Embracing Full Time Family Travel and World Schooling: An Exploration of Offbeat Lives
Join host David Cole as he discusses the wonders, challenges, and adventures of families who have opted for full time travel and homeschooling on the road. Engage with a panel of authors of ‘The Wonder Year,’ including Julie Frieder, Angela Heaton and Annika Paradise, and learn about their personal experiences and advice for potential travelers. Discover how travel fosters understanding, peels away prejudices, and leads to rich, textured experiences. Finally, learn from a family who embraced full-time RV travel about their son’s profound understanding of cultural differences, demonstrating that curiosity is an essential factor in cultural integration. The podcast concludes with reassurances to potential travelers about the supportive communities that await them.
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Credits:
Host: David Cole
Guests: Book Co-Authors Julie, Angela, and Anika
Announcer: Brodi Cole
Editor: David Cole
Theme Music: Ella Doran
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Travel the World was written and performed by Ella Doron for Helen Doron Teen English, for the Helen Doron Educational Group
Visit the Helen Doron Song Club on YouTube for the full song
♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
For information on teaching and business opportunities at Helen Doron English, please visit us at https://helendoron.com
Chapters:
00:00 Introduction and Desire to Travel
00:52 Welcome to the Our Offbeat Life Podcast
01:59 Introducing the Wonder Year Travel Guide
02:56 Meet the Authors: Julie, Angela, and Annika
06:46 Fun Lightning Round with the Authors
10:07 Deep Dive into the Wonder Year Travel Guide
14:31 Authors Share Their Personal Travel Experiences
23:26 Exploring the World Schooling Approach
36:53 Lessons from Living in a Small Space
41:02 Favorite Forms of Transportation During Travel
43:35 Packing and Preparing for Extended Travel
44:07 Finding What You Need on the Road
44:33 Teaching Kids to Be Independent Travelers
45:31 The Importance of Thoughtful Packing
45:58 The Reality of Buying Necessities Abroad
46:29 The Benefits of Renting and Offloading Gear
47:20 The Impact of Travel on Local Economies
48:16 The Experience of Country Backpacking
48:49 The Value of Involving Kids in Travel Planning
49:56 The Importance of Preparedness and Exploration
50:17 The Magic of Dark Skies and Outdoor Adventures
51:44 Favorite Travel Destinations and Activities
58:45 The Challenges of Extended Family Travel
01:06:06 Common Misconceptions About Extended Family Travel
01:09:01 The Impact of Extended Travel on Family Life
01:09:01 The Surprising Lessons from Extended Family Travel
01:13:05 Travel Trivia Time
01:14:50 The Long-Term Impact of Extended Family Travel
01:14:50 Reflections and Parting Thoughts
I just want to travel I just want to travel I just want to travel I just want to travel I just want to see something bigger than me I just want to travel the world I just want to me someone different from me I just want to travel the
World to see and smell and say something completely new I just want to travel the world I just want to see it with someone like you I just want to travel the World hello and welcome to the r off beat Life podcast this is no ordinary travel show here we delve into the extraordinary lives of intrepid families who’ve taken the leap into full-time travel each week we bring you captivating stories from Globe trading families sharing their triumphs their challenges and their incredible
Adventures for practical advice on homeschooling on the road through inspiring Tales of personal growth and transformation we cover it all our mission is to help you to show you that an offbeat life full of full-time travel is not just a dream but a feasible enriching and exciting reality and more
Importantly we’re here to provide you with the tools resources and motivation to take that leap into the unknown so buckle up because we’re about to embark on an exciting Journey let’s explore the world together one episode at a time again welcome to the r offbeat live podcast here’s your host David Cole
Let’s get started today is a real treat as I had the pleasure to read a new family travel guide and today I will talk to its authors the Wonder year is a comprehensive guide for families considering taking an extended break from routine life to travel the world it
Covers all aspects of planning from initial inspiration to budgeting Logistics to managing health and safety on the road real life examples from the authors their own Adventures while traveling with their children it really helps bring the content to life so whether you’re still dreaming about or
Or ready to take the leap this book will actually give you a chance to like build up that courage and the tools to create your own family’s Wonder year so a big hello to all the Travelers and future Travelers out there listening today um I’m joined by uh Julie reader Angela h
And anakah Paradise three voices behind this new Wonder year travel guide so hello ladies great to have you podcast today thanks thanks for having us thank you thank you um having had the opportunity to read the book prior to the interview it’s it’s I’m very
Grateful that I had a chance to take a look at this I feel like I already know you guys a little bit here um so now it’s really for our listeners out there to kind of get an idea of who you are and I wanted to say that by reading the
Book you will grow to feel the same that you know these three ladies I think this travel guide really helps to Showcase who you are your Lifestyles and show people that it’s doable so for those who haven’t looked at the book as of yet can
You give us a little one minute or less speech about who you are we kind of start with Angela then Julie then an I am Angela haston I’m one of the three co-authors and I now live in Boulder Colorado but before my own Wonder year I
Lived in the Bay Area for almost 20 years where my kids were born and raised I worked in healthcare and biot technology and we made a decision to launch and travel full-time we planned a year and it ended up being two and at the end of that Journey we were deciding
Where to land we landed in Colorado I met anuka Julie and the collaboration started to write this book that’s awesome all right so Julie yeah thanks thanks so much for having us on the podcast looking forward to this conversation I’m Julie freder I am originally from Cincinnati Ohio I’ve
Spent four years living overseas in different locations and then a fifth year was our Wonder year um my background in training is environmental science and public policy and I’ve had a chance to work in a variety of fields and sort of have realized lately that my career path was rather circuitous but
That’s because I think I was following my Bliss even before I took our Wonder year where I really kind of cemented around that idea of follow what you love and that makes you work really hard and brings lots of meaning so I’ve kind of done that professionally and brought me
To this book and appreciate kind of that the the privilege of being able to do that and and this this work with the book and with Angela and anuka is certainly in that same vein of following something I’m very passionate about very cool all right and
Anuka yeah so thanks so much again for having us and my name is anuka and I am from the San Francisco Bay Area I was a public school teacher I was a peace score volunteer and I worked in student travel so it was kind of all the stars
Aligned for me to want to take my kids on on a Wonder year I also traveled a lot as a as a young child with my family and I think I’ve through writing this book I’ve really realized how much it makes a family that time together on the road
We’ll talk more about that later definitely definitely all right well you all have such unique backgrounds to different stories and what brought you to this it really ties the book together seing so many different ways of travel and uh Lifestyles that build together before we really get into the book
Though I like to start things off with a little bit of fun let’s have a little lightning round so you can all individually your own taste but coffee or tea I’m coffee okay coffee coffee and I’m neither what’s your preferred beverage um water and flavored water honestly and
A glass of wine now and then oh I do love flavored water from time to time it’s hard to find it down here down in South America all right cat or dog dog Definitely dog okay definitely dog all right so we got dogs all right all right pool or Beach I’m beach
Beach beach all right all right now let’s go this time let’s say we’re g to do an imagine or would you rather so would you rather be able to speak every language in the world or be able to teleport anywhere at any time Julie uh speak every language in the world
Anuka I think teleport I I’m a super big history nerd so I would love to just insert myself places nice all right Angela teleport for sure whenever I’ve been asked what magical power I’d want to have it’s always been that one because you get to the good part and
Skip all the mess of the travel in between yeah very cool very cool all right and a little bit of a weird one but imagine getting off the plane at your next destination and you arrive into the zombie apocalypse you’re able to get to your bag what’s the first thing you would
Grab and why Julie you want to start this one oh my gosh I have no idea I’m always grabbing for my water bottle but that’s not going to get me very far far we do need to stay hydrated my phone your phone all right anuka well my first thought was duct
Tape and I don’t know why I don’t know what I do with duct tape when a zombie apocalypse but it usually seems to solve most things but hopefully I’ve packed a hazmat suit that’s what I would duct tape is hard to bite through so you might actually be okay covering yourself in duct
Tape I always travel with duct tape nice all right all right Angela probably my camera because my camera is the first thing that I grab all the time to document everything and I would imagine some pretty interesting things are goingon to happen if it’s the zombie apocalypse and if you would have asked
Me what would Angela have grabbed I could have told you it was a camera uh so it must be always in your hand that camera ready to go y that’s cool that’s cool all right so now let’s let’s kind of get into the book here that you all wrote together
Wonder year a guide to long-term Family Travel and World schooling wow uh I like to say that it’s a really cool sound for the book now I really enjoyed it it provided a a good guide for families considering taking a Wonder year or an extended period of travel for World
Schooling their children some people call it a gap year I like the term Wonder year better though it really encompasses it because it’s so much more everything from budgeting planning closing up your life at home educational approaches Health considerations managing transition back home after traveling it’s it’s all mentioned in the
Book it was probably kind of a feat to put together but in in reading it there really is a sense of who you are as I mentioned ear ear year and what you went through in the way the book is laid out by far my favorite parts of the book are
The the notes from the road those sections that each of you included throughout the book but then you also did a great job of mixing in real talk like conversations on inclusivity sustainability and responsible travel uh also there’s wonderful sections tools that you provide such as jobs people
Take on the road where you mention the different types of jobs of world schooling families that you met that uh that they were doing from the road uh to the real life world schooling plans that each of you detailed in the book which happened to be my favorite part those those World schooling
Plans so in writing the book uh first off how did how did you all meet and decide to collaborate and what inspired you to write this book together sharing your family’s experiences yeah I’ll take this one so I left in 2017 and when I was getting ready to go
I I called on the people that whom I knew to help me kind of solve all those questions that were rattling around and I knew Julie because our um kids were in preschool together and we were in the same book club and she she’ll tell you
More about her trip but she um did a different kind of trip than I was doing but she had a lot of the answers to my questions and then a friend of mine from high school knew Angela and when I had told this friend that we were going to do
This wild and crazy thing um she said I know somebody else who did that and so I connected with Angela over that and then she became part of our book club and none of the answers that I needed were in one place it was all in disperate
Pieces across the internet and so you could spend a whole lot of time trying to find all these things out but it was really I realized before we left that somebody should write a book about this there’s so many people doing it and I was I was surprised nobody had and what
They gave me it was ALS it was the details in the logistics but it was also kind of that pat on the back saying you’re not irresponsible for wanting to do this other I’ve done it other people have done it so it was that vote of confidence that was so important and so
When I returned I said no one’s written this book yet and then what started to keep me up at night was maybe I should write that book but that seemed pretty lonely so then I reached back out to Julie and Angela and said what do you think about
This and they were all in and so we also tried to write it with both answering those questions that we all had and also trying to be that supportive friend friend tone to help other people who might be considering this that’s probably why I
Got that feeling that I I I I knew y all while I was reading through this book it does have that tone to it it’s not just this boring guide that you can follow it does have a lot of really good sections detailed out and stuff like that but
It’s it also has stories and yeah you’ve really have that sense of community in the book which is really cool and I think that comes because it’s a it’s a collaboration with you three so let’s talk a little bit about some of those experiences those travel experiences
That you’ve all had Julie I know in the book that you did a lot of backpacking everything from backpacking to RV life there’s tons of stories in the book can you tell us any funny or awkward stories about your adventures that may or may not have made it into the book it’s so
Fun to think about it because there literally were so many pivots I mean things that I would never have planned like compound fractures of the elbow you know our dog got really sick like crazy things happened and yeah so one of the things that I
Don’t talk about in the book and it it’s it’s significant on many levels because it’s kind of like that love of home and love of being away from home Dynamic we were in Boise Idaho we were going to have a meeting with the director of a river Protection Organization and the
Nonprofit their office they had this big TV screen playing live television and we’re kind of glancing up there and they’re broadcasting this epic flooding happening in Boulder Colorado and like they’re flashing maps and I knew exactly where they were talking about and they talked about this being a 500-year flood
And we decided as a family we we had a meeting and we said you know we’re supposed to be doing this really cool trip up through the Badlands and then up at bike trip in New England and it’s fall and all this stuff and we
All three said we need to go home we have to go check on our friends and our family in our house and so we rerouted and before we did Johnny who was nine at the time said but I have an idea I think we should go back through Yellowstone we
Had already spent three weeks in Yellowstone and had a fabulous time but we didn’t see wolves and he said I want to see wolves he’d read about the reintroduction so we took a little 500 Mile detour something like that went through Yellowstone and it was like
Right out of Wild Kingdom there was the Bison carcass with a mama Grizzly on top and the the Cubs wandering around and five wolves circling this scene and we were mesmerized and we watched for like I don’t know how long hours and then this hilarious thing we had our 85b
Dog with us and this new group of tourists showed up to the same spot because they also got word that this scene was happening and they’re all taking pictures of our dog we’re like you guys do you know what’s happening over there there’s this Wild Kingdom
Scene but our dog was very handsome and we joke about it to this day like how photogenic Max was but it was one of those things you just never know what’s around the next corner and so we had so many pivots but that’s one that comes to
Mind that is so cool yeah and that’s cool to hear because we were traveling to South Dakota back when they started reintroducing a lot of the wolves and we actually went to Wolf Creek Lodge where they actually had some of the wolves that they were trying to you know they
Were raising rearing and trying to release them every so often we got to see some of them meet some of the Wolves before they sent them back out to the wild but I’ve never actually had a chance to go and like see them like driving along the side of the road
Before that would be amazing so yeah so now I need to make my way back out that way all right I’m actually going to Yellowstone this winter just because it is such a magical place but never been there in the snow so it’s going to be a different Adventure that will be a
Different adventure for sure all right well now um Angela we haven’t heard from you for a little bit here what’s the most memorable human connection or cultural experience that you’ve had during your travels yeah one of the things we talk about when you know everybody tries to Define World
Schooling and in our book we do the same we say using the world as a classroom but one of the distinctions we we’ve also try to layer in is exactly what you’re asking about where we say it’s so compelling to learn from people not about people and so the things that
Stand out to me it’s it’s hard to pick one but we really did try to incorporate that across our years where we would go to a location and really try to connect with people so a theme in our travels was history I have two sons they were
Both very into history at the time we were traveling they were 9 and 12 when we started so we did a lot of historical monuments and museums and as often as possible connected with people who had lived through the history we were studying so we met with a woman named
Ruth who had lived through apartheid who had been relocated whose family had been split up and pulled back together and learn directly from her we met with a man in Vietnam who had lived through the war had been a prisoner of war who guided us through um some of his
Experiences there as we walked the SES um so those are people who were designated guides but it also just happened organically with people we met so we just tried to be really really curious and ask people about where they lived and who they are and what it’s
Like in their world so that we could try to understand it better as we were visiting and spending time and trying to immerse ourselves there yeah it’s very interesting the connections you make whether they’re just organic or through like you said with guides and things like that as well really neat and anuka
You had your travels with the peace score before and then continuing on I’m sure that’s been ingrained in you so was anything during your Wonder year like this huge cultural experience for you as well well you know those human connections I think for for our trip there’s parts of our own identities
That um kind of were that Connecting Point for us so bringing my family back to my peace course site and meeting my co-workers was a huge part of the the trip and I think I you know my my kids got to see that I was more than their
Mom that I actually lived overseas and I can speak Thai and a bit alao and Spanish and that was that was really cool for them to see me as a three-dimensional person and I think it helped me become a better mom to kind of be reminded that I did have a life
Before being a mom that was separate from from them and the other big piece for us was my um middle child is is was born in China and spent her first three years in an orphanage in southern China and to be able to go back there was pretty life-changing and it was
Really important to us that that happened we not only got to visit the orphanage and meet her caregivers but we also got to travel around China and you know you hear so much negative talk about China in the news but she now has this other um kind of pride in China and being
Chinese that’s really that’s really wonderful for her to have and to go through that whole experience I mean that’s got to be a heck of a story in it in itself doing that going back through that whole process after having already you know having her with her documentation and having all the
Documentation in order to be able to do that kind of a trip yeah we had to we had to apply for a special permit from the Chinese government even to go into the orphanage and we were only allowed like four hours and then we had to sign
A book but it was really life-changing wow yeah yeah it would be for sure that’s really cool I’ve only I’ve only had three days in China because we had a layover and but it was an amazing experience it’s not exactly what you hear in the news like you said it’s it’s
A totally different experience they are very rich culture so yeah definitely cool all right now kind of changing gears into education and stay with that volunteering but you guys did a lot with your trip so one of the things I found outstanding in the book was that there was no limits to educational
Opportunities uh each of you handled World schooling in your own ways but you also found opportunity for volunteering and giving back while traveling uh Julie uh can you tell us a little bit about your approach to education on your Wonder year yeah thank you really one of
My favorite things to talk about when reflecting on on our Wonder year and on the yeah just the experience because education was integral to the to every aspect of our traveling so I would say we were pretty open in our overall approach we did have some ideas around
Math like some things that Johnny needed to to to master his times taes while he was missing his fourth grade but like you said earlier you know math was predominantly an applied fashion he kept a log of our miles he you know figured out fuel economy and did some conversion between kilometers
And miles and we can kind of you can keep peeling back the layers and you know go deeper into any subject but for writing and reading we we again sort of took a natural cue from wherever we were we we all kept journals we we wrote letters and postcards and letters to the
Editor we read books about where we were and developed a really lcal local reading list and so it was very much organic in that way in terms of the experience we we kind of opened up the opportunity when we were in Alaska we studied all about tribal Nations and
Alaska Natives and we we met with a chickaloon Elder so it became very personal we studied subsistance fishing and learned about all the different five types of salmon while we were fishing with a subsistance Fisher out of hannes Alaska we really just took those cues from where we were so we studied climate
Change and its effect on glaciers when we were in Seward Alaska um but we tried to use two themes to hold it together so I have sustainability as a background and my husband is a hydrogeologist so we really looked for water and sustainability as kind of this cohesive
Element throughout and taking that one step further we affiliated with a nonprofit organization ation for the whole year so we were effectively brand ambassadors for a nonprofit River Protection Organization and it it was really a wonderful way to learn we were able to meet across the country with local River protection groups
And um learn about their advocacy work learn about the science learn about the the natural history and being family ambassadors for this River protetion group also offered a nice culmination project for Johnny by the end of the trip he had a lot of new learning and he applied to be a
Presenter in a poster session at a conference so we went to the river rally National Conference and he was able to kind of summarize his work and present it in the exhibit hall and talk to talk to attendees and tell them about the state of river protection across the
Country and of course his his experience traveling and being able to to learn through this community service and taking this very experiential approach to his fourth grade so it was a really nice way for us to be able to pull in our passion our professional expertise
And then sort of the experiential arm of of our of our education on the road I love it yeah it brings together your experience and you’re able to put that put together with the experts that are out there and find your child interest all in one and and give him something to
Build towards that’s really cool that’s really cool a lot a lot of our listeners out there are World schoolers are curious about world schooling and this whole educational approach of unschooling and Road schooling and all these terms that you hear that go along with it so and uh let’s see here I’m
Just curious anuka do you have anything that you wouldd want to add onto that world schooling journey and types of things that you guys did no know we were similar to Julie in a lot of ways but as I was a classroom teacher before we left I was thinking as
A classroom teacher when I first started and then I could kind of pull back and morph it around we did the same thing we read a ton and with three kids you know either my husband or I could switch off doing one-on-one reading with our kids
And you know I think there’s no better way to do language arts than one-on-one reading with a parent we did a lot of journaling so our oldest was doing algebra and that is really my upper reach with math so we had to be very intentional about actually you know with
A workbook doing algebra but we also supplemented before we came home with a tutor before she started back to school and I think that can sometimes relieve some of the pressure for parents when they’re worried about being able to teach those those subjects that maybe aren’t as accessible to them with our
Memories we also you know from hindsight we did a lot of like physical education we did a lot of trekking we did open ocean swimming we did surfing all kinds of different things we walked on glaciers and so I think that there was a lot of of that kind of Education that I
Think gives confidence to young people in their physical abilities and I want to also go back to the idea of being a classroom teacher because when we were in New Zealand we hunkered down in an Airbnb for two months and we had access to an English-speaking Library we had library
Cards and so we really use that time to kind of whiz through a lot of what I was envisioning for the year and we would do like weekly spelling lists and I thought oh my gosh they’re they’re not going to like this they loved it they wanted some structure
Around their learning and I think I only had the tolerance to do that for about two months and then we kind of like no more school but it was nice to have a time with some structure there that is cool okay yeah I was going to say
Because as a classroom teacher that had to be maybe hard is what was thinking was coming to my brain for you to structure your mind around going this different route especially with the physical incorporating these physical stuff the nature and everything else into it so yeah so yeah that definitely that
Definitely scratched the itch and then we could they did book reports and all like you know research projects and all of that with the library which was great but it was only two months yeah well neat that’s but that’s great you can encounter all kinds of things along your
Trip to help educate and supplement education depending on your areas of expertise mine is not math I let my wife handle that or online programs that we find that’s not my area of expertise I can do math just fine if I’m building something and I can research with the
Internet and do that no problem I can build but it’s it’s applied for me because I’m a kinesthetic type learner you know and so I have to pay attention to my child in my case and I think that a lot of parents if they learn their child’s learning style this type of
Lifestyle even on the road you can find a way to help your kid learn hey David can I can I add one thing on the education thing if you don’t mind I’d love it I am always filled with admiration listening to my co-authors because Julie’s program is so cohesive
And Annie’s approach so leaned into her expertise as a teacher but I feel like sometimes I represent the masses on this because I was not a teacher my kids had been going to public school and I was relying on those teachers and I was starting from ground zero on planning
World schooling and so I just want to give a vote of confidence to the many people that I see Post online about this because it seems to be one of those major hurdles for people to think like can I do this it’s such a big responsibility to educate my kids to
Pull them from school if you haven’t already been homeschooling so just very briefly I did a lot of research around that created a plan the plan fell apart and it ended up being a beautiful thing anyway and my kids were out of school for two years and slid right back in
Without any issue so I just want to put that out there as like a testament to it can be done from somebody flying pretty you know starting from a pretty naive place because I see a lot of people struggling with that question that’s that’s very good to hear because yeah as
Traveling I I do I encounter a lot of different teachers maybe that’s also because I’m a teacher and we find other teachers but yeah you’re right there are a ton of questions online from people who are not teachers who are looking at getting into this and they are definitely scared about the
Possibilities of how you do that um and so coming from a teaching background like I do I find ways to make it happen but like you said someone from someone from your background who didn’t have that teaching background making it work it is a testament that you can find ways
To do it what resources did you find to really help you before your plan fell apart and after your FL plan fell apart to get back on track and make sure your kids were successful yeah as is my way I did a ton of res search UPF front and that
Included kind of like Annie was talking about earlier lots of disperate sources online homeschooling books and most importantly I met with other parents who were in my friend Circle who were homeschooling their kids so I did all this research and I I created this plan
And it was like what kid would get what subject and when and it was all worked out and what happened was is once we were on the road that plan was getting in the way of actually really experiencing The Experience right it was just better to be out the door doing
Things than sticking to the plan and it I’m talking weeks and we were kind of like scrap the plan what ended up working so well for us at at the core was learning as a family so rather than thinking of parent kid or teacher student roles we really adopted a
Mindset of we are out here learning as a family and what that meant was as we were deciding where to go and looking and learning about that place asking questions about it reading about it before we went trying to understand it um deciding what we were curious about and wanted to investigate
Together and then because we were doing that real time together it just became this really fluid dialogue all the time so we would go do something during the day and then we’d sit it down at dinner and talk about who we met and what we learned from them and what our takeaways
Were and sometimes pre- and post I would have the kids do little projects and like teach each other or even teach my husband and me which was really fun for them to kind of switch role so it just became really fluid because we were doing it together and the roles dropped
Away I’ll say we kept a couple things structured just so that they could be prepped to to come back to school we had the Nuance that we were not leaving and coming back to the same place we moved so I didn’t know what school we’d land
In so I wanted to have a little bit of language arts and math structure in place but we did those kind of like Annie said in condensed period of time when we were traveling in our RV and could have all of our stuff and the rest sort of happened based on curios and
Serendipity that’s really cool yeah I love that that approach of having the kids teach you and they do a little research and put something together and I’ve had my son put a PowerPoint together here and there and it’s it’s lovely it’s lovely to see what they come
Up with that’s a great approach so very cool very cool it sounds like it really worked out well for your kids so and I think that the I’m I think that our book is a great resource yeah for Education there’s a ton of of ideas and how you can really
Approach um the kind of structure of Education from anywhere from just having an online curriculum that you’re purchasing to really you know we’re going to do math these different ways this month and language arts these different ways we have like starter kits and and tons and tons of ideas yes it’s
Really cool so people listening out there definitely you want to check out this part of the book for sure if if anything for me I when I was looking through it the those guides that that instruction that in there is really useful because it’s it’s helped me kind
Of again think about it what am I doing with my kid why am I doing it with my kid and we found more ways to make to incorporate new things just in the last what week or two since I’ve started looking through your book it gave me some so many cool new
Ideas that’s nice to hear thank you oh yeah so now what were some of the biggest lessons that you guys learned from living in a small space together as a family uh for an expended period of time guess maybe Angela maybe you can lead this one off sure I think on the
Good side what was surprising and such an aha for me was how much I actually loved it like I love that amount of togetherness I always say one of the most beautiful things about my Wonder year experience was that my family ate every meal together for two years and I
Would never ever have at home right we’d all be out the door doing our own thing so the togetherness was amazing we got along quite well and we also made sure we found ways to carve out space whether that be a person’s alone time or someone
On one time so the importance of moving from a group of four to a group of one or two or three at times was really important we got pretty creative about that RV we chose had a little section the boys could pull a curtain and feel
Like they were in their own room parents were doing one-on-one time with kids we visited family and friends along our path across the two years a lot so our kids could mix in and kind of have their own thing every once in a while so it’s it’s sort of the combination of how
Amazing the together time was and the need to find Space when it was time for people to have space yeah that’s really cool uh how about you Julie you have anything to say on that sure we traveled for 13 months and we were mostly in the US mostly in a 24
Foot Class B motor home at taskan navon that I loved and I miss it and you know we used to joke like like literally brushing our teeth at night we would rub elbows like it was just pretty normal and just kind of being living living that way and and we
Also had a tent so we spent a lot of time we would also pitch the tent and you know just camp or whenever we were back country we would obviously leave the rig and and just take our packs but I think you know we just really started to appreciate the Simple Pleasures and
That’s carried forward and you know a hot shower is such a privilege you know and a hot chocolate sitting in the camp chair you know I joke I felt like royalty you know there’s just like the little things that we took notice of probably way more than than we did
Before the trip and that’s carried over now that I still have that gratitude for for all these Simple Pleasures and how much that gives I don’t know just brings a little bit of Joy without a lot of effort and so you know and I think the other lesson is like just how when
You’re living that close to Nature like the boundary between us in the outdoors it wasn’t totally dissolved because obviously we had a rig but it was like two seconds in your outside wherever you are and the ease and the permeability and the relationship we had with nature
Because of that has also carried forward and today my son when he goes on a river trip he doesn’t even sleep in a tent he just sleeps in a ham and I that you know the the ease in The Great Outdoors I think and cultivating that practice came
Out of this year and that’s definitely one of the one of the great lessons you know just being in motion and being so close to Nature that’s not only great to hear it’s awesome to see on your face the joy you can see your face light up as you’re
Talking about it so those of you listening definitely you want to check out the video here but you can see how much Julie’s face lights up and like you can tell this really meant a lot to you this family time and it looks like all
Of you had a great time on this trip in one form or another with the with the kids with the spouses with everything and you took many different ways of traveling as well like anuka what was your favorite form of transportation during the travel well I know what my kids would
Say hands down okay and it’s surprising it was a 24hour train ride from chungu to Beijing and we were the only westerners on the train before we got on China has like snacks are amazing and especially at the train stations all the snacks we could get and everybody was going by
With the different snacks at all the train stations we could quickly kind of get a new snack but it was like being in that closed space like we’re all talking about looking out the window at this amazing Countryside eating snacks like no meals and just kind of meeting the
People coming up and down the aisles it was hands down the Highlight for them for me it was getting places by foot I love hiking I love you know even when we were in New Zealand just walking around the neighborhood like that is by far my favorite form of
Transportation and at Nepal we went trekking we went you know over 14,000 ft with the kids and it was it was an accomplishment for a eight niney old yeah that that that height that altitude is crazy we had to do it in Peru it’s nothing to joke about
Especially for the young ones so my my son had a hard time when we got up there to what was it about 5,000 meters yeah it’s crazy all right so that’s really interesting and you guys did so much there’s a lot of backpacking trips as well as families so let’s say
Here what would you say is your top uh for backpacking let’s go internationally Angela you want to take that one uh sure I I think you hear it a lot when you travel um especially when you’re talking about long-term Family Travel which is to to pack light um and
I would say it’s also pack smart right because it’s it’s really easy as a parent to think of all the situations and scenarios that you might come up with and that you might need this and you might need that your kids might need these kinds of shoes Etc so my family
Traveled in like three to four month legs and then we would return to our RV and then go out again and so we had the luxury of kind of regrouping on our packing when we went home the first couple of times we went out of the outside the US within the first few
Weeks we shipped a box of stuff home because we would try to put things that need were very gear places that were gear heavy needs like we went to Iceland we needed a lot of extra gear in Iceland and then we would ship stuff home the other thing though is that people think
You need to buy it all at home and take it with you and it’s just almost so much easier to find things on the ground and you really can do that most places it many people think oh I can only get that in the US and that’s just not the case
You can almost always find what you need not just buying new but a lot of secondhand stuff too especially for kids so just being thoughtful about what you bring and I’ll layer into that trying to work with your kids so that they can carry their own so of course this
Doesn’t apply to really really little kids but you know as they get into even 56 and up being able to carry their own day pack or backpack and wheel their own luggage is huge not only for convenience but just that sense of autonomy so I
Taught my kids how to pack their own bag we used packing cubes and they would use those to organize and set up their space wherever we went so just giving the kids some autonomy and being thoughtful about what they bring so that they can manage
It on their own so those are a couple things I’d start with that’s cool yeah especially teaching your kids to do it themselves and uh making sure that what they can handle they can handle so that’s really good I made that mistake early on on our first trip is trying to
Make my son carry his own bag and it was a little too much so then we had to redistribute and or leave things behind it was a little bit tricky at first The Growing Pains of becoming a new traveler to offer packing lists in the book I’ll
Just mention that because we made those really inclusive so people could be thoughtful about what might apply to them but the idea of all those lists you see is to use them as reference and then choose from them what you know your family needs and how you travel and the
Kinds of activities you’re going to be doing drive so much of that too so it’s a good reference but it’s it’s intended to be a starting point so people don’t forget things but they shouldn’t think think that they have to remember all of those things definitely and you make a
Great point that other countries have stores you can buy things right they have diapers you don’t need to take a month’s worth of diapers with you they have certain medicine you might need your more exotic medicines you might need to bring with you but you don’t necessarily need to bring aspirin you
Can usually find stuff like that wherever you need to go so just kind of think about those types of things when you’re traveling so that’s what we like to tell people too so it’s really we we learned that on early on as well go ahead anuka yeah and on the because uh
Angela and I spent a lot of time internationally and I actually had the opposite experience of Angela not not in that you know things aren’t available but we rented a lot so in places like catm do you can rent things which is great and also when we offloaded some
Things we met like I had UM Gators for you know there’s it was monsoon season and it was really muddy and so at the end of that time you know I had these Gators that I was either going to mail home I didn’t know quite what to do with but I could just
Leave them at the guest house and somebody else was it’s almost like a library like you could leave some items and people would take them so that was awesome but the thing that’s really different from Angela is that I think for us in Nepal and going up to some
Very high altitudes it was important for us to put our money in the local economy and there are so many people in Nepal who you know this is their profession their Porters um some from the sherpa ethnic group and they you know that’s what they
Do and when we were there it was an economic downturn and they were so so happy for the work and they were so proud at what they could do and it was a little alarming sometimes how much They Carried like with flip-flops on but you
Know just to get your kids up to 14,000 ft it’s really really helpful to not be you know just have a day pack not the all the medical supplies that we were bringing with us and things okay very good I love that input that’s great and and Julie you had a totally different
Experience too because you were back country backpacking yeah so we intended when we headed out to kind of just get away from where we were living to kind of expand our Horizons as it were but we really didn’t go to many cities we mostly fell in love with national parks and state
Parks and Wilderness areas and so we did spend a ton of time and we did several trips within our trip and so my couple points would be and this is a through this is a theme I think all of us the three of us are in total agreement that
Wherever we can in every aspect of of travel we found it super valuable to involve our kids like the life lessons part of the world schooling education is really unmat when you consider what children can learn through travel the planning the preparation the decision making the reflection the problem solving the fixing things
And so we with only one kid it was pretty easy to have him involved throughout and so we we definitely felt like you know he always had a seat at the table and was super involved so we we love to encourage where possible and in the right circumstances for families to
Really you know kind of create opportunities for kids to be involved in a meaningful way and that that you know pays off in a big way so one of the things I would say is a 10 Essentials kit and it might be nine it might be 12
But we got really into that kind of figuring out what are the essential things we need to always have with us and then making sure that it was packed really smart and that it was always with us and I still uh kind of love that for
Being prepared another is to take a look at the international Dark Skies map pick a place that’s really dark and plan a trip there because short of like being an astronaut and getting to see Earth from space seeing the night sky without any light pollution is can be lifechanging and
It’s extraordinary and when you’re able to go for a couple days and get off the beaten path whether it’s you know getting away from roads and they just check out the map and plan a trip and go there because it’s uh super amazing so we we went to several places that are
That have that designation of international dark sky that’s amazing yeah there’s so many and you can see there’s a map of them much which is cool the the the the Dark Skies map it changed my life as a kid and wanting to see dark skies because growing up in
Idaho went out to the desert in like outside of NAA Idaho and you could see the entire Milky Way and this is before NAA grew and got bigger and more light pollution but now there’s different places that we’ve been from the atakama desert to down here in Argentina there’s
Several other places down here as well where it’s just so dark and you can see everything with no lights around and it it’s magical that’s kind of the word I like to use for it’s just magical looking up at the sky so I love that so that kind of that
Kind of like brings us to destinations because every traveler I’ve talked to has favorite destinations favorite activities while traveling you’ve all done something different so let’s start with let’s start with anuka what’s your favorite destination Andor activity that you had well you know it’s kind of like choosing your favorite child it’s
Hard I think for World schooling in particular my favorite destination is Greece for a number of reasons I feel when I used to teach sixth grade we would do a quarter to a third of the year on Ancient Greece so number one it was my wheelhouse like ancient Greeks
Like I got you and so every I mean it’s such a pivotal piece of History social science and to have that come alive I think for children is pretty amazing and there’s you know temples to this God or that God all over as well than as we
When we traveled around the rest of Europe you can see ancient Greece in all the you know art in all the museums in the British museum all over France it’s it’s kind of um Ground Zero so to speak for Western Civilization but also the people are so
Warm and lovely I like to say you know we were in this small um marble carving town on the island of os I believe and we were just walking through this streets and this older man kind of like patted the seat next to him and said like you know come
Sit with me and we just kind of gestured and giggled for you know it seemed like 20 30 minutes maybe it was shorter but we just the the people want to engage and um that was really lovely I feel like there’s you know the magic of the
Ancient myths is so wonderful with with kids we wrote Our Own myths to to try to explain the natural phenomena using you know the ancient gods and goddesses as you know as main characters there’s a lot to learn about sailing there I could go on but you know the other thing is the
Food the food is amazing and also you know studying health and it like a Mediterranean diet there’s it’s just a fascinating Place yeah no traveler can talk about their favorite places without talking about food I mean traveling it’s all about food yes I I think that’s got to be
Either number one or number two on people’s minds when they travel is the food yeah but I think Greece has got to be on one of my on my bucket list it’s definitely on my sons he’s a huge fan of shout out to greeking out the podcast
His favorite and he’s listened to every episode so I know that when we end up getting to Greece everything’s going to come up he’s heard all the stories and yeah well that’s going to be amazing Angela how about you go next what’s your favorite I’m going to take a little bit
Of Liberty and do two favorites um because my family I feel like we’re sort of we live at the two extremes like we like to get out of Nature and we like to go way way way out like way out to the edges where it takes a long time to get
There and you’re way off grid and my favorite in that is where you just came from which is Patagonia I love that region so much I’ve been there twice once on the Argentinian side and once on the Chilean side and we spent a fair amount of time there in our world
Schooling years and it always feels like home it’s so strange it’s so incredibly distant from where I grew up and different and yet feels like home there’s something about those outer latitudes that always sort of speak to my soul and it’s the kind of place my
Husband and I have even said like oh it’ be nice to live there a part of the year so anyway we hope to do that on the other side our family also really likes busy cities like we really like dense big cities full of culture and The Hectic feeling and museums and street
Art and and so we’ve been to a lot of big cities and but our I think our favorites and one of our favorite places in the world was Japan Japan is probably the biggest surprise of our Wonder year we all wanted to go there and were
Curious about it but four out of four of our family members went there and fell in love there’s so many nuances to Japan that are different and beautiful and interesting the community aspect of Japan really appeals to my heart and they really Savor art and culture in a
Way that I think is different than a lot of places that I that we all really enjoy so those are my two oh some good suggestions right there very good all right so Julie can you wrap us up on this one what’s your favorite destination or activities sure well and
I love hearing anuka and Angela talk about and my list of places I need to go just keeps getting longer and longer and longer okay so we harvested olives at a in kapimi Italy in a hundred-year Orchard and that was pretty amazing it’s a tip for folks
Who want to do work exchange we woofed there’s lots of cool work exchange opportunities we provide a whole lot of resources in the book that can help people find um fitting activities that you can do that we also did some kayaking SE kayaking in Southeast Alaska and ended
Up at this crazy pristine Cove but those were not my favorites because my favorite places were the spaces in between where we were simply Travelers and having that experience uh took us being on the road for an extended period of time to kind of settle into that identity and that’s
It that’s nice and I would agree one of when people ask me like tra traveling in your favorite stuff I usually go with the drives in between as I’m driving from one location to another it’s totally different and then going by a plane and then just going to the main destination seeing the
That Temple and getting back on the next plane to the next place I love driving because I see the Rolling Hills and the tiny villages in the back Backwoods and everything so it’s really cool so I love that all right so now what about I would say challenges what kind of challenges
Have we encountered along the way ANUK do you want us to start with that one sure I think I think that what some of the biggest challenges for us especially our oldest turned 13 and it was hard to be away from kids her own age I think that was really challenging
Um we did you know this this was like early days of Zoom so we did some zooms and we tried to get her when we were in New Zeal she was on an open ocean swim team surf life rescue they call it so she could meet some people when we were
In Costa Rica we were in the same place for six weeks and she met some people in a Spanish language class but I think that was the hardest thing I think my two youngest they’re just one year apart and they were really still happy to just
Be us and my oldest was two to some degree but I think she really missed that peer interaction I think that was the trickiest thing okay okay does anybody else want to add on to that big challenge any big challenges well for ours was coming back
And so I don’t know if we want to go to to talk about re-entry yet but for us we were coming I I mentioned earlier we were when we traveled we were looking at where we might land when we were done so we were going and physically checking
Out places and also reflecting on What mattered to us as a family so we could decide and when we came back I mean it always would have been hard to end this beautiful journey and and reintegrate into quote unquote regular life whatever that means but we did a lot of things
Wrong I’ll just admit that we landed we didn’t spend time in the place we bought a house right away and we got our stuff out of storage and we enrolled in school and signed up for extracurriculars and just all of a sudden we were back to
Where we had been before we went on this journey and some of that we had been trying to shed and leave behind and so why I thought that I should set up house again if you will the way it looked before I that was just it was it
Was uh it was an air it was not reflective thinking and six months in then I could see all of that but we were already kind of locked into to some things we could committed to so what that meant for us as a family is we
Spend the next year or so undoing it all again so we landed integrated got locked in and then sort of undid and so you know with hindsight I definitely would do that differently and it was it was bumpy it was a bumpy ride I mean there were many beautiful things that happened
Too we landed in a new community that was welcoming to us I met wonderful people I made these friends that I wrote a book with it was bumpy for all of all of us all four two adults two kids and there’s some good lessons there and I’ve
Tried to share some of that in the book yeah I can’t imagine settling back in doing the return and anything we we thought about getting you know a a kind of like a like like a home base and doing things from that way for a little while down the road but yeah
Settling in for a long time or going back to the US for a long period of time or forever just doesn’t seem on the radar yet I can’t imagine what you guys uh went through going through this this part um how about you and uh how about
You Julie you mentioned in the book a grieving at the end of your wyear trips how did you work through those emotions when you returned home yeah I mean hearing you say that it sounds a little melodramatic but it really was hard for me I came home also I had you know in
The 12th month of our 13-month trip I I fell like we were in the back country I went for a trail run I busted up my elbow and ended up having surgery and had this big old brace when I came back and also the job I had before I left it
Went away my husband and son they went back to whatever soccer and you know school and work and I so I was definitely in a funk and I I missed the time Freedom deeply you know and it took me a while and I you know I think about it
Would I have wanted to know we have a whole chapter in the book on re-entry and it was profound for us to write it and you know we wondered is it we don’t to like overstate it because I don’t for some people maybe it’ll be a super easy
Return but I I kind of wish I would have been a little more prepared I don’t know exactly what that looks like you know we have some suggestions in the book like think about don’t burn any Bridges you know Reach Out reconnect like keep lines open and that’s really really important
But you know at the end of the day it wasn’t it was you know I say it wasn’t bitter coming home it was sweet like we just pulled into town we didn’t have a plan we like rolled up to our friend’s house and just turned off the engine and
Got out and had a huge hug and I was like okay our friends and family launched us on the trip and they were the soft landing on the return and this is home and it was beautiful to come home and to me the lesson is read travel
Books H hold on to the Traveler’s mindset you know take a pause let’s put our phones away in the moment listen to that person’s story because they have a really cool story if we take enough time to ask and let’s enjoy The Simple Pleasures and all those
Things that make traveling so magical as a family we can try to kind of hold on to that back at home but for me it wasn’t bitter coming home it was just hard and I would have done I I mean I wouldn’t have changed it I would have it
You know it it was just I I missed the time freedom and I missed the it was the best year of my life and yeah so but I don’t want to be negative I don’t want to turn people off I mean it’s just it can be hard for some
People and for other people you just slide right in and consider this a tip like give it a little bit of thought because it can be complicated and I think that I think that everybody listening understands that yeah it’s a unique situation especially you’re gone for a year you’re gone for two I’ve
Already been gone for by the time I get back to the States next year it’ll be five years and I’m be visiting and then leaving again but it it it adds up I’ve met people who’ve been on the road for 8 10 years and I can’t imagine settling
Back down after that but it’s doable in the right circumstances and like you said you have that support group that Network as long as you don’t burn all the bridges before you leave it C it can be good and you could find that new community that you really want and
That’s that’s what I normally hear uh people finding the community and deciding oh you know what I just love it here and this this little town we’re going to stay we’re going to do the repatriation in this place or whatever that type of thing and you’ve probably
Heard some stories from other folks as well of being in the communities so that kind of brings me to the other thing there are a lot of assumptions out there about this lifestyle so anuka what are the most common Mis misconceptions that people have about extended family travel and your
Opinion I think the biggest misconception is that it’s just super wealthy people you know you have to be a bazillionaire to be able to do this and there’s so many different ways that people make this happen you know we are small business owners and so we really
Worked with a manager who could take over and so we couldn’t do ex you know open-ended because we needed to get back to run the business right but people you know teach remotely they there’s all kinds of remote jobs there’s every budget Under the Sun is is available to to World schooling
Families yeah I think that’s the biggest misconception and we we interviewed so many people how do you do this how do you make this happen and we do like you know different scenarios of people’s budgets and how they make make it how they make it work very neat yes very useful very
Useful all right now Julie what mistaken assumptions did you have before departing on your trip so I thought we were just gonna hit the road and go for a year and you know it was very romantic you know this big idea and life just kind of
Happened and we had came back I said earlier there were floods so that brought us back through Boulder um my husband’s mother is aging and you know we wanted to come back and check on her again and there was one other stop that brought us back because life just kind
Of dishes itself out and I thought at first like that’s going to somehow take away the significance of what we did and that was a huge misconception because there’s no right way to do this it doesn’t even have to be a year it doesn’t even have to be a month you know
We call it a season of Discovery that’s how we Define wonder year and so it’s available in so many ways in so many forms like Annie was saying it it’s it’s the intention to get into motion as a family and learn side by side and that is the
Season of Discovery we talk about so I think that is both sort of a misconception I had going going in but a a way bigger more important lesson coming out yeah you learn a lot that’s very cool and then Angela what was the most surprising thing that you learned about yourself
During your travel um I think it probably would be how living that simply on the road felt the most align with my personal values that I’d ever felt in my whole life I think back to when I first first met my husband when we were in our 20s and we connected based
On a love of Adventure and curiosity and education and constant learning and somehow over the years the noise of life was getting in the way of being able to really tap into those things and so when we left the intention was to try to get back to the things that had
Mattered to us most and that was so affirmed for me traveling I mean I I just on a really personal note I’m a caregiver at heart so I first take care of all the people around me and I know many people can relate to that but I
Also found that I have a lot of noise in my life taking care of stuff and processes and things to do at home that just it I mean I just there’s no better word for me than noise and so being on the road and kind of stripping all that
Away and just getting back to what I love and kind of having my senses turned on and doing that with my people that I care about and love the most really made it clear that that’s the way I want to live and that’s how what I’ve tried to incorporate across the years
It’s kind of what I was talking about earlier with the landing back and complicating our lives again and what it does is it gives me direction now to know those things about myself and have have made it really clear what matters and how I want to spend my time and my emotional and
Mental and physical energy very very sweet all right and do do any of you have any regrets about taking this Wonder year none no zero I love to hear that that’s mainly for the listeners out there I mean people who take a tri take these types
Of trips even if bad things happen to you on the trips you almost never regret these things there’s so many positives that come out of it as we’ve heard from all of your wonderful stories today so far and David I’ll just mention that we interviewed many like dozens of families
For our book too so we do bring our perspectives in but we really wanted to learn from others and represent their voices and we always ask that exact question of them and I think across the board it’s no regrets you’ll hear the stories of the people who decided to
Come home early or something wasn’t working and they made a change but regret is um not a word that gets mentioned often not not often at all and over the course of this season here on the podcast we’ve talked to people whove had all kinds of things happen to them from marital
Issues to medical issues to breakdowns and breakups and the whole gamut but all of them tell me that they don’t have regrets that these things probably would have happened in some regard or another in their life anyhow and that these stories these hundred bad days as the
Song goes lead to wonderful stories that you can tell forever and memories that will last a lifetime so I love that thank you all for writing this book it’s it’s a really good compendium as well as you know just guide book as well so there’s no right or wrong way to to go
Through the book as you guys mentioned and the forward you can use it in the way and the order that you want to not for not necessarily in a linear order find what you need use that read through the whole thing or just pick and choose
So it’s really cool so before we go and before we get your partying thoughts I always like trivia Pursuits so I want to do a little trivia time here no I’m terrible at this I’m feeling nervous okay well you got you have three brains so let’s see let’s
See all right first question what is the largest country in the world by land area I think it’s the Soviet Union isn’t it very good yeah Russia yeah Soviet Union Russia very good all right can you name the only city located on two continents Istanbul Istanbul yeah
Istanbul wiscan Noble now it’s a stample very good bonus bonus question for that one what two continents Europe and Asia yes very good all right what’s the world’s smallest country it’s the little one embedded in South Africa is yeah thank you no I think it’s the Vatican City right vaan
City good call consensus isan City yes very good all right and uh let’s see here which country has more Lakes than the rest of the world combined Finland not Finland it is a northern country that’s for sure Canada Canada yeah I know that one caught me off guard
I didn’t know that one at first and last can you name the largest ocean on earth Pacific pafic yeah the Pacific very good all right ladies did very well with the trivia Pursuit all right so I’d like to also finish up with some advice for others and and your long-term impacts so anuka
If you could start us off here now that your kids are a bit older how do they reflect on your families when year looking back well my oldest is now studying marine biology at the University of Hawaii and we live in Colorado so she got that passion for the oceans during
Our Wonder year we spent a lot of time near the coast so I think that’s one of the major impacts for sure on her I would say one of my biggest takeaways well there’s a few is that it kind of goes into the philosophy of the Peace Corp that when people actually get
To know each other from different walks of life um that promotes peace and so so I find that you know again we hear so much about oh we should be worried about China and I know that’s like a global issue but I think we also can think it’s
It’s the people sometimes but one of the the biggest takeaways for my kids hands down was really that everybody in the world is good and kind and if they learn nothing else they they never learned algebra and they knew that in their heart that’s all that was needed for
Me people are not the the same thing as the country and everyone is good and kind and with that my son would always he he said this one time and it was very profound he said you know Mom when people are do things differently the way
They go to the bathroom or what they eat for breakfast or all these different things you know sometimes times they think that the way we do things is weird but nobody’s weird it’s just different and I think that my kids carry that with them when their interactions with
People um from different cultures or just different backgrounds that there’s no such thing as weird it’s just different so profound and uh beautiful that’s the statements I love it so let’s move on then uh Julie what advice would you give to a family considering traveling full-time in an RV with kids I
Would say go for it there’s we are all so busy and there’s so little boundary between personal life and work life and home life and everything that has to happen and with the technology infusion and everything else taking over it seems almost unfathomable that you could
Create space or that it would be the right time it has to be you we have to make it the right time and and then the the trip can happen and like we’ve said and we said throughout the book it doesn’t have to be a year it might be a week to start
But to to have that chance of of of travel as a family it’s it is well worth the effort and the tradeoffs and I would just encourage people to find a way to do it in whatever space that you have available to do it excellent advice all right then
Angela bring us home here now that you’re settled in after your adventures what is the biggest way your Wonder year shaped your family or perspective well I think what the wonder you’re really highlighted for us is how important it is to be open and curious I feel like our family uses that
Word curious a lot because it’s sort of the Pinnacle word that leads to other things it’s kind of what Annie was talking about like being curious leads you to be compassionate and empathetic and caring and inquisitive and it helps you connect with people so just think that that has become such
A central theme in the lives of the four of us so that’s playing out in different ways it’s playing out in what both of my children have studied at school and what they want to do and their perspective on travel and where they want to spend
Their time and the lives they hope to build and even in what my husband and I are now planning to do in in our futures as we embark on years where the kids are out of the nest so I think travel and curiosity are intimately linked and if
You are curious about people and what drives them what they care about how they connect and what their cultures offer them and can offer others it makes for a much more textured interesting life for you too excellent I love that again very beautiful there’s so many things that people can learn from just
Listening to other Travelers and that’s kind of why this podcast exists in the first place give people that opportunity to hear this you’re on the fence out there looking to go into this you’re hearing from family or friends that it’s a little crazy you’re hearing that the
Crazy folks they make it work we’re not all crazy but we’re also not normal but that’s not a bad thing either we like to say that too there’s a community waiting for you if you’re thinking about doing doing this and living this way there’s a community of
People waiting to fold you in that’s and you might find that that Community back home once you start doing this they they fall in line with this as well I’ve met so many families who travel and their friends have come and met them in certain places or their their family has
Come as also as as well and so people come along and your family and your friends they they they they will support you on your journey if they’re meant to be in your life for for that long period of time so so again thank you lady thank
You you again it’s a great book I definitely recommend it for those out there the Wonder year this is really a journey to an a testament to the power of stepping out of your comfort zone and embracing the world uh as your classroom as your home um we hope the these
Stories really these insights have inspired you and they’ve sparked your curiosity or perhaps even nudged you closer to your own adventure as I like to say life is a journey it’s not a destination so everybody keep exploring stay curious and never stop learning so until next time everybody
Thank you very much safe travels and ladies again thank you so much for being here it’s wonderful to have you on the episode so thank you David thank you so much care everybody thank you byebye Bye I I just to see something bigger me I just want to travel the world