A family of five is spending more than a year flying around the world in their own single-engine plane. Ian and Michelle Porter and their three kids are around four months into their holiday, having set off on their 14-month trip in June, and have already visited locations including the Bahamas, Dominican Republic and Argentina.
The Porters, from Vancouver in Canada, believe they are the first family to attempt such a trip. Real estate developer Ian, 59, said: "More people climb Mount Everest in a single year now than people who have ever flown a single engine plane around the world - we don't think a single family has ever done it before."
Ian is the chief pilot for the trip, with daughters Samantha, 21, and Sydney, 18, acting as co-pilots. Michelle, 58, is in charge of flight planning and navigation, while Christopher, 15, controls drone operations.
Ian said: "I have been a pilot for quite a while and have done some fairly long trips and when I had been doing those trips, I thought it would be good if I could do this for as long as possible and it would be great for the family to come along too. I sat there with my wife Michelle and she was on board, I posed the idea to the kids, who then were asking how the plan will work with schooling.
"We told them the time would work well because my oldest daughter could take a gap year and university, my middle daughter had just finished high school and could take a break between university and my son could do online learning. We had a 14-month window and went for it."
The family have saved for decades for the trip, which is expected to cost up to $300,000, on top of the $500,000 they paid for their plane, Moose, last year. On the trip they spend around two to four days in each location.
Accommodation ranges from sleeping on floors, to camping, to "nice hotels", while days are spent exploring the locations and seeing the sights. After exploring South and Central America, they will head to Europe, then Northern Africa, the Middle East, Pakistan, India, Eastern Asia and then back towards Canada.
"The experience so far has been fantastic," Ian said. "It is a really cool experience, not just flying around the world, meeting all of these people and seeing what we see but to do it as a family is a dream come true.
"I couldn't ask for anything more. To do this as a family, I mean, how cool is that?"
While travelling the world, the Porter family are raising money for SOS Children's Villages - a charity that provides humanitarian and developmental assistance to children in need. Ian said: "We decided that if we were going to do this grand adventure and take 14 months, we needed to do something that would account for more than our own personal adventure.
"We wanted to raise funds for a charity that works with families and children and has a global reach. We are trying to raise $1 million and get the name recognition and profile raised higher."
