A Canadian family is desperate to show their kids as much of the world as possible. That's because their children have a rare condition that may cause them to lose their sight entirely.
It all began when Edith Lemay and her husband Sébastien Pelletier noticed their eldest child, Mia, now 12, was having problems with her vision when she was about 3. They took her to a specialist and learned she has retinitis pigmentosa, an incredibly rare genetic condition that causes a decline in vision, or total blindness.
Then the couple's two sons, Colin and Laurent, now 7 and 5, also began experiencing symptoms of the condition. The boys were also diagnosed in 2019. Their son Leo, 9, is the only one who does not have the genetic disorder.
Since three of their four kids have been diagnosed with the condition that currently has no cure, the couple decided to make some big changes.
"There's nothing you can really do," Edith told CNN. "We don't know how fast it's going to go, but we expect them to be completely blind by mid-life."
So the family set off on an epic journey around the globe. The idea came to Edith after the family's doctor suggested that the children be shown as much as possible so they'd have "visual memories" to pull from. "I thought, 'I'm not going to show her an elephant in a book, I'm going to take her to see a real elephant,'" the mom explained. "And I'm going to fill her visual memory with the best, most beautiful images I can."
The couple began saving as much as they could for their trip. But when a company Sébastien had shares in was bought, their fate was set.
"That was like a little gift from life," Edith says. "Like, here's the money for your trip."
The global health crisis pushed the family's travel plans back, but they left Montreal in March 2022. Edith says they did so with no clear idea where they were going.
"We actually left without an itinerary," she said. "We had ideas of where we wanted to go, but we plan as we go. Maybe a month ahead."
They did, however, create a bucket list of everyone's must-dos, which Edith says got "really specific" and "funny." Mia wanted to go horseback riding. Laurent wanted to drink juice on a camel. So they began their trip in Namibia, where they saw all kinds of animals, including zebras and elephants. From there, they journeyed to Zambia and Tanzania.
The trip didn't stop there. They spent a month in Turkey before making their way to Mongolia and Indonesia.
"We're focusing on sights," explains Sébastien. "We're also focusing a lot on fauna and flora. We've seen incredible animals in Africa, but also in Turkey and elsewhere.
"So we're really trying to make them see things that they wouldn't have seen at home and have the most incredible experiences."
Even though the journey is incredible, Edith says their family's reality is still gutting at times.
"My little one asked me, 'Mommy, what does it mean to be blind? Am I going to drive a car?'" she said. "He's 5. But slowly, he's understanding what's happening. It was a normal conversation for him. But for me, it was heart-wrenching."
Still, the parents want their kids to have not just experiences, but resilience, which is a quality they believe travel can help to build. "Traveling is something you can learn from," Edith said. "It's nice and fun, but it also can be really hard. You can be uncomfortable. You can be tired. There's frustration. So there's a lot that you can learn from travel itself."
