we dined out a lot. We’d often find ourselves eating a family brunch at the weekend in a five-star hotel,” according to the report.

The twins have gone kayaking through mangroves, explored tropical beaches and desert dunes. The lucky kids have paddled in the Indian Ocean, Arabian Gulf and the English Channel.

Once again, Karen used her three months’ paid maternity leave to travel, first to Oman and Switzerland and then, after a month in the UK, to Sri Lanka, where they have lived for the past month.

However, they have had some scary experiences during their sojourn. Twice Karen had to run for her and her kids’ lives away from dangerous wild animals – once from bears in the Canadian Rockies, and also from monkeys in Bali.

The interesting part is that Fionn and Fern have no real connection to the UK, says Karen.

We don’t know whether the twins have realised by now the extent of their global exploration. Maybe they will cover a record number of places by the time they turn two.