Our Family Journey to HiveFest: A Mums Perspective

First off I should thank HiveFest for changing the course of our year!
We had plans to spend the winter in Mexico, but when my husband Hive account@buttcoins found out that #HiveFest was in Croatia he proposed that we all attend, and use it as a spring-board to a winter in Europe and the surrounding areas! So far this seems like a great decision, and the ‘follow the flow’ vibe fitted our family well, as a big part of our life philosophy is to be open to opportunities as they present themselves rather than being tied to previously made plans.

Following Hive Fest we rented a car and drove onto Plitvice National Park, and we are currently in Kulen Vakuf in Bosnia, but the details of this onwards journey will be saved for another post!

Now back to HiveFest, and what this experience was like for me as a very inexperienced and non-tech-y new Hivian, and the mother of the two youngest Hivians at the Fest!! Here on Hive they are known as Hive account@thebombkids
A special thing for a mum is to see how excited the kids get to be creating posts on Hive. As it is at times hard to get them to do there homework, to see them choosing of there own volition to write posts and edit videos is a treat.

I have of course heard much about the Hive community from @Buttcoins, from his interactions at previous Hivefests and his online connections… I even had the pleasure of meeting and hosting @Starkers, when he came to visit us at our family-run hostel in Guatemala. From these conversations and experiences I was expecting to meet a good crowd of peeps, and I was certainly not disappointed! Despite my lack of experience with Hive, or anything connected, I found the community to be extremely welcoming and kind. It didn’t feel like a classic ‘networking’ event, at all, and everyone was very human and real. Taking kids to any primarily adult event is always slightly nerve racking, and it was heartwarming to see how warmly welcomed the kids were by everyone at the conference. This speaks volumes about the values and inclusivity of the Hive community, and it was key in making our experience as a family so great 💖

After a very pleasant opening drinks night in the old town, we started the Fest in a pretty classic way, getting lost in Marjan Forest taking a ‘shortcut’ to the first day of talks at the ….
Due to this miscalculation we were quite late, and I was very sad to miss the talk by Hive account@missbitcoin-sv as I had talked to her the night before and was looking forward to her talk about her social inclusion project in El Salvador teaching young people how to use crypto currency. As someone who has lived in neighboring Guatemala for the last 14 years, I understand how beneficial these kind of teachings could be for people traditionally on the outside of wealth building conversations and technologies. However the unintentional hike was enjoyable as well, and we arrived just in time for snacks and coffee, so it wasn’t all bad!!

We settled in for the rest of the day of talks, and I have to admit that many of the talks across the two days were a little over my head, but I enjoyed learning what I could from them all, and seeing a little more of the personalities of the speakers as well.

The second day was of course at the Diocletian Palace, we were down in the depths, where i hear they filmed some of this show Game of Thrones, it was an extremely impressive venue. I felt very lucky to spend an entire day there soaking up the vibes. rather than just walking around as a tourist on a quick tour. We are big fans of worldschooling philosophy, which basically means learning through living and immersing in the world as opposed to classroom based theoretical studies, and spending a whole day moving around the basement of a Roman Palace was something very impactful for the kids.

(Thanks Hive account@louis88 for this nice photo)

I particularly enjoyed the final documentary about the project in Ghana. It was really inspiring to see how Hive is impacting real communities around the world, and was another great way for the kids to learn about something first hand from the person spearheading the project.

Of course the final few days were all about fun, which was a welcome shift for the kids after two days of talks. They loved the day at the race track, and Percy even got a ride on the motor bike with Hive account@arcange He was so generous to spend all day driving people along the coast, even at his own expense as the next day his arm was very sore… I do hope it healed up quickly for his long ride home, and I would like to thank him personally for giving so much of his time and energy to creating an experience for so many people that day!!

The day on the Pirate Ship was a blast! It started out chilly, but the beach we visited was beautiful, the lunch was delicious, and the walk along the coast after we ate was beautiful as well. Percy ended the day at the top of the flag-mast with Hive account@growandbow and was extremely happy to have met ‘future-him’!! Not many adults can out-climb our little monkey, and when he finds one who can, it’s a soul mate connection for sure 💗

So while we didn’t join too much of the night time fun, we had a wonderful family experience of HiveFest. I am very grateful to the HiveFest community who embraced the three first-timers in our family, and aided us in feeling so comfortable and welcome. I can see why Hive account@buttcoins is so passionate about the Hive community, and I hope we can make it to more HiveFests in the coming years!!

For any Mums out there who might think to come to HiveFest with their kids but are not sure if it will be age appropriate or fun for kids, i say don’t hesitate, for us it was well worth the journey!!