When I was a new single mother back in 2001, my choice was stay in the town I grew up in or go to Europe anyway with a 4 year old in tow. Of course there was no social media back then to be inspired by others doing it, and for all I knew it was the first time anyone had done it, which I also knew was unlikely. Everyone thought I was crazy because no one had any other stories to go off. I was terrified jumping on that plane from Melbourne - kid, waller, backpack, passport - but felt I had no choice. And I couldn't understand why, if I could take him camping, why I couldn't take him backpacking. We had very little money and I never ate out - we carried a plastic bag of food - and we used to sneak in to museums and castles. He slept in my bed in dorm rooms or cheap pensions. We had a ball for nearly a year. He was a super cool kid so people liked to travel with us and we never felt alone. We housesat in places too via people we met along the way - Lisbon, Berlin, Amsterdam. It only got hard when 9/11 happened - we went home after that.
That is quite a moving story. I dare say, it can be expanded into a hive post for us to consume!
I will say this to anyone we are willing to listen: I am mostly a clueless parent and therefore I don't consider myself an expert of the subject at all. My wife and I are school class mates, so we kind of are together for a very long time, and we see eye to eye on many subject and especially parenting. We try to learn as much as we can from our kids and they have been good teachers!
It is still one of the best things I've ever done. I am pretty sure I've written about it before but it's been a while!
I don't think anyone are expert parents off the bat. You learn on the job and try to use common sense and read a bit if you can. I think your intelligence and thoughtfulness would go a long way, as would your clearly strong relationship with your wife!
Watching my son parent now shows me did an okay job - he's a fantastic hands on Dad and draws clear boundaries as well as gives him freedom to discover and get his hands and feet dirty. I think we learn a lot from our own parents - the good stuff and the stuff we need to correct!