We park in the lot and walk a few hundred feet to where campsites are nestled in the hillside or tucked under trees. We claim a flat site in the shade of a statuesque cottonwood, leave a couple of camp chairs, then head back out to get on our bikes. We never make it. Johnny is sucked into a vortex of youth—five kids ages six to fifteen are sitting at a picnic table, busily unwinding utility 550-gauge paracord in colors like hot pink, Day-Glo yellow, lime green, purple, and black. They are making DIY survival bracelets. Johnny slides right into the circle, and they show him how to measure the length, loop the paracord, and knot it to create a bracelet. The kids demonstrate how to fasten the finished bracelet and burn the ends to prevent fraying. Johnny picks his colors and gets to work with ten eyes and fifty fingers showing him the way.

This impromptu pod of traveling kiddos sits together for over an hour. Their finished bracelets, knotted with six feet of paracord, would be long enough when uncoiled to tie up a tarp, fix a snowshoe, hang a bag of food, make a sling, or lash some branches. One bracelet would be strong enough to hold 550 pounds of static weight.

On the way out of town, we stop at Walkers Hardware to pick up several yards of paracord. Johnny is over the moon for having made new friends and acquiring a new survival skill, and handsome Max gets a new orange-and-yellow survival dog collar!

For more stories and inspiration, check out our book, Wonder Year: A Guide to Long-Term Family Travel and Worldschooling. You can also sign up for our quarterly newsletter below and follow us on Instagram @wonderyeartravel. Our mission is to help you find your way out the door and into the world.

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It is our last day at Pousada Uacari. Situated at a tight bend in the Japurá River, a wide feeder to the Amazon about a mile away, it is a place so remote that its location was described to us simply as “two hours by boat from Tefé.” Our small room, at the end of a narrow wooden walkway, floats atop the river on enormous Styrofoam pontoons. It contains four single beds and a small bathroom with a shower that pumps recycled river water from a rooftop tank. Our countless roommates—roaches, spiders, and lizards—make us grateful for the bed nets that Mark tucks around the boys and me each night before crawling under his own.

The day before, Asher had speared a river piranha, and we ate it sushi-style for lunch. We’d ventured out in a narrow aluminum canoe for an evening paddle surrounded by giant caiman watching us from the water, all eyeballs and teeth. I’d been sucker-punched in the face by an airborne fish attracted by our boat’s headlight in the pitch black. Gathering on the floating dock back at the lodge, we had stayed up late to view a total lunar eclipse, munching popcorn like we were watching Earth’s biggest blockbuster movie. We would have liked to sit at the edge of the dock and cool our feet in the water, but we didn’t dare. We are fine to take nothing home with us. Even touching anything is risky business.

Our trackers meet us early this morning for a hike across a peninsula lying between the main river channel and an intersecting tributary. They are three local tribe members whose family roots run deep into the basin. Carrying blue jugs of water and red backpacks with white crosses, they have machetes hanging at their sides. We all do our best to bridge Portuguese and English, and with earnest intent, hand gestures, and lots of smiles on both sides, are able to communicate fine.

Our hike is an hour away by canoe. Ronan spends the journey deciphering birdsong and monkey howls. Storm clouds gather above the forest canopy, bathing the jungle in a grayish-yellow light as we slide our boat onto the bank. Disembarking into shin-deep mud, it’s clear that the land has spent most of its year underwater. Leaves with no crunch cover dank earth dotted with stagnant pools of water. There are thickets of thorny shrubs and beautiful orchids perched in the crooks of spreading branches.

There are no trails, and I hang a few paces back, watching my boys bushwhack their way through the dense vegetation. Everyone but Asher and our lead tracker, João, who are the same height, have to bend forward as we walk. The river fades from sight, but we can still sense the low hum of its flow as we trek to an enormous kapok tree taking center stage in the marshy glade. Its roots stand taller than all of us, and vines drape around its trunk, creating eerie spaces to walk through. Ronan spots a line of giant ants carrying larvae from one home to another. A guide shows Asher the tracks of a large jungle cat. Captivating creatures abound, but we’re in search of one in particular: the elusive sloth. Travelers from around the world come here to spot them, and we haven’t seen one all week. The boys are especially excited by the possibility of finding this exotic, smiley soul.

It’s Ronan who spots one first. Tapping João on the shoulder for confirmation, he points to his own eyes, then holds up two curled fingers. It is a mother two-toed sloth with a baby wrapped tightly around her back. After that, sloth “hide-and-seek” comes more quickly, and we soon locate several, so well camouflaged that they blend into the mass of leaves above. Our guides eye a three-toed male slowly returning to the heights of a giant fig tree. Sloths live in the trees and come down only once each week to poop in an ever-growing pile on the ground. Now, on his unhurried return climb, he is so close above our heads that we can see the gnats buzzing around his exposed face.

One of our guides points to his watch—time to go. We hack a new path through the jungle to the boat, where our gear is already loaded for the long trip back to Tefé. At the port, we heave our bags to the taxi driver on the other side of the gangplank and pile into his small car. Inside the tinted windows with the air-conditioning on max, the heat is staved off, but the smell is thick, ripe, and overwhelming—something like rotten fruit.

After we’ve been dropped off at the airport and are waiting in line, I notice Asher holding his nose. “That taxi smelled pretty awful, didn’t it?” I ask. He squeezes his nose tighter, shakes his head, and with his other hand, points at Mark.

Our heads lower to Mark’s “mud”-coated hiking boots. He was the one who had stood directly under the sloth. “Dad, you took something out of the jungle…” Asher says, with a grin spreading across his face.

For more stories and inspiration, check out our book, Wonder Year: A Guide to Long-Term Family Travel and Worldschooling. You can also sign up for our quarterly newsletter below and follow us on Instagram @wonderyeartravel. Our mission is to help you find your way out the door and into the world.

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“I see it!” says Lucy, pointing to a doorway cemented into the hillside.

“Finally!” says Kai.

Passing the threshold into the cave takes us from arid to humid, from hot to cold, from light to dark, from the profane to the sacred. We have arrived at Zeus’s cave, on Naxos in the Greek Cyclades.

The cave is more than fifty feet high and at least double that in width. Some stories say that he was born here, others that he hid here during his teenage years from a jealous father, and a man in the village even told us that Zeus received his thunderbolt from an eagle on top of this mountain.

We are silent, walking the smoothed pathways that Zeus walked, breathing the air of his boyish fragility or his teenage angst. He is embodied. Behind the teal and green moss, drip-drops of moisture echo across a dark cavern. The light beam from my phone cannot take in the size of this place; I have to imagine the extent of its reach.

We have been studying the Greek gods, their powers, symbols, and interrelational dramas. We’ve read classic myths, written our own original myths using Olympian characters, and visited the many temples during our monthlong stay in Greece.

Our landlord told us about the cave—turn left at the potato patch and take the right fork at the white square house—giving directions that describe every intersection on the island. Getting here has been an epic quest requiring intuition, clues, research, and asking as many locals as possible.

For a nine- and ten-year-old, the myth and magic are real. “He must have been super tall, even as a kid. Where did he put his head when he slept?”“Did someone bring him blankets?”

For my thirteen-year-old, the isolation fuels empathy. “Who did he have to talk to?”

We try to orient where he would have cooked and ate. We take in his view when he stepped outside of his cave—to his left, the tallest mountaintop in the Cyclades, currently named Mount Zeus, at 3,300 feet, and to his right, a valley that tumbles into the island-dotted sea below. He could have seen visitors a long way off.

This cave kept our Zeus safe, timestamped his childhood, and prepared him for his extraordinary life ahead.

For more stories and inspiration, check out our book, Wonder Year: A Guide to Long-Term Family Travel and Worldschooling. You can also sign up for our quarterly newsletter below and follow us on Instagram @wonderyeartravel. Our mission is to help you find your way out the door and into the world.

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At this hour, and without moisture to cloud the stars, we have no trouble seeing the universe spread above our heads. The boys remark on the profound quiet. There are no planes flying over, no road noise bouncing across the barren plains—only the distant sounds of jackals announcing a kill echoing across the vlei.

Ronan is psyched when he sees the safari truck, a repurposed Toyota Hilux with a mounted bed insert to accommodate nine passengers in open-air theater seating. We sit four across. Our guide hands us a worn woolen blanket, perfect for one but insufficient to shield us all against the bracing predawn wind. We rearrange and put the boys in the middle so they get the most warmth.

The road is like those we drove on yesterday to reach our outpost: gravel and dirt. Ninety percent of Namibia’s roads are unpaved, and although great effort is made to keep them in good condition, sections still make for a rough traverse. The temperature drops further as we near the entrance to the national park, where a wall of cool fog fills the valley. From the Sesriem entrance gate, our eventual destination is the Deadvlei claypan.

Along the way, we see mountain zebra, oryx, and ostrich, and we learn that there are five types of sand dunes. Those in Namib-Naukluft are star dunes, which means they have been formed by winds coming from multiple directions over the past several million years.

At Big Daddy, an over one-thousand-foot-high dune overlooking Deadvlei, we stop and venture out to climb one of those star dune’s rays. The dune is massive, and the line of hikers stomping up the ridgeline ahead of us nearly disappears in the haze between sand and sky. Ronan bounds out of the truck and starts the heel-toe-heel-toe trek along the narrow channel laid down by hikers across the years. Mark, Asher, and I fall in behind.

The air is warming quickly, and our elongated shadows stretch down the dune’s side. There are no climbers passing us on a return journey, and our guide explains that’s not the way out.

Instead, we turn perpendicular to the trail and launch down the southern face of Big Daddy toward the cracked white claypan below. High-stepping in the soft red sand, Asher calls out that he feels like an astronaut on Mars. He grips Mark’s hand as they serpentine to provide some semblance of control over gravity.

At the base of the dune is Deadvlei, famous for its austere beauty. About six hundred years ago, ephemeral waters that flowed into the marsh during the rainy season stopped when the river cut a new course. The acacia trees that had filled this basin died, and because there isn’t enough water to rot the wood, they still stand—blackened by the unforgiving sun. The combination of deep-ocher sand, pale-gray pan, inky acacia skeletons, and the brilliant azure sky make the vlei otherworldly. Astronauts, indeed.

Ronan directs a family photo shoot, and we capture a rare image of all of us together, frozen in time within our frozen surroundings. Even in the now-scorching heat, we want to linger, but our safari mates are ready to go, and our guide aims to secure a prime spot beneath the cooling branches of a tree for brunch. We marvel with our fellow hikers over coffee, fruit, and bread.

Our final stop is a nearby canyon. While the rest of our group climbs down into the gap, the boys elect to stay closer to the truck, weary. After many weeks on the road and the long drive the previous day, we feel stretched thin, diluted.

Back at the outpost, we have dinner in a common room lit only by candles. Asher eats kudu, an ungulate he’s seen grazing among the dunes. Our tent cabin has an upper deck, and we go up for stargazing before returning “down-ladder” to sleep. In the US, it is hard to find places far enough away from artificial light to really see the stars. In Namibia, the closest light is hundreds of miles away. Our eyes adjust easily to the darkness, and the universe takes center stage.

We are totally alone, together, lying on our backs as the stars come into focus. We don’t need to, but we whisper softly to one another. The boys point out satellites and meteors, and we try to identify the constellations, many of which are different from what we know at home. At twenty-four degrees south latitude, the universe is unfamiliar.

For more stories and inspiration, check out our book, Wonder Year: A Guide to Long-Term Family Travel and Worldschooling. You can also sign up for our quarterly newsletter below and follow us on Instagram @wonderyeartravel. Our mission is to help you find your way out the door and into the world.

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We drink a bunch of water and share crunchy peanut butter Clif Bars, pose for a selfie at the Weminuche Wilderness sign, and then hike three miles in and twelve hundred feet up to the base of Vestal Peak. We camp in a ponderosa pine forest that smells like vanilla and offers shelter from the afternoon monsoons. A mama moose stares at us from across the emerald-green beaver pond.

On the third day of our adventure, Kaitilin and I wake up early to go for a short run. It is freezing at 6:30 a.m., and instead of walking to warm up, we start running from the get-go. Fifty feet into the single-track trail, I stumble on a jagged ledge and fall hard, instantly feeling the sting of bone on rock.

Kaitilin helps me back to camp. She and David wrap me in their sleeping bags and wake the kids. They eat maple-brown-sugar oatmeal and huddle with David while Kaitilin makes a sling out of a bandanna and holds my pasty hand. Johnny, West, and Zoe (all under ten) are like little chipmunks, scurrying about and whispering to each other as they stuff sleeping bags back into their sacks, roll up the tent flies, collapse the poles, and count each stake they pull from the ground. They redistribute my gear to everyone else and hand me an empty pack, along with a mug of hot chocolate with extra mini marshmallows. They tell me it’s going to be okay. I tell them the same.

We hike back down to Elk Park, board the train, and freak out the other passengers with my bloodied pants and splinted arm. In Silverton, at the end of the line, we meet up with Charlie, who transports me immediately to the Durango hospital. I have emergency surgery for a compound fracture of the right elbow and get a bunch of stitches in my hip. Johnny has since declared he wants to study emergency medicine and be a mountain guide. West and Zoe still love the wilderness.

For more stories and inspiration, check out our book, Wonder Year: A Guide to Long-Term Family Travel and Worldschooling. You can also sign up for our quarterly newsletter below and follow us on Instagram @wonderyeartravel. Our mission is to help you find your way out the door and into the world.

The post Stories from the Road – Weminuche Wilderness, Durango, Colorado appeared first on Wonder Year Travel.

We use the sun (and shade), the tides, and US National Park Service Junior Ranger activities to structure our time, and we find a worldschool rhythm that is perfectly informed by wherever we are—boating through gnarly, rooted forests of coastal mangroves; trying out underwater photography at John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park in search of sea fans, brain coral, urchins, anemones, and schools of scaly rainbow parrotfish. We learn about hurricanes, climate change, and invasive species.

We decorate each of our campsites with conchs, cockles, seaweed, driftwood, and the occasional piece of turquoise sea glass or fried egg jellyfishes, which look like eyeballs. We smile a lot, get really tan, and my curly hair becomes curlier every day.

About halfway down the keys on the “Highway That Goes to Sea,” we come to Long Key State Park and score another fantastic walk-in campsite right by the water. That evening after dinner, we sit by the water, toes dipping in, hands whooshing across the fine white sand, when I feel a sting, then another, and another. I jump up and try to brush off whatever is biting, but I can’t see ’em! I shake wildly as my eyes puff up and everything itches. I get in the tent and I still feel ’em. Johnny boy saves the day—he grabs a headlamp, hops on his bike, and races to the rig for the first aid kit. No surprise: I need a double dose of Benadryl. The next day, we carry on, appreciating that the tiniest Florida pests—those ever-present no-seeums—have a bite way bigger than their imperceptible bark!

For more stories and inspiration, check out our book, Wonder Year: A Guide to Long-Term Family Travel and Worldschooling. You can also sign up for our quarterly newsletter below and follow us on Instagram @wonderyeartravel. Our mission is to help you find your way out the door and into the world.

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Three weeks after I turned nine, my parents and I take a four-day river trip on the wild and scenic stretch of the Rogue River, in southwest Oregon. Wild and scenic rivers are free-flowing (have no dams) and protected for their remarkable scenic value. There was a wildfire in the Kalmiopsis Wilderness, which had been burning for several weeks. We’ll have to paddle through the fire zone on the first day. A number of trips have already been canceled due to the wildfire, and we have to figure out if we are going or not.

The trip organizers and guests make the decision to go, but on the condition we have a very long first day, about eighteen miles to travel, so we can get through the whole burn area and camp in a safe bank of the river.

Everyone is quiet when we put in early the first morning. I think we’re all a little nervous. The river water smells fresh and piney, but the air is warm and smells like ash. We see smoldering logs and debris on the riverbanks. Luckily, it starts to rain midmorning; we can hear the crackling logs, hissing soil, and raindrops tapping on the water. It feels primal, like it could have been the 1800s.

We get to our camping spot on the bank by late afternoon. Phil and Mary, the guides, instruct us to have everything well organized and packed so that if there is a flare-up, we can depart downriver quickly. That evening, the sun looks hot pink through the thick smoke, and the air is still.

This is an odd start to the trip for sure, but I’ve learned you have to push through your fear sometimes, and once you are immersed in the adventure, it will be amazing. And it is. The next morning, I get my kayak roll working really well, smoothly flipping my capsized boat back up using a paddle sweep across the water and a strong hip snap.

The kayak roll is a necessary whitewater skill so you don’t have to “wet exit” and risk losing your boat or paddle, slowing the group down, or ending up in sketchy water. Phil tells me I’m ready to paddle in my own boat, and I paddle all the class III rapids on the Rogue River that day and the next. Pretty big water for me!

I help make crepes for dinner, get my toenails painted (a good river-rat practice), and hang out with the hilarious crew. I dunk in the cool water in the evenings and see sturgeons and other fish. I even see a juvenile black bear on the third day.

Paddling on a river during a wildfire is like being in a sanctuary. It’s beautiful, and I feel brave.

For more stories and inspiration, check out our book, Wonder Year: A Guide to Long-Term Family Travel and Worldschooling. You can also sign up for our quarterly newsletter below and follow us on Instagram @wonderyeartravel. Our mission is to help you find your way out the door and into the world.

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I rise quickly from my bed, as I always do, sleep never making me groggy in the morning. The morning sun shoots through the blinds in the room I share with Ronan, making parts of my skin feel hotter. It’s my tenth birthday, and I’m celebrating it in Sydney, Australia.

I join my dad on the balcony, ten stories above a busy street filled with the sounds of stores opening for the day and the commotion of morning rush hour. Even though it’s the middle of the Australian summer, we aren’t hot because a brisk wind comes through every few minutes. We sit outside, making guesses about what people are doing and whether they are late to work.

Our tradition is that the birthday kid gets to decide how our family spends the day. I want to go to a local animal-rescue center filled with dozens of beautiful species endemic to Australia. First, we go to a brunch place a few blocks away from our hotel. Inside, it feels like we are back home: loud voices, cool air, the hustle and bustle of coffee makers and people trying to get their food. Everything we could ever want is on the menu: pancakes, waffles, eggs, pastries, fruits, and butter—lots of butter.

After our bellies are full, we start the long drive to the rescue center.

When we arrive, the sheer difference of the area truly hits us. The temperature has risen another fifteen degrees, the wind is gone, dust is thick in the air, and we can feel the lack of sunscreen on our bodies. Scattered eucalyptus along the ridge frame our view of the outback. We move over to the shade of a small tent that has been set up for visitors and apply sunscreen, consume large portions of our water bottles, and shed some extra clothes. I can’t wait to get going. We are so close to some animals you can’t see anywhere else.

We start off with the wallabies, smaller kangaroo-like creatures that are generally nocturnal. We get to feed them from small cups filled with their food. There are two of the cutest owls I’ve ever seen. They look like furry heads with feet. We enter the koala enclosure to have them climb onto our laps, a total thrill we’d never get back home.

Australia is known for all of the animals that can kill you. Along our path, we see some of the most venomous snakes and spiders in the world. But the scariest thing we see that day isn’t the crocodiles, and it isn’t the Tasmanian devil (which can run faster than a bike can go). It is the cassowary, an emu-like bird that stands on two long hind legs and is flightless. It looks like a dinosaur and has super-sharp claws.

When you look up cassowary on the internet, the first thing that pops up is “cassowary attack.” That makes sense. Every spot we’d hiked in Australia had signs with stick-bird drawings and red and black text telling us how dangerous cassowaries are and to keep our distance.

Our final stop is the kangaroos. It is so weird to be seeing an animal for the first time that you’ve always seen in picture books. A tiny joey pokes his head out of his mother’s pouch and looks us straight in the eyes.

Tired from the heat, Ronan and I take naps on the drive back to our rented condo in Sydney so we can feel rejuvenated for my birthday night. Back at our room, I request cheeseburgers for my birthday dinner. Mom treks a few blocks to a local grocery store for the ingredients while I make my birthday calls home to family. I talk to my mom’s side of the family in Ohio and my dad’s side in Missouri.

My mom returns and cooks the burgers and serves them up on plates with tater tots she’s baked in the oven. We top off the meal with a giant container of Neapolitan ice cream, and I am allowed to eat some directly from the carton. But first, we put candles on top and sing “Happy Birthday,” just like at home. 

For more stories and inspiration, check out our book, Wonder Year: A Guide to Long-Term Family Travel and Worldschooling. You can also sign up for our quarterly newsletter below and follow us on Instagram @wonderyeartravel. Our mission is to help you find your way out the door and into the world.

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I rub sleep out of my eyes and relinquish the covers that I’d been fighting my brother for all night. The muffled buzz of insects pauses periodically as I splash my face with warm water. My mom and I had decided on an early-morning excursion—rare for us night owls—to round out the afternoon boat and evening jeep safaris of the days before. The sun is low, and the breeze blows enough to ease us into a day that’s going to be extremely warm. Although wildlife is out and birds are chirping, there is a mesmerizing stillness to the world. The sky is chalky gray, one of the rare occasions during our time in often-sunny Botswana. A few minutes into our game drive, it begins to sprinkle rain, pattering against the canvas top of the vehicle.

The first hour remains drizzly and quiet. We see a few boar, tails raised in alarm as something approaches behind their den. A litter of Cape foxes plays with their mom in the dirt, just like puppies back home. A baby elephant with half a trunk crosses with its herd in front of us, and I wonder how the injury will affect its life.

Our driver comes to a sudden halt and bobs her head toward the right side of the jeep. There stands an impala, alone and shaking. Normally, game trucks will send impalas—who are prey for many animals—leaping quickly away. This one doesn’t budge. She is immune to our presence, fully occupied with something far more important. As we look closer, I can see two tiny hooves hanging out from under her tail. I’m usually kind of squeamish, but I can’t look away over the next hour as the hooves turn into legs and then a body and then finally a tiny impala face. The newborn lays shivering slightly as the mother cleans it, then slowly raises its head. My mom and I watch as it stands, wobbling. It takes three comical, knee-knocking attempts to get to its feet. Its first steps are in search of its mother’s milk, and I’m struck by how it knows where to find the meal.

Our guide is kind and patient with us, happy to stay as long as we want to watch, but mostly stares into the middle distance during the birth. I realize she’s likely been witness to something like this many times before.

For more stories and inspiration, check out our book, Wonder Year: A Guide to Long-Term Family Travel and Worldschooling. You can also sign up for our quarterly newsletter below and follow us on Instagram @wonderyeartravel. Our mission is to help you find your way out the door and into the world.

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Before him is a gathering of friends: some old friends have come from Colorado for a spring break meetup, some new ones from his language and surf day camp. And us, his now ever-present family.

On a piece of plywood, Kai has reconstructed a traditional Sherpa home from pebbles, glue, modeling clay, scrap wood salvaged from a nearby construction project, and paint. Before we left the US, I had asked his teacher for the project handout and carried it with me during our travel. We found a stationery store for supplies, and Kai handwrote a report on a two-sided piece of binder paper and is now presenting to the informal audience of twenty or so. He speaks with authority and fields questions about the outhouse, the guard dogs, and the reason for the green roof.

His spring-break friend, Leo, had just presented his own project back home on the teepee, and after Kai’s presentation, shares other shelter reports from their class with Kai. The boys compare notes, speak about the pros and cons of different materials, look at the homes around them, and both agree that the Costa Rican straw palapas (dwellings with thatched roofs) and porches are best.

For more stories and inspiration, check out our book, Wonder Year: A Guide to Long-Term Family Travel and Worldschooling. You can also sign up for our quarterly newsletter below and follow us on Instagram @wonderyeartravel. Our mission is to help you find your way out the door and into the world.

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