With its dense evergreen forests, 41 national parks, and over 180,000 lakes, Finland is a destination inspiration for nature-lovers. It also has intriguing, walkable cities that are lovely year-round and really come alive in the summertime. With so much for your family to explore in Finland, it may be difficult to figure out where to go, what to do, and how to start planning a trip. In this blog, we share information about a family road trip across four regions of Finland. We also offer travel tips, places to visit, and worldschooling ideas to help you discover Finland on a journey that works for your family.

Finland Tourism

Finland is a country of 5.5 million residents located by the Baltic Sea in northern Europe. Often recognized as “the happiest country in the world,” it is known for its excellent education system and healthy outdoor lifestyle. It is also a popular travel destination attracting an increasing number of families, solo travelers, students, and digital nomads. 

Currently Finland is a less frequented destination for US-based travelers than the rest of Scandinavia and mainland EU. Among the Nordic countries, Finland still has the fewest visitors. Most come from Germany, followed by the UK, Sweden, and Estonia. Interestingly, despite the cold temperatures, visitors in wintertime tend to stay longer and spend more money per day on average than summer travelers because they book more tours and package trips. Much of Finland’s tourism is from the Finns themselves, who have increasingly chosen to travel domestically in recent years. According to Good News Finland, nearly ⅔ of Finns have regular use of a second home, either their own (58%!) or someone else’s. The rest of us might take note of how eager Finns are to spend time in their own backyard.

Midsummer flora

So might Finland be the new Iceland, a destination whose tourism has exploded over the last decade? That remains to be seen. According to a recent study by the Helsinki Tourism Foundation, Helsinki is lagging behind its regional compatriots such as Copenhagen and Oslo in terms of post-COVID tourism recovery and growth. Prior to the COVID pandemic, tourism accounted for about 2.7% of Finland’s GDP. After dropping to 1.4%, its rebound has been a bit slower than in other countries, but projections are that tourism will exceed 25 billion euros in 2025. In fact, airlines have recently been adding new flights and connections to Finnish cities after recording over half a million foreign visits to Finland in December 2023 alone. 

When we visited Finland, it felt uncrowded, welcoming, and easy to navigate. Combined with its stunning landscapes, intriguing cultural destinations, and excellent infrastructure, now seems like a great time to visit before word gets all the way out.

Why We Chose to Visit Finland

As our kids get older, trips together are becoming less frequent and therefore all the more special. Finland was a unanimous choice for this journey, offering something for everyone–city nightlife, outdoor recreation, delicious food, and a relaxed vibe. Given our July timing, we also wanted to head for the outer latitudes in hopes of finding milder summer weather–in July, average temps in Finland range from 59-68°F, offering ideal conditions for outdoor adventures.

Late in our planning game, some friends decided to join us on the trip. We’ve traveled with them before and know we groove well together–they loved the road trip we’d scoped out, and only minor adjustments were needed so we could stay together at each accommodation. Our kids were definitely excited they’d have peers along. We traveled to Finland with older teens, but almost everything we experienced would be suitable and fun for younger kids, too. 

Boat sheds near Tampere

Planning a Trip to Finland

Finland offers four distinct regions, from Helsinki in the south, Lakeland in the east, the Coast and Archipelago in the west/southwest, and Lapland in the north. Deciding where to go is linked to when you plan to visit and what you’d like to do. Winters are excellent everywhere for skiing, skating, and ice-swimming, and of course the season lasts longer in the north. Lapland is also known for its vast arctic wilderness and Santa Claus attractions. Spring and fall are best for catching the Northern Lights, and your chances increase as you head farther north. Fall is outstanding for foliage colors across Finland’s dense forests. Summer is known for extremely long days, cottage stays, abundant crops, water sports, and hiking, and the archipelago coast and lake regions are idyllic during this time. Finland’s larger cities have interesting things to do year-round, and of course, no matter when you go, sauna is always in season. 

Most international visitors arrive in Helsinki, the capital city. Other major international airports in Finland include Turku, Rovaniemi, and Kittilä. Direct flights from the US can be difficult to find except from a few major east-coast cities, so travelers often need to connect via EU hubs such as Stockholm, London, or Frankfurt. Visitors can also arrive by boat from Sweden, Germany, Poland, and the Baltics, but the only options for arriving by car are via the Baltics ferries or by crossing from Sweden or Norway in the far north.

Booking.com–our favorite booking site–works well for Finnish city and lodge accommodations. For smaller venues, we needed to take a local angle and translate Finnish websites into English to find the best options. Speaking of the Finnish language, it’s not an easy one to catch onto quickly, but learning a few basics in advance is definitely helpful. Many but not all locals speak English, and everyone we met appreciated our attempts to converse. As usual, thank you goes a long way: “thank you” in Finnish is kiitos (KEE-tose), one of our favorite versions of gratitude ever! You basically sound like fellow Scandinavian Bjork whenever you say it properly.

A Sample Road Trip through Central and Southern Finland

Driving in Finland

One of our goals for this trip was to fly to a country and not fly again until returning home. We hoped for a meandering, low-key road trip where we could make spur-of-the-moment stops in small towns and at UNESCO World Heritage sites. Picking up our rental car from DiscoverCars as we departed downtown Helsinki was quick and convenient, and driving in the city was fairly straightforward. It became downright easy in the countryside, where good road conditions, clear signage, and sparse traffic made for low-stress days. Fuel was expensive, but the rental car companies offer primarily hybrid options as the default. Here’s our route as a reference, which we built for a max of 4-5 hour drive times between major stops.

Our driving route through southern Finland

For those who prefer not to rent a car but still want to go further afield, the extensive and reliable Finnish train and bus systems can help you reach most destinations. Check out the Perille service for transportation options, costs, and estimated environmental impact. 

First Stop – Landing in Helsinki

As our flight destination city, Helsinki was a natural first stop. Other travelers may prefer to venture further on immediately, saving the departure city exploration for the end of their trip. But we’d had long journeys from Colorado and California and anticipated needing to rest and settle in.

Filled with parks, eclectic restaurants, picturesque ports, quirky museums, and public saunas, Helsinki was recently voted the most livable city in Europe for expats. We spent our time wandering its streets, checking out the architecture, visiting government buildings, and eating fantastic international food (Georgian at Rioni was a favorite). A stroll along the shaded paths of the Kaisaniemi Botanical Gardens provided a nice afternoon respite after checking out the Helsinki Art Museum, and everyone enjoyed the parks filled with summer crowds until late in the evening. Beyond the city we explored the island fortress of Suomenlinna and crossed the Gulf of Finland to visit Tallinn, Estonia–both full-day trips we found worth our time.

Museum on the island fortress of Suomenlinna

Helsinki was the only stop where we stayed at a traditional hotel. Given our need for two rooms (tall teenagers can no longer comfortably share a bed), Hotel U14 offered nicely designed family room combos–two hotel rooms connected by a small hallway with an additional, outer locked door, so we could feel both separate and together. We also wanted access to a front desk for late-night check-in, plus breakfast available on site as everyone’s schedules reset. Hotel U14 is where we learned about egg butter! My morning toast will never be the same.

Helsinki worldschooling ideas:

• Suomenlinna. This island fortress and UNESCO site has a fascinating history that includes Swedish, Russian, and Finnish eras. Take the passenger ferry to explore its footpaths, historical buildings, and six museums.
• Tallinn, Estonia. Book in advance for the 2.5-hour-each-way ferry (and maybe a napping cabin) to check out old town Tallinn and its fascinating KGB history.
• Seurasaari Open-Air Museum. You can find tours and events at this seasonal outdoor museum showcasing historic Finnish farmsteads, manors, and cottages.

Evening stroll around Olavinlinna Castle

Second Stop – Serene Nature in Lakeland

Ready to immerse ourselves in the much-touted Finnish wilderness, our next destination was Lakeland, northeast of Helsinki. An afternoon stop in the picturesque town of Porvoo along the way was fun for an outdoor lunch, bit of shopping, and a meander along the river famous for its row of red wooden houses. The onward drive dissolved the world into a palette of greens and blues, taking us through rolling countryside surrounded by increasingly dense woodlands and vast stretches of shimmering water as we approached Rantasalmi.

The grounds at Hotel and Spa Järvisydän

We stayed at Hotel and Spa Järvisydän, a unique destination property dating back to 1658. Noted on nearly every Finland travel blog, the property has been run continuously by the same family for 11 generations! Award-winning for its focus on sustainability, it seemed to be filled with Finns. Järvisydän offers many accommodation types, including hotel rooms, cottages, a boat, those Scandinavian igloos you’ve seen all over social media, and even what they call “birds nests.” We opted for its rustic family cabins. On site dining options were fine but not memorable, so it’s worth exploring beyond the property for some meals. Activities are plentiful, though, and include nature trails, bike rentals, cooking and craft classes, tours and fishing excursions. Our visit highlights included boating to Linnansaari National Park on Lake Saimaa and a long evening stroll in nearby Savonlinna. The onsite, family-friendly “spa” experience, which includes over a dozen pools, steam rooms, and saunas, is not as fancy as it sounds and is also not to be missed. We loved it so much we went twice.

Lakeland worldschooling ideas:

• Sauna. Lakeland Finland is one of the best regions to experience authentic Finnish sauna. Why is sauna so important to the country’s cultural history?
• Olavinlinna Castle. This well-preserved 15th century castle sits on a strait connecting two lakes and was the site of numerous battles. 
• Saimaa Ringed Seals. One of the most endangered seals in the world, these ice-lovers can only be spotted on Lake Saimaa.

The spa-ahhhhh….

Third Stop – Farms and Parks in Central Finland

Our stay at Ylä-Tuuhonen Farm in Ruovesi gave us a chance to slow down and enjoy this quieter region. The farm offers verdant pastures, needle-covered hiking trails, a lapiz-colored lake with free canoes, and locally-grown food that was some of the best I’ve ever eaten. We visited during Midsummer, when the country closes down and everyone heads to their summer cottages to relax and celebrate. At the farm those celebrations included singing, flag-raising, and a special-occasion smoke sauna that took hours for the owners to prepare.

This is an excellent region for exploring some of Finland’s outstanding national parks. Basing in Ruovesi or a nearby town offers easy access to Helvetinjärvi National Park, Seitseminen National Park, and Isojärvi National Park. Each showcases canyons, woods, and trails for all skill levels–some on boardwalks hovering over the delicate landscape. In addition to the national parks you’ll find Siikaneva Swamp Nature Reserve, Ryövärinkuoppa Nature Reserve, and Juupajoki Gorge Nature Reserve. You may not need to pack a picnic, either–even the snack shops at the national parks had fantastic, healthy food. There’s simply so much natural “farm to table” here, no special advertising required.

Boardwalks make the hiking a bit easier at Helvetinjärvi National Park

Central Finland worldschooling ideas:

• Petäjävesi Old Church. Built in 1763-65, this ornately carved Nordic wooden church tells stories of everyday Finnish life across four centuries.
• Canyon geology. Use your proximity to Helvetinjärvi National Park to study the rocks that compose its canyons, plus the topography of the surrounding region. 
• Midsummer. Midsummer is Finland’s main national holiday. The central region, dotted with thousands of lakeside cottages, is an excellent spot to read about its history and experience how people celebrate the holiday today.

Traversing the archipelago

Final Stop – Turku Archipelago

A seaside house in Kustavi, near the easternmost point of Finland, was our base in this region. This is where the locals go for a saltwater vacation, a fact we quickly discovered when trying to find a house to rent for two US families. Most properties are listed only on Finnish sites–the owner of ours said we were the only non-Finns he’d ever rented to, and he initially seemed quite apprehensive about it. The cabin he’d built by hand perched unobtrusively on rocks overlooking an inlet of the Baltic Sea and snugly accommodated our two families. Rocky coastline and thick forest–with the occasional moose passerby–surrounded the house, and nearby towns offered fresh food markets, cute cafes, charming marinas, and delicious ice cream shops. Many people visit this region to drive or cycle the Archipelago Trail–check out the loop map to help you decide where to base and visit. 

In truth, we spent much of our time at the house. We grilled on the deck, played card games, basked in the pale nordic sun, and savored our final days together in Finland. A trip highlight was launching our kayaks toward a blurred horizon of pink and orange skies reflected in calm seas for a paddle under the midnight sun.

Kayaking under the midnight sun

Turku archipelago worldschooling ideas:

• Rauma. Another UNESCO site, you can study the history and well-preserved architecture of one of the oldest harbors in Finland. 
• Swedish trade. The archipelago offers a unique vantage point for studying the historical interplay and trade routes between Finland and Sweden.
• Turku Art Museum. Turku is a vibrant university city with abundant cultural offerings. Check out one of the most comprehensive art collections in Finland here, featuring both contemporary and iconic pieces. 

Finland – To Be Continued…We Hope

Of the four main stops on our Finland journey, each of the four people in our family had a different favorite. Nowhere felt touristy, and the few other travelers we met were either Finns or visitors from nearby Russia. And although Finns have a reputation for being reserved, we found them universally kind and helpful, generously welcoming us into their homes and traditions. Our family fell hard for this beautiful country, and we hope to someday visit its mystical north in wintertime. 

If in doubt, just say kiitos!

If you like this post, you might also like destination inspiration for Costa Rica, Yellowstone, The Pantanal, Thailand,  Greece, and Alaska.

The post Destination Inspiration: Finland appeared first on Wonder Year Travel.

Many traveling families already know that the 63 US national parks are packed with educational opportunities. Today, it’s easier than ever to incorporate national parks into your worldschooling curriculum. This blog looks closely at worldschooling in Yellowstone. Much of what is shared is generally applicable to other national parks, so consider this blog a Worldschooling 101: National Parks Edition. 

Please note: this blog is not about where to camp, how to get reservations, how to avoid crowds in Yellowstone in July, or where’s the best place to see wolves. For that, please check out some of the resources and advice we offer at the end. 

Ok, now back to the topic at hand: Worldschooling in Yellowstone. Worldschooling is learning through direct interaction with the world. It is an experience-rich, hands-on approach, informed by wherever you are and colored by the stories of whomever you meet. Worldschooling is 100% guaranteed to ignite curiosity and self-discovery in kids and adults alike. 

Prepping for Your Worldschooling Adventure in Yellowstone National Park 

Introduction to Yellowstone

Set the stage for your educational adventure by reading some books and looking at maps before you arrive. Try to get familiar with the park and its history. Yellowstone is enormous and has many different ecosystems and attractions. A little advance work will pique your interest and illuminate the subjects that most interest your family. The National Park Service has a dedicated website on using the park as a classroom and includes curriculum ideas for unlocking the magic of experiential learning. Check out some of these free instructional resources like exploring tracks and footprints. 

“There is nothing so American as our national parks…” – President Franklin D. Roosevelt

Involving Your Kids

It’s great to involve your kids in planning your Yellowstone itinerary. Get them excited by watching a documentary about the park like this video from National Geographic or this Ken Burns production, The National Parks, America’s Best Idea. Or if you want to splurge, rent this gorgeous film about the National Parks Adventure, narrated by Rober Redford. It’s sure to fill your heart with wonder and majesty as you learn how it is that these special places belong to all of us, forever. 

Maybe start with some basic questions like why is the park is called Yellowstone? What’s the weather forecast for your trip? Maybe there is a question that is top of mind for you and your kids, like what’s the tallest geyser? Involving your kids early will prime the pump and get their buy-in for your family’s Yellowstone adventure. Check out this great blog for more ideas on ways to involve your kids in travel planning. 

Yay Yellowstone!

Yellowstone Visitor Centers 

Another handy way to prepare is to visit at least one of the ten visitor centers around the park. They have excellent resources to help you get oriented, deepen your knowledge, secure permits (e.g., fishing or backcountry camping), and find out about special events. You can also take care of practical matters like using the restroom, filling up water bottles, and getting the lowdown on wildlife sightings. The Albright Visitor Center is open year-round and has free WiFi. Several visitor centers have special collections and resources dedicated to education. There’s also the Museum of the National Park Ranger, housed in an old log cabin built in 1908. The museum is unique to Yellowstone and is staffed by retired rangers. Take your time, study the maps, talk to a ranger, and whatever you do, get your kids set up with Yellowstone Forever, the park’s amazing Junior Ranger Program. 

Yellowstone Worldschooling Themes

With a little background information, you’ll be ready to pick some worldschooling themes to deepen your educational exploration. Here are a few ideas to get you started.

Wildlife of Yellowstone 

Home to the greatest concentration of mammals in the contiguous United States, in Yellowstone you can learn about bison, wolves, elk, moose, pronghorn, and bears, to name a few. There are 300 species of birds and 16 species of fish. Dawn and dusk are the prime viewing times but seasonal variations will determine who you might see. Patience is key, and binoculars are a must. Maybe you’ll be lucky and unlucky and find yourselves stuck in a bison jam with hundreds of bison blocking the roadway! Bison were almost extinct. Today, there are about 3000-6000 bison in the park, a remarkable success story. The animals of Yellowstone are diverse, abundant, and sublime. There are many entry points into this rich topic for littles and big kids, like these wildlife bingo cards.

As worldschooling families, you may have time to deepen your wildlife inquiry. You might study the Yellowstone Bison Conservation Transfer Program (BCTP), which helps Tribal communities restore their bison population. You could take a closer look at wolf restoration in Yellowstone, a fascinating and complicated story layered with history, agriculture, biology, ecosystem health, wildlife management, and the relationship of people and the environment. 

Geothermal Features of Yellowstone

Yellowstone is a hydrothermal wonderland and worldschooling families can easily create a whole curriculum around this topic. With over 10,000 features –  geysers, mudpots, hot springs, and fumaroles (steam vents) – you can visit a wide variety throughout the park. This resource provides a good overview of what all that steam is! Maybe your kids can make a cool video comparing the different features, or interview guests to see how much they know about what’s going on underground. Why is there a funny smell? What makes the geysers erupt? If you are lucky enough to get to the Grand Prismatic Spring, plan ahead and take paper and crayons or something to draw with. The colors are extraordinary and it may be fun to sketch. 

The iconic Grand Prismatic Spring

While it may be tempting to want to dip your toes, drop objects in, or get really close to the thermal features, it’s absolutely critical to understand and follow all safety precautions. Most importantly, visitors must stay on the boardwalks and trails and not touch thermal features or runoff. Swimming is strictly prohibited and pets are not allowed in thermal areas. 

There is one area where you can swim in a cold river, then chillax in the warm eddies – the Firehold Swim area. It is fun to dip in this river, but definitely check the status and regulations before heading there because they are subject to change. Here’s more information about it. 

Indigenous Peoples and Yellowstone 

Another topic that may inform your Yellowstone worldschooling adventure is the history and traditions of Native Americans in the area. Thousands of years before there was a national park in this location, there were Indigenous people who hunted, gathered plants, fished, and had customary, spiritual, and medicinal uses of the waters. Today, twenty-six Tribes have some claim and cultural connection with the area of Yellowstone. This Smithsonian Magazine article provides a good overview of some of the archaeology and prehistory of the park. To go even deeper, you can check out this book by University of Montana archeology professor, Douglas MacDonald and learn about the trade in obsidian, one of the strongest tool stones in the world. Your worldschooling journey may lead you to the X-ray technology that is being used in the field and helping explain why this obsidian was so important to Indigenous people.  

The bison in Yellowstone roam freely throughout the park.

Water and Yellowstone

Water water everywhere! According to the National Park Service, “Yellowstone contains some of the most significant, near-pristine aquatic ecosystems found in the United States.” It’s an understatement to say the waters of Yellowstone are a critical resource. Water is the underground pulse of all of the geyser and hot spring activity. It provides livelihood for the wildlife, farmers, ranchers, recreationists, and Indigenous people in the region. There are 150 named lakes, 258 named streams, and hundreds of waterfalls. Perhaps you could pick one water body and learn about the aquatic organism that live there. Maybe you could go fishing and use the opportunity to learn about native fish species like Yellowstone Cutthroat Trout and Artic Grayling. What mammals depend on the shallow surface water habitat found in Yellowstone?  Check out this excellent short video on the Waters of Yellowstone or this website with excellent information about fish ecology. 

Maybe you are interested in pollution and water quality. Talk with the rangers to find out if there’s an opportunity to participate in volunteer water quality monitoring work. Maybe you could spend a day in the field as citizen scientists, collecting water samples that help measure the effect of historic mining activity in the area. Or maybe you are interested in how climate change is affecting water resources in the  Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. What can you learn about changes in temperature, precipitation and snowpack? 

There’s so much to drink up about water in Yellowstone, you could create an entire worldschooling curriculum that gives you an entry way into not only into science, but also math, history, social studies, and recreation management. 

Cascading waterfalls on the mighty Yellowstone River helped carve the “Grand Canyon of Yellowstone.”

Policy and Public Land Management

Yet another theme may be policy and public land management. The National Park Service was created on August 25, 1916. Today there are more than 400 national parks, 560 national wildlife refuges, and nearly 250 million acres of other public lands. Maybe you are curious about what makes something a public land?  Or maybe your crew is interested in knowing more about how a national park is designated or named, how wildfires are managed, or who runs the concessions. Why are national parks considered the crown jewels? 

This summer is going to be especially fun to explore some of these questions, as the National Park Service is celebrating its birthday on August 25. Everyone is invited to share how they feel connected to parks at #YourParkStory or #NPSbirthday. Check out the park service social channels for information about celebrations, educational events, and other ways to engage. 

There are so many rich educational opportunities and worldschooling themes at Yellowstone National Park. As you start peeling back the layers and asking questions, you’ll uncover even more stories, more questions, and more shared educational adventures for your family. 

Resources

Here’s a list of some additional educational resources to help ignite your curiosity and wonder and to help instill in your children a deep sense of responsibility for our beloved national parks:

• Junior Ranger – Self-guided educational journey for kids four and older. Booklet + ranger badge upon completion.
• Young Scientist – Self-guided science exploration in visitor centers and in the field. Booklet + badge upon completion.
• Yellowstone Sound Library – Collection of sounds for visitors to experience the aural landscape of the park.
• Yellowstone Video Library – An extraordinary collection of video clips second only to being out in it. 
• Citizen Science – A publicly-funded program that uses crowdsourcing to engage ordinary citizens (you don’t have to be a scientist) in participatory and collaborative science. It’s a great worldschooling approach for the whole family to learn side by side. 
• Yellowstone Forever – A partnership with the National Park Service that provides educational opportunities and programs about wildlife, geology, and cultural history of the park. 
• Guided Painting and Photography Trips – A list of contacts and organizations that offer hands-on painting and photography excursions in the park. 
• Jobs, Internships and Volunteering in the Park – Information about paid experiences for youth and young adults. 
• Ranger Program – Yellowstone’s in-park ranger programs are available from Memorial Day through September. The park also has an archive of past live Ranger talks.

Here are some additional resources to help plan your Yellowstone adventure: 

• National Park Service planning Page.
• First Timers Guide to Yellowstone.
• Explore Yellowstone Like a Local Guidebook.
• Xanterra Parks and Recreation Website. 

And, finally, here are three tips for dealing with crowds in Yellowstone: 

• Visit in the off-season – And, if you love winter and are ready to be cold, consider venturing into the park in the winter months. The grizzlies are hibernating but everyone else is awake. Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel and Cabins and Old Faithful Snow Lodge are open to guests! You can ski, snowshoe, and enjoy the bison and wolves, practically all to yourselves!
• If it works best for your situation to go in the summer, just embrace it. There’s a reason so many people go to Yellowstone. It’s AMAZING! So, share the wonder with the person to your left, to your right, in front of you, and behind you. The national parks are for all of us, forever. Accept and enjoy. 
• Get off the beaten path – There are over 1000 miles of hiking trails and 293 designated backcountry campsites at Yellowstone.

The post Worldschooling in Yellowstone appeared first on Wonder Year Travel.

As we cover in our book, Wonder Year: A Guide to Long-Term Family Travel and Worldschooling, families can incorporate a wide variety of educational themes into their travels: ecology, art, geology, history, or literature, for starters. Another theme you might consider is music. As an educational element, music is versatile, cohesive, full of joy, and applicable across all locations. Music can also be explored as a family because it is inclusive of all ages and stages. Rather than being a fixed unit of study, music is dynamic and can weave through every location you visit.

Our family owns a record store (like vinyl), and individually we collect music and each play an instrument. During our Wonder Year, we found music to be a wonderful way to connect, deepen our shared curiosity, and find our niche wherever we traveled across three continents. 

Visiting Places of Musical Import

Iconic Red Rocks Amphitheater–if rocks could talk, the tales they’d tell!

You can choose places on your itinerary that have music lessons baked in. You can study the music history, the instruments, or the popular trends of a place before you travel. Maybe have your kids do research in advance and teach the rest of the family or group. Think of learning about the lives of classical masters in Vienna through a concert at Mozarthaus. You could research the influences that came together for the birth of rock and roll in Graceland, Tennessee. Or, study acoustics while taking in an opera at La Scala in Milan. You might buy a khaen (Thai bamboo flute) at a market and give it a go. Or, follow Nairobi’s @realvinylguru on Instagram. (His vinyl record shop has a cult following and you just might see the legends who pop by for a hello, like Yo-Yo Ma did in 2023.) Keep on the lookout for fairs and festivals. The Riff Music Festival of traditional folk music in Rajasthan, India, has been on my bucket list since my 20s.

In this vein, keep a look out for local and current happenings. For example, especially important to us is Record Store Day. Record Store Day is an International Holiday, IMO–a collaboration of music labels and independent record stores to celebrate vinyl records. Whether you’re in Rome, Rio, or Rochester, collectible releases drop at the same time. Lines run for blocks, local musicians play, schwag giveaways are the norm, and you get a slice of local life by joining in the celebration. Although records are not necessarily portable, you can send some home. Or, just come for the fun. Finding ways to weave your interests into your Wonder Year is a great way to connect with a destination, and just might take you off of the “top 10” tourist path.

Using Music as an Exploration of Arts and Social Science

Practicing some tunes on a mosaic piano at The Giants House in Akaroa, New Zealand

Music offers a window to the study of culture, language, and place. What can we learn about history and culture when contemplating lyrics, rhythms, influences, and cross-cultural listening patterns? There is also a temporal component when we consider how music is passed down and changes from generation to generation.

The possibilities are endless and music might be the entree to pique your family’s attention for genres, borders, and fusion. For example, you might start asking why there is so much polka music in Mexico. Which could then lead to a deeper look at Mexican history and its ties with Germany. Studying the lyrics of popular songs is a great portal into language study. Or, perhaps study the musicians themselves by reading biographies or learning about them from museums or music venues. You can extend this to how their lives and messages tie into the larger timelines and world history. Think of Bob Marley, Bach, Dolly Parton, or Bono.

In the United States, February is recognized as African American History Month. The theme in 2024 is African Americans in the Arts. What a wonderful time to dive into the history of jazz, blues, and hip hop and explore the historical and cultural realities that gave rise to these amazing art forms. You can find short videos on many topics, like the history of Berry Gordy Jr and Motown Records or the origin of hip hop, or immerse yourself in the amazing 19-hour Ken Burns documentary series on the roots of jazz available on PBS Learning Media.

Bringing Instruments Along

Yes, we traveled with a cello, which was almost as tall as Lucy herself.

If you or your kid play an instrument, you might be contemplating what to do while you’re on the road for an extended time. Do you bring it along? Pause for the time away? Find alternative travel-friendly versions, or focus on music appreciation? If piano is your instrument, did you know that you can purchase a rollable and packable keyboard? Flutes, harmonicas, and other smaller instruments might be a great option to continue or learn while you’re on the road. Ukuleles and ¾ guitars are also great options that travel relatively easily. 

Our family brought a guitar, viola, violin, and cello with us. Seriously. We flew through seven countries on three continents and gate-checked the cello with a “fragile” sticker. Security was curious, but we never had a problem. In a campground in New Zealand, we were able to have an impromptu concert. We stashed them with friends or at guesthouses when we were mobile, and when we settled for longer periods, we could resume Zoom lessons with teachers back home and have concentrated practice time. The corresponding math lessons in time zones were well worth the continuity of my kids’ love of music and instruments. If it’s your thing, there’s a way.

Theme Songs

Elvis for sale while crate digging at a flea market in Beijing.

If you’re more of a music appreciator than a creator, consider finding your theme songs for each month, each destination, or maybe each year. What speaks to you as a family? Negotiate which songs make the metaphorical mixed tape. Do the lyrics remind you of a place? Are they all sing-able? Or is it the mood? Our family created theme songs for each place and a mixed tape compilation / Spotify playlist of the year. Music, like food or photos, takes us back to the time and place.

Social media trending songs could be your theme, or you could make video compilations that match trending songs. Try these experiments and gauge your profile interactions, extending your media literacy or marketing lessons.

Personal Listening

Music can also be a personal escape from the group’s activity. When family members need space, they can take it with headphones and their own playlist. Also having time to listen together is a great way for family members to share what they like with each other. Some families rotate who is “in charge” of music in the car, and that person can share what they’ve been listening to lately.

Invest in a family Spotify account and download rather than stream music. Did you know that streaming music has a massive carbon footprint? You also won’t be beholden to WiFi when you really need to listen. 

You can also encourage musical exploration in everyone’s listening. Find songs by local artists, listen to a genre you don’t usually, research a singer-songwriter and analyze their lyrics. Music, like the world, is full of inspiration, with hidden gems in corners if you keep an open mind and a travelers’ heart.

None of the ideas we shared here need to feel like planned lessons or coordinated effort–it can also just be fun, casual listening together that naturally leads to learning. We hope this post has helped you think about ways, small and grand, to incorporate music and worldschooling into your family’s travels.

To learn more about worldschooling ideas, check out our book, Wonder Year. Or, read more worldschooling blog posts like, Traveling Timelines, Winter Worldschooling, or Citizen Science.

Rooftops of Kathmandu make a great spot for Zoom music lessons.

The post Music and Worldschooling appeared first on Wonder Year Travel.

Merriam-Webster says that a timeline is, “a table listing important events for successive years within a particular historical period.”

According to Wikipedia, “a timeline is a visual representation of a chronological sequence of events along a drawn line that helps a viewer understand time relationships.”

I decided to create and bring a traveling timeline with us on our travels rather serendipitously. As I was preparing for our Wonder Year, my third grader, Lucy, asked the  question, “did Grandad know Moses?” As a mom trying to help my own kid, I played to Lucy’s visual and spatial skills by creating a timeline with paper and string that went down the street. We counted an inch for each decade and went all the way to Moses. On a whim, I brought that timeline along on the trip and it became a powerful learning tool.

You see, most worldschooling families find history and social studies spectacularly easy to learn. If you’re in Egypt, history comes alive when you’re walking alongside the pyramids and inside the temples. Learning about pharaohs and hieroglyphics is part of the journey. The challenge is that that learning is not chronological. Kids can become confused about the order of events. What came first? The Pyramids of Giza, the Declaration of Independence, The Donner Party or World War II? Are there hundreds of years between these events? Or thousands of years? It might seem obvious to adults, but we have a conceptual framework to hang our learning upon. 

Social studies curricula in a traditional classroom are built chronologically (but jump around by location), and the events can be arranged as cause and effect. Worldschooling itineraries are not chronological and events can seem disparate and isolated. By introducing traveling timelines we can help our kids (and ourselves) see how events match up and begin to recognize themes and cause and effect relationships. A win-win!

Building a Timeline Together 

I’m sure there are many ways to create a timeline, but here’s what worked for us. We laid out a series of 8.5” x 11” papers in the landscape orientation, and without overlapping the edges, we taped them end to end so that we could fold it up easily, creating a hinge with the tape strip. With a ruler, we drew a line right down the middle. We then measured one inch for each decade and began marking them IN PENCIL. Trust me, there will be slip-ups when you’re working backward. We double-checked each other.

Our endpoint was 2000 BCE, but that decision is totally subjective. Sometimes, when we were looking at ancient or geologic time, we used string with a piece of masking tape to mark each hundred or thousand years. We ran this behind our paper timeline to get a sense of the scale. We could then visually estimate how far back paleolithic people, dinosaurs, or Pangea might have been.

New technology and diagramming programs might be able to help your timeline be more travel-friendly. You can extend it further and use this as a graphic design lesson or digital arts opportunity. Word, for example, has a timeline feature under SmartArt, then Process, then Timeline. Canva also has multiple templates. Other business programs have project management tools that come with free trial memberships or various pay-to-play tiers. Both smartsheet and edrawmax look fun to explore.

For us, the hands-on creation was part of the fun. And something as abstract as time could be made manifest in its tangibility. We carried a hard shell accordion folder and could easily fold this up for transport. 

Taping the edges end-to-end helped it to fold easily. Everyone got to add events.

Learning Standards covered

We might think of timelines as solely part of a Social Studies curriculum, but they can be so much more. Here are teasers of how you might use a timeline to meet learning standards for multiple subjects. Not that you need to be this granular in your worldschooling, but this specificity might help show how this could fit in your overall experiential learning plan. Perhaps it might inspire you to extend a timeline into other subject areas or articulate what else you all are learning.

Historical Thinking

• view chronology and cause-effect relationships
• look for influential events 

Math Skills

• use numerical values and mathematical concepts to represent dates and time spans on the timeline
• understand units of time, intervals, and scaling on the timeline

Information Skills

• gather information about events, dates, and historical figures to include in your timeline
• evaluate the credibility and reliability of sources when researching historical events

Art Skills

• choose images or logos to represent places or events
• play with color, shading, borders, and other design elements
• use digital programs to draw your timeline

Critical Thinking / Problem-Solving

• decide how to represent time spans effectively
• conceive what should be on the timeline
• hypothesize cause and effect relationships
• predict which patterns might be repeated (more on this below).

This is how we added the tail on the end for a much longer timeline that wasn’t too cumbersome. At the far end were markers every thousand years.

Multiple Viewpoints

Through reading and social studies lessons, we began our timelines with the standard history framework, or what was repeated in online searches or textbooks. In-country, while visiting monuments, museums, and other historical sites, we began to understand a sense of what this place holds to be important. As a family, we decided what new things we learned that should be added. We divided up the events and added them periodically. 

We began asking the people we met what they thought were the most important or pivotal events in their country’s history. We then researched each one as we put it on our timeline. In this way, we began learning “from rather than about” other people and cultures. Traditional classroom learning tends to use secondary sources and someone else’s interpretation of what is important. As you travel, primary sources are all around you! 

We attempted to seize this incredible opportunity and asked a broad range of people within the country: Uber drivers, doctors, family friends, indigenous peoples, Airbnb hosts, restaurant servers, etc. We tried to see where there was overlap and where there were differences from our secondary sources. In other words, we compared our interviews (primary sources) to the canon, what was included in Wikipedia or an AI response (secondary sources).

Depending on your kids’ ages and interests, there are endless opportunities for critical thinking here. Deciding what gets included on the timeline is great fodder for discussion, negotiation, and compromise.

A Few of Our A-ha’s

As you begin to fill in the countries and their events, visible themes emerge. Here are some of ours based on our travels:

• Costa Rica’s abolishment of their army was the same era as New Zealand’s ban on nuclear subs. The Cold War might have been an important factor.
• Universal suffrage ranged more than 100 years. While we were in New Zealand, they had a female prime minister which might reflect that they were the first country to grant women the right to vote. Perhaps we might see the 150-year spread between suffrage and female presidents in other countries.
• WWII was included as “important” to most people in every country we visited.
• Indigenous rights movements were not synchronous. Again, New Zealand was early in its support. 
• “Developed” and “undeveloped” countries were not static. For example, when China was building palaces and making scientific discoveries, Europe was in its Dark Ages. When the “West” was enjoying a very high standard of living in the 20th century, some of those other countries were considered “less developed” by some metrics. Change is the only constant.

Ways to Riff

There are so many ways to individualize a traveling timeline. You might change the scale and focus on geologic time. Other themes could be innovation and technology, art, military history, or sports. 

Creating a timeline for a novel or nonfiction book is a great way to expand and apply to a new context. It’s also useful for biographies or political movements.

You could add artwork for each event, or decorate the borders or century markers.

Also, there are many new applications for mapping or diagramming on computers these days that would solve the need for actual paper that travels. I’ve listed some above (Word, Canva, edrawmax and smartsheet.) We’d love to hear how you have used timelines or plan to use them in the future!

Real family learning! Our traveling timeline brought so much deep discussion and shared discoveries.

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A Note on Preparing for Winter Travel

As parents, we know kids are happier when they are comfortable, and staying comfortable in cold weather takes a little extra care. Being warm is not just a matter of comfort, it is also often a matter of safety. We encourage you to think ahead and plan for your winter wardrobe, gear, transportation, accommodations, and experiences. You may encounter delays at airports or on trains or have to winterize your campervan sooner than expected. Especially if you are traveling at higher elevations, be ready for wind, snow, and a sudden drop in temperature.

As you get ready for the change of seasons, we encourage you to involve your kids in the planning and preparation. Who knew that just getting dressed on a snowy day could be a lesson in fabric technology and thermoregulation? Or that readying your rig can be a STEM lesson in fluid dynamics and systems design? Simply figuring things out as a family, with intention and time, helps transform a basic task into a rich educational adventure.

Winter Worldschooling Ideas

There are hundreds of winter activities that are inherently educational and fun. Depending on the age of your children, your manner of travel, and how much you like being exposed to the elements, you can find the right mix. Below is a starter list of wintertime experiential learning ideas categorized as 1) Outdoor Learning, 2) Indoor Adventure, 3) Worldschooling Communities, and 4) Theme-based Discovery.

New ways to go fast, with the friendliest, most enthusiastic horsepower

Winter Outdoor Learning

A Wonder Year is a great time to improve your winter skills and sports. It’s also a great time to pursue new hobbies and ventures. So, bundle up and:

• Enjoy an afternoon of sledding and building jumps. Take some time to dig into the snow, look at the layers, and see what types of snow crystals you can find.

• Spend the day ice skating on a lake or pond. Learn to measure the depth of ice and check for safety or figure out what animals or organisms live in the chilly waters below. While you’re out there, try some ice fishing.

• Check the weather forecast and learn about different types of winter storms. Here’s a great resource on winter weather from NOAA’s National Severe Storms Lab.

• Check out a dog sledding adventure and learn commands like Hike! Gee! Haw!

• Go on a winter horseback ride or a hot cocoa sleigh ride. What a special way to learn about a region!

• Build an igloo and explore other forms of winter shelters – snow caves, quinzhees, snow trenches, and drift caves. How does an igloo stay warm? How does convection transfer heat? Do people actually live in snow shelters?

• Take a winter first aid class. Learn about unique winter medical problems such as frostbite, hypothermia, and sprains from falling. Double-check your first aid kit to make sure you are prepared for all-season injuries.

• Try winter tent camping. Check out this great advice from REI.

• Learn how to build a fire in the snow. Snowshoe Magazine has this informative article on building a winter campfire.

• Track animal prints in the snow. What can you deduce about animal behavior by looking at their tracks? This US Fish and Wildlife site helps piece together the clues.

• Go birding. Often, without leaves on the trees, spotting birds is easier in the winter. Who doesn’t love hiking with binoculars? Maybe you can make bird feeders as the birds begin to return.

• Take a tour of ice and snow sculptures. While we think of ice sculptures as contemporary decorative forms, there’s a great history lesson in learning about the earliest functional uses of ice and snow sculpture.

• Visit local hot springs. Can you explain what makes hot springs hot? What is geothermal heat?

• Tap a maple tree and make syrup. What are the laws around tapping maple trees on public land? What is foraging and who is allowed to forage wild foods on public lands? Here is some information from USDA on foraging and harvesting indigenous and wild plants.

• Take a snowshoeing adventure. For the super industrious, you can try to make snowshoes and then go for a hike! Here are 10 tips from Snowshoe Magazine for making snowshoeing great fun with kids.

• Hike in the daytime or nighttime. Maybe add some spikes!

• Try Nordic Skiing! A great way to begin is on waxless cross-country skis. If you are new to the sport, a family lesson is well worth the cost. In just an hour or so, you’ll be kicking and gliding down a snowy trail together.

Cozy in the snow, lots to do in the cabin

Winter Indoor Learning

With shorter days and inclement weather, winter is also an excellent time for indoor field trips and seasonal discoveries. And because traditional school is in session, many museums and indoor venues will be less crowded and may offer discounted entrance fees. Be sure to check the hours of operation and then go wild with these indoor adventures:

• Visit a children’s museum, natural history museum, discovery center, planetarium, or science center. Look for hands-on activities to deepen the learning.

• Check the event schedule at local bookstores and libraries and take a morning to browse, read, slow down, and maybe catch a special event.

• Arrange a tour of public places like the local post office, fire department, television or radio station. Public television and radio stations support public access and welcome visitors. Call ahead and ask for the promotions manager to arrange a visit.

• Take an art class, a cooking class, or visit a makerspace. Here’s a makerspace directory to help you find places to learn, discover, and create near you!

• Learn about governmental and nonprofit organizations in your current location. You can visit the county courthouse, city hall, board of education, or historical society. There are often great exhibits and displays that are self-guided. With some advanced planning, you can also arrange to meet with an elected official.

• Visit an animal shelter and take a pup out for a walk. The Humane Society has chapters around the world, so that might be a great place to look for a meaningful outing or a volunteer opportunity.

• Find a yarn shop, pick out some beautiful yarn, and learn to knit. Maybe teddy bear gets a scarf first.

• Visit grocery stores and local markets to talk about where winter food comes from. What is local? What travels internationally? What is canned or frozen?

• Bake together. If you have access to an oven, winter is a great time to improve your baking skills. What do the locals bake? Where can you get ingredients? How about creating a metric conversion chart? Maybe you can do a little math and double the recipe then share your yummy baked goods with a neighbor or new friends?

Exploring an old mine is a great way to understand Western history

Worldschooling Communities

Many families are excited to find community on the road, and good news: there is a growing number of worldschooling and digital nomad pop-ups and hubs around the world. These are communities where traveling families connect, learn, and explore together. You can look on worldschooling Facebook pages such as Worldschoolers,  Worldschooling Central, and many others to learn about winter worldschooling gatherings.

One worldschooling hub is in Bansko, Bulgaria. Initiated in 2016 by a German entrepreneur, this gem of a city is beautifully situated at the base of the Pirin National Park and is the largest ski resort in the Balkans. “Work anywhere families” are discovering Bansko’s magic in all four seasons. There are co-working spaces, language schools, and innovative education ideas that co-evolve with the residents. Check out the Bankso Worldschooling Facebook page. Wintertime is special in Bansko for the international vibe, reasonably priced accommodations, and easy access to fantastic skiing. The annual Bansko Nomad Fest is happening in June 2024 for anyone interested in checking out this region.

The beauty of ice and light will open up the imagination!

Theme-based Winter Discovery

Another way to enrich your family’s winter learning is to pick a theme and create a learning module around it. Here are a few examples.

Say you want to explore various aspects of the Winter Solstice. You could:

• Discover how the Winter Solstice is celebrated in different cultures in both hemispheres.

• Read The Shortest Day written by Susan Cooper, illustrated by Carson Ellis. According to the author, this book is a family celebration of the light coming back after the dark threatens to take over the world. Here’s a special Picture This segment from NPR about The Shortest Day.

• Create a solstice lesson on shadows and length. Here’s an excellent resource from NASA’s Earth Observatory for Kids: All About that Tilt, Sun and Seasons. 

• Plan a Winter Solstice activity like making a snowman or baking a solstice sun bread.

Maybe winter animals could inform your family’s winter discovery. You might:

• Check out any number of documentaries about amazing animals that live in the cold weather, such as BBC’s Snow Animals series available on Amazon or the animated series Animals in Winter available for free on PBS.

• Learn some key terms such as endemic, indigenous, hibernation, cold-blooded, warm-blooded, migration, toleration, adaptation, subnivean, snag.

• Go on a ranger-led snowshoe hike to learn about winter animal behavior and try to find some tracks.

• Take a winter photo workshop/safari.

Another possible theme is winter food and nutrition exploration. You could:

• Explore local winter food traditions wherever you are.

• Study how your winter nutritional needs are different from summer nutritional needs.

• Learn how indigenous people survive the winter months. What methods do they use to preserve food, such as canning, preserving, and smoking? Here’s one example about the Susquehannock people of New York’s Finger Lakes region.

• Visit a local farmer and find out what they do in the winter.

• Take a cooking class.

• Learn to make jam or bake scones.

You could also choose a winter literary classic and build an experiential module around the themes of the book. Here are some ideas to get you started: Over and Under the Snow by Kate Messner, Red Sled by Lita Judge, and The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats. For older readers, check out Tracker by Gary Paulson, The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder, and Jack London’s Call of the Wild.

We studied ski-cology

A Personal Note from Julie:

My family chose skiing as our winter theme. As Coloradans, we look forward to winter every year. We have family traditions around the coming of winter – attending the local ski swap and going to the screening of the Warren Miller ski movie at the Boulder Theater.

As a youngster, my son was an alpine ski racer. He loved winter in the mountains so much that when he was seven he changed his middle name to “Snow.” It was only natural that when we took off for our Wonder Year a year later, we’d take a deep dive into winter worldschooling. We spent a full month in the Wasatch Mountains of Utah studying snow science, the snow sports industry, ski area sustainability, product design, and avalanche rescue. Most ski resorts in the area had a sustainability officer or Green Team who was willing to meet with us about their environmental management practices, such as recycling, composting, water and energy conservation, and wildlife protection. Mountain operations taught us about the technical side of snowmaking, and explained water supply and the strategies lift operations uses to conserve energy. The more we began to appreciate all that goes on at a ski area, the more questions we had. We learned about base area design, special use permitting, forest management, and guest relations. One area that was really exciting for us to learn about was Ski Patrol. The patrollers were so open and friendly. Johnny was particularly interested in their work with avalanche forecasting and controlling. We learned how avalanche rescue dogs are incorporated into the safety operation. (And, can I add, they are so cute!) We also toured a local ski company with zero waste operations and learned about their manufacturing processes using bamboo as an innovative material for skis.

During our winter worldschooling, we followed our passion and created a rich educational adventure at the same time. Here are a couple of tips for families who share a love of skiing:

Pro tip #1: At some resorts, kids who are good skiers can volunteer to help “sweep” the mountain at the end of the day. This includes skiing slowly down a slope,  going to the sides, and looking around to make sure there are no stranded skiers in need of assistance.

Pro tip #2: Downhill skiing can be expensive, but there are ways to make it more affordable. The industry today has mountain consortia, or groups of resorts that go in together. Skiers with these passes, such as the Epic, Ikon, or Mountain Collective, offer access to multiple resorts in the US, Europe, Japan, Chili, Argentina, Australia, and others. More locations are added each year so If you are a family that loves skiing, it might be worth taking a look at these pass options.

As long-term family travelers, we have time. So, follow your bliss. Go deeper. Unpack learning opportunities when you are doing ordinary and extraordinary things. Back home, unless it’s a “snow day,” many kids only get to spend 20 minutes outside during recess in the winter. On the road, we get a recess from that predictable routine. Traveling prompts us to notice, observe, and wonder about educational adventures buried in snow or illuminated by ice. We wish you a winter wonderland filled with fresh powder and mountains of discovery.

The post Winter Worldschooling Wonderland appeared first on Wonder Year Travel.

Time to wonder!

I want to write this blog about sustainable family travel without sounding trite, but I have to start by saying something pretty obvious – we only get one chance to live the life we want, and we only have one magnificent planet on which to live it. Our choices matter to us and future generations. Let’s choose to activate long-term sustainability solutions through hope and inspiration rather than fear and doomsaying.

This is not a sustainability blog that lists green travel tips. That, you can read in an excellent piece by The Points Guy entitled 8 sustainable travel tips from expert green travelers. 

Neither is this a blog that features must-have eco-travel products. That, you can find in a great summary by cnn.com entitled 30 of the best eco-friendly travel products to take on your next trip. 

Nor is this a blog about how to reduce your travel carbon footprint. Important? Yes! But not what this blog is about. You can read this National Geographic article to learn about 10 ways to reduce your carbon emissions when traveling. 

This blog explores how sustainable family travel can empower the next generation of environmental stewards in our kids as they connect to nature, experience awe, and engage in grassroots solutions. Of course, if achieving sustainable development were strictly a math problem based on carbon footprint, we wouldn’t travel at all. But arriving at meaningful solutions requires creativity, changes in attitudes, and a whole lot more than simply not flying. Travel feeds diversity and diversity helps us think outside the box. In many ways, travel, when done thoughtfully, can contribute to a sustainable future. That’s a big claim. Let’s break it down.

What is Sustainable Family Travel?

We can think of sustainable family travel as a manner of travel that minimizes harm to the natural and cultural environment while maximizing economic vitality for local people. Inherent in this definition of sustainable travel is an educational intention to understand both how our travels impact communities and the environment, and how we can make a positive difference. We see sustainability as an ethic, a framework, and the end goal of our travel decisions and behavior. 

So what is our promise to future generations? How can we ensure our grandkids and their kids have forests to explore, rivers to run, wilderness to wander? One important thing we can do is take them there! Through long-term family travel and worldschooling, we can teach our children to care. We can teach our children to act. We can teach our children well. 

Spring-fed water in Lucca, Italy

Connecting Children to Nature 

Worldschooling is a perfect way to raise little sustainability lovers. We know that those who care about a place are more likely to work to protect that place, so why not expose our children to rainforests, high prairie, coastal wetlands, and more? Experiencing nature over weeks and months lays down a fertile layer of care in our children. 

Traveling the world with kids is their ticket to guardianship, to feeling invested and part of a community. This is especially true for long-term travelers, who often have more time to experience and get to know a place. On the road, there is time to saunter. As Rolf Potts, author of Vagabonding and the Vagabond’s Way, likes to say, “You can walk until your day becomes interesting.” We can savor the experiences, connect with the locals, and learn their ways, their songs, and customs. As long-term travelers, we can settle into a place, discover what everyone is up to, and get involved. The imprint of this direct experience is indelible and it switches on in our kids a personal connection.  

When my family took our Wonder Year, we designed an itinerary that led us deep into the wilderness, along rugged shorelines, into historic places and local communities. We wanted our son to meet people everywhere and have diverse first-hand experiences with unique places that hold cultural, natural, historical, and spiritual value. We believe that conservationists are born out of love for the natural world so if we could turn Johnny on to all kinds of amazing places as a youngster, we knew he would work to protect those amazing places as an adult. 

The Power of Awe 

Many teens cite climate change as a major source of the mental health crisis. Dystopian novels are not helpful; more exposure to doomsaying takes away the magic and beauty of the world outside.

The large herds of bison that roam Yellowstone are an excellent example of sustainability at work. Their grazing, among other benefits, helps cycle rich nutrients into back plants and protects soil moisture.

When we are traveling, we have time to notice the little things, and we have time to really experience the big things. Maybe we will find out about a concert happening in a few days or a festival, foot race, or community gardening event. As travelers, we can re-route to an awe-inspiring experience and in these moments, we gain openness, understanding, humility, a sense of wellbeing, and altruism. How wonderful to drop pins of hope again and again as we experience awe side by side with our kids. Often unplanned, these awesome moments make us pause and feel the profound beauty of the universe, the grandeur of things so much bigger than we are. Indeed we can experience awe at home, it’s just that as long-term travelers, we live so close to nature, and are in new places all the time. This daily dose of wonder helps our children develop compassion, concern for others, and optimism, all components of a sustainability mindset. 

Engagement in Grassroots Environmental Solutions 

Another reality of traveling as a family is the preponderance of grassroots worldschooling opportunities. These sustainability sessions can be either chance encounters or planned engagements. 

A chance encounter might look like this: When dropping into a local cafe, park, or library, you read the bulletin board, pick up the local paper, or talk to the barista to get the local scoop. Travelers looking to learn, as worldschooling families do naturally, can simply scratch below the surface to find out what’s happening around them. They can learn what the locals are concerned with. It might be the protection

Heading out for a full day with the Anacostia Riverkeeper, an amazing organization that works to protect, restore and connect people and the local community to the Anacostia River in Maryland and Washington DC. Thank you, Trey!

of wildlife habitat for endemic species like rhinos in Namibia or big horned sheep in Colorado. You might be in a surf shop in Baja and hear about coastal protection efforts like in Cabo Pulmo, Mexico where the resolve of the local community led to the creation of a Natural Protected Area. Today, the coral reef and surrounding communities are thriving. Annika and her family met, by chance, some Canadian college-aged members of Surfrider while they were in Costa Rica. They took them out for a nice casado lunch to learn more about their projects, and have stayed in touch on social media ever since to follow their careers in sustainability and mission-driven business. With knowledge of local concerns and priorities, travelers can then take the next step and find out what local solutions are in play. Find out what the young people are doing and get involved in the grassroots action.

A planned approach might involve advanced research to see if you can arrange site tours, meetings, and participation in an event. Even before we left for our Wonder Year, our family reached out to a national nonprofit that supports community-driven watershed protection, an issue we care about and were professionally involved with. We became “family ambassadors” for the group and as we traveled across the United States, we met with river heroes and sustainability champions to learn about local struggles and solutions. We wrote some articles to help share their success stories. We participated in river clean-ups, green infrastructure projects, and community service work throughout our entire Wonder Year. Through this type of solutions-focused engagement, we can turn our travel experiences into fieldwork, advocacy, and exploration. 

Bringing it Home

Doing some planting in Prescott, Arizona as part of a green infrastructure project.

Traveling as a family, and seeking to learn, connect, and engage is an excellent way to be part of a solution. It is also an excellent way to control stress and help our kids find their agency to feel hopeful about the future rather than sad and helpless. There are so many ways to engage, and here we offer just a small sample of solutions-focused resources. We are especially impressed with, and inspired by, the brilliance of young leaders and how they articulate a vision for the future and mobilize peers and adults alike. 

Patagonia Action Works – connects individuals to environmental action groups around the world

Fridays for Future – youth-led climate activist network started by Greta Thunberg

American Climate Corp – newly launched campaign to train young people in clean energy, climate resilience, and conservation

UNICEF Toolkit for Young Climate Activists – information that helps prepare young people to be fully engaged in issues that matter to them

UN Youth2030 Strategy – an overarching framework for the UN to broadly and meaningfully engage young people across three priorities areas: peace and security, human rights and sustainable development.

Brand Ambassadors – Many companies and nonprofits have “brand sustainability ambassador” programs. Reach out to see if a partnership opportunity would work for your family. 

The post Sustainable Family Travel: A Curious Path to Action appeared first on Wonder Year Travel.

My initial reaction to Chat GPT was a wholehearted, “heck no!” But the more I talk with friends and my kids, the more I am trying to keep an open mind. My dad, a former engineering professor, says it feels like humans are at a similar crossroads that we faced with the introduction of the calculator. When that happened, math instructors thought it would be the downfall of math education–many had the hyperbolic notion that it was the undoing of society–but perhaps it’s opened us up to higher math concepts rather than rote calculations. Somehow ChatGPT feels bigger, more a crisis of humanity, but maybe it’ll just pass over us as easily as the calculator and our adapted educational model will happen organically and meaningfully.

Early takeaways for how AI might affect your worldschooling education

Acceptable Use

AI is not the same thing as ChatGPT. AI is already in use with grammar checks, spell checks, and citation generators, making the question: where do we draw the line in acceptable use? And what do we consider plagiarism? We need clear policies in our online classes and in-person instruction and a mutual understanding with our more informal worldschooled kids. You and your older kids, ones who are very adept with the internet, need ground rules of what is acceptable. Can they use AI to write a paper, research your next destination or create a citation? The rub might come if you are each making assumptions about what is okay. Legally you do not need to cite ChatGPT as a source, but that doesn’t mean that at your worldschooling table you agree. So, come up with your own agreements.

As we puzzle through these questions, kids in classrooms now are finding what is acceptable and how to use AI as a tool. If you plan to return to traditional classrooms soon, make sure you take time to learn the new rules. For example, instructors use AI to find AI. Turnitin is the plagiarism and AI spotter most commonly used in our area’s schools.  Individuals can also pay for Grammarly, GrammarlyGO (just out), or Chegg. Anything in direct quotations or a bibliographic citation will show up with these applications; anything else is plagiarized. These applications should also pick up anything written by Chat GPT. Last spring, my fellow faculty each found 3-5 papers written by Chat GPT. I warned my students about the detectors and found none. Learning to write by yourself is not a skill that will be thrown out any time soon.

If your worldschooled child is young, you might be thinking these concepts and ramifications are very far removed. But what seems to be happening is that kids just learning to write or do research have so much information at their fingertips that they begin to write by cutting and pasting other people’s work. A good writing exercise for middle schoolers is to read something and practice both summarizing and paraphrasing skills. 

A New Tool to Master

Just like the calculator and spell check, AI is a tool. The more we expand our understanding of its benefits, the more we can use it to focus on critical thinking. How do we use it for an educational advantage? For many of us, we are using AI to begin a writing project. We might feed in a question, see the results, incorporate some of the ideas by paraphrasing, and use it as a springboard for more searches and research. Many of my students say they use it to brainstorm, then hide it from sight to put concepts into their own words, find creative threads and metaphors, and put their humanity into their writing. As I am playing around with its use, I do notice that AI does not write, think, and research with an inclusive and social justice lens.

And for parents, did you know that AI can also grade papers (?!?!), generate tests, and create active learning modules? I am not insinuating that robotic feedback can replace a mom’s golden touch, but it can be one more read, needless to say a more objective one, that can add perspective to a piece of writing. Especially if your kids are young, I would filter any AI feedback before letting them see it. Nolej is just one company that creates e-learning curricula and is behind a paywall. I am super curious about the quality, and I think many similar companies are not far behind. In essence, these would do everything that IXL or Oak Meadow would do, but it’s created by AI and would be cheaper and potentially more individualized. If this is something you’re curious about, let me know how it goes. 

AI Can Heighten What Makes Us Human

Many educators feel that any use of AI is an egregious insult to education and that its users are breaking the academic code. If they find any use, the students get an F. I do understand their thinking. But I think the genie is out of the bottle. I’m staying awake at night trying to prepare my three kids and my college students for a post-AI world. After learning basic writing skills, students should learn all the ways to insert humanity into their written work. I want to create more personal reflections, opinion pieces, reviews, and narrative nonfiction assignments. As worldschoolers, think about how these types of writing projects might be included for your kids. We can focus on more human-centered writing. I believe the lines between creative nonfiction and “academic” nonfiction will be the focus of writing instruction courses in 10 years. 

The college-level assignment I’m currently conjuring is: write an essay about ____. Ask Chat GPT and GrammarlyGO to write on the same prompt. Then compare and contrast and write a position paper on the use of AI in writing. For middle schoolers, you might compare a paragraph, for highschoolers a five paragraph essay or a five page research paper. Again, let’s share the outcomes. We all benefit from this open and honest exploration.

And “exploration” is the word that keeps coming to my mind as I write this. Time in front of our screens wondering what the robot will come up with is time away from the exploration of a creekbed or wondering at the colors nature has given us for this evening’s sunset. We know that kids (and adults) thrive in nature emotionally and physically and that high screen time can be one of the factors plaguing our mental health. As worldschoolers, you are giving yourselves and your children more exposure to nature to foster creativity and hone the skills for a post-AI world. The optimist in me wonders if rote pieces of writing can now be done in little time; maybe, like the calculator, it will free us up for more time for higher order thinking. And more time for all of us to watch the sun set.

How do you see AI changing the writing instruction of the future? Will it change the way you guide your worldschooling?

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A stack of books that have inspired me to learn more about learning

Active Learning

Active learning was a buzzword that is now part of the canon. Active learning methods ask students to engage in learning by thinking, discussing, investigating, and creating. This learning modality may be easier to incorporate with worldschooling than in traditional classroom teaching. Essential to active learning is timely feedback for learners and discussion opportunities to suss out big topics. Extended projects or themes of inquiry also require active learning. Students access prior learning and incorporate data and new ideas into their mental framework. For example, many worldschooling families find themes of interest for their whole family, while others encourage each child to discover their unique interests that are then woven throughout destinations: monkeys, ice cream, plastics, art. When the student does more work than the instructor, it’s active learning. When the student creates their assignments, it’s active learning. When the student finds connections and begins an organic discussion, it’s active learning.

Experiential Learning

A Wonder Year approach saturates your learners with high-impact learning opportunities. Educational research illustrates the important relationship between approach and retention, or what the learner remembers over time. Retention rates differ between more passive activities, such as watching a demonstration or observing a cultural event, and even more active ones. These might include reenacting an historical event, planting a garden, baking a cake or using a foreign language to find a bathroom. The more involved the learner becomes, the deeper the retention. 

Running one’s hand along the chiseled stone, and peeking through the arrow holes helps to use all the senses in learning.

Think about that time in middle school when you presented a science project to classmates. Maybe it was asking them to taste chocolate, lemons, salt and arugula to learn about sweet, sour, salty and bitter taste buds. Chances are you remember way more from that exercise than from a lecture you passively listened to on the same topic. What does this mean for worldschooling? It means you can ease your mind about withdrawing your kids from a formal school setting. They’re likely to learn and remember more from their multi-sensory travel experiences than from a year in their more typical classroom.  

One of our favorite educational “classics” is Joseph Cornell’s Sharing Nature with Children. There are three versions out there now, with some that focus on different ages and angles. We recommend Sharing Nature with Children II (best for ages 8-10) first published in 1968. He highlights easy ways to build a connection between your child and the natural world.

Bloom’s Taxonomy

Another “hot” topic in educational discourse these days is HOTS, formerly known as critical thinking skills. HOTS refers to the Higher Order Thinking Skills of Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives. Studies show that the higher thinking skills of analysis, evaluation, and creation are more easily accessed by experiential learning, apprenticeships, and field trips. It is in the stages of reflection or in creating a presentation that those higher thinking skills are engaged. Once you read on, you’ll see that these HOTS sound a whole lot like the worldschooling aspect of a Wonder Year.

A Wonder Year approach saturates learning opportunities. You can give your kids a project and let them teach you, their siblings, or their peers. You can discuss the political context of the space race at the Kennedy Space Center. Your kids can pay for groceries in foreign currency. And, when you’re just not sure about this path you’ve chosen, and you need a pep talk for the active, kinesthetic, deep-learning of a Wonder Year, revisit these research-backed concepts and realize how easy learning opportunities are to find. The hot topic topic in educational theory is all around you!

More than anything, extended time on the road can help nurture curiosity for all there is to learn from the world.

Growth Mindset

Carol Dweck popularized this term with her 2016 book, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, How We Can Learn to Fulfill Our Potential. Growth mindset, as opposed to fixed mindset, is the idea that your talents and abilities can be improved through hard work and perseverance. When individuals with a growth mindset are presented with challenges, they use problem-solving strategies to overcome them and successfully complete their tasks. 

Research has shown increased brain activity and synapse building through mistakes rather than success. Think about how often people limit themselves by saying, “I can’t do math.” Or even, “My kids are great readers, so I don’t need to think of ways to enhance or encourage their reading.” There are always more ways to learn and avenues to grow. Mistakes and struggles help us learn and build our cognitive capacity. A growth mindset is what allows us to realize our potential. This is an excellent topic for worldschooling parents because it’s based on cutting-edge research and lends itself to individualized instruction.

We hope this primer helps pique your interest in these current hot topics related to worldschooling education and educational theory. In July, we’ll share some ideas for how to use (or not use) AI in your worldschooling plan. Things are changing quickly! Stay tuned.

Mom, what’s this mural all about?

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Africa Is a Diverse Continent, Not a Country

Shots and visas and passports, oh my!

When you browse the shelves of the travel sections, you might find a book on family travel in Tuscany or cycling through Vermont, books that hone in on the specific mode or geographical area. However, when it comes to African countries, they tend to be clumped in travel books that try to cover the entire continent. I can’t recall a guidebook that tries to cover all of Asia, but you do see guidebooks for the entirety of Africa.

I can only guess the cause of this different treatment: not enough travelers to warrant the specific country or regional guides? Ignorance that Africa is not a country but a diverse continent? Maybe a bit of each. Yes, you read that right: many Americans believe that Africa is a country, and many others can only name three or four countries on the continent. For this and many other reasons, African countries are prime for worldschooling opportunities

Our family’s go-to guidebooks are Lonely Planet, and they do have specific country guides to the two countries we will visit this summer. 

Learn More Before You Go

The Global North and ChatGPT (yes, I’ve been playing around with it) have a lot to learn about Africa. As a credentialed social studies teacher, I’ve found that most American students learn about Ancient Egypt, colonization and the triangle trade, apartheid, and basic geography. Some newer textbooks include sections on ancient kingdoms of Ghana and Mali. So, there are huge gaps in how modern history is taught. One way to fill those gaps is to read some of these fantastic and award-winning books for young people to learn from this diverse continent. 

For the younger reader 

Black Gold by Laura Obuobi and London Ladd is one of my favorite picture books, as well as Water Hole Waiting by Jane Kurtz, co-authored with her brother Christopher Kurtz. The Anna Hibiscus early reader series by Atinuke, based in Nigeria, is wonderful. This depiction of extended family compound life and the relatable trials and tribulations of a young girl and her raucous younger brothers will begin to set context for modern life in Western Africa.

For middle school students

There are three books that detail the modern refugee. There’s the National Book Award-winning graphic novel, When Stars are Scattered by Victoria Jamieson, Omar Mohamed, and Iman Geddy; Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park; and Lost Girl Found by Laura DeLuca and Leah Bashoff.

For high schoolers and older 

Older kids might appreciate Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, or the nonfiction emigration story half set in Ethiopia, Cold, White Sun, by Sue Farrell Holler. Zimbabwean author Tsitsi Dangarengba has two wonderful and award-winning semi-autobiographical novels suitable for YA readers, Nervous Conditions and The Book of Not. Violet Bulawayo’s We Need New Names will also leave you changed. Trevor Noah’s Born A Crime is an insider’s look at race relations and growing up in South Africa. Available on audiobooks, his masterful telling would work well for PG-13 and above.

I’ve also found this wonderful booklist created and peer-reviewed by Social Justice Books. 

Can we enter with these Ziplocs?

Immunizations and Health

When we arrived at our local Passport Health travel clinic here in Colorado, we were presented with a long list of decisions. Malaria medication? The rabies series? Typhoid as pills or shots? This is a very different set of questions than you’d face for a trip to Europe, Australia, or Central America. When we told the nurse we would be staying in a suburb of Nairobi to attend a wedding, her eyes got wide. She offered us broad-spectrum probiotics, antibiotics to carry just in case, and digestive guards to take for the one week we were staying and eating in a smaller town that does not cater to Westerners. We then told her we would continue on to Egypt, she admonished us to not even THINK about swimming in the Nile. Schistosomiasis, she said. In all seriousness, she described snails that enter your skin and worms that penetrate your feet. 

Many countries that have active Yellow Fever outbreaks require this vaccination both to enter and exit. I’ve never heard of anyone testing the system with a vaccine waiver, but I’d love to learn more.

These warnings might make some think twice about travel to Africa, but I look to Instagram and see families like the @traveling_zolks, @house_of_bey_family, @tinboxtraveller, and @awaywiththesteiners to ground myself in perspective here. I’ve also been to regions with similar health risks and realize that with some research and maintaining good health prior to arrival, most places are just fine to visit. Our stomachs are stronger than we think, and quick action if symptoms begin can head off most issues.

Credit Card Fraud and Entry Visas

Be sure to give yourself plenty of time to organize entry visas and make sure your credit cards will work. While I was trying to pay online for our entry visas, my bank kept declining the charges. After the third or fourth round, I needed to be on the phone with my credit card company to pay for the visas from the government website. These protections are put into place for good reason, I’m sure, but be aware that it’s imperative to let your credit card company know your travel plans and be ready for some extra calls while you’re planning your trip.

The Egyptian visa service warned of fraudulent sites that charge you high rates for fake visas. 

[Update: the visa “service” we used was actually a scam! They were the first hit that came up on google, asked all the right questions, asked for new photos without glasses, and charged the correct amounts. At the final hour, when our service disappeared and we had no visas, our safari company pushed our new visa applications through. Check, check, check and do some online searches to make sure your service is legit.]

Visiting Wild Animals is Expensive

Once we decided to go to Kenya, I was shocked at the cost of the safari. The more I researched, the more I understood why you get what you pay for. The high cost of good safaris pays for the conservation of the wild spaces and animals. 

Planning done, the journey begins.

This privilege is confusing. Our Kenyan friends have never been to Masai Mara or the Sheldrick Elephant Orphanage just 30 minutes from their home. But if you look at any travel plan to Kenya, both places are in every list of top 5 things to do in Kenya. So, if Westerners didn’t come to pay the high prices, a key source of funding for care and conservation would dry up. But the high prices keep the locals from seeing their own country. What would you do?

I’ve been reading that African conservation areas were some of the hardest-hit places during COVID because most funding comes from tourism. So, although I’m still questioning my own ethics, we’ve decided to visit Sheldricks WITH our Kenyan friends and we are going to Ol Pejeta Rhino Preserve and Masai Mara after the dowry festivities. We will pay for mid-range safari camps with open eyes, try to understand how sustainable travel practices help preserve wild spaces, and look for ways to make this safari more inclusive.

Poverty and Economic Disparity

Africa, like many other parts of the world, can put the Western traveler face-to-face with economic disparities. Africa is home to some of the wealthiest individuals as well as some of the world’s poorest and fastest growing economies. Travelers are often surprised by the modern cities and high tech malls, as well as children begging with little on their backs. We are expecting our stereotypes to be challenged. We are researching some NGOs to visit, like Ubuntu Life, and will participate for the first time with Pack for a Purpose. We are ready to shake up our worldviews, break open our stereotypes, and ask some hard questions.

Packing

Sleepily arriving at passport control in Kenya.

Packing for this region has some unique considerations. I’ve read that wearing blue and black colors can attract the tsetse fly, which can harbor sleeping sickness and other health concerns. Bright colors, including white, can make the wild animals notice you and change their behavior. So, I guess there is a reason to wear that stereotypical khaki. A professional travel guide turned me on to Travel Fashion Girl website, which offers practical ideas like these to get you started.

You might need more warm layers than you think. Don’t assume you’ll be hot every second, as many wildlife viewing areas are at high altitude, and deserts get cool at night. Also, in many areas, especially Muslim regions, women need to cover shoulders, knees, and collar bones to be culturally sensitive. We are bringing scarves to cover our female heads for visits to holy sites, although I’m sure we can buy them there. In many more areas showing more skin can attract unwanted attention, not to mention a sunburn. We are currently hunting for breathable long sleeves and pants, and packable wide-brimmed hats.

Sometimes you also need to know what NOT to pack. Some of the world’s strictest bans on single use plastic are found in Africa. Rwanda and Kenya have luggage searches when you enter the country. Our safari company told us that they have heard of tourists being fined for bringing plastic bags into the country! Although we love and support the concept, I often travel with a few ziplocs around toiletries. Many other African countries, like Morocco and Tanzania, have partial bans and fines. I appreciate the exercise of rethinking these packing habits.

I can’t wait to share our journey to Kenya and Egypt real-time on social media and as stories from the road in this blog. Planning this trip to Africa is getting me more and more excited and interested in this diverse continent. Kenya and Egypt have long been on a someday bucket list, but an invitation to a dowry ceremony moves it to now, to once-in-a-lifetime, to “hang the cost” and we’ll figure out how to pay for it later. As a returned Wonder Year family, we’ve worldschooled and traveled to Central America, Asia, and Europe, but Africa, South America and Antarctica are still open for discovery. How easy will it be to slip into our old full-time traveling family personas? How different will it be to travel with older teens? How will this time in Africa change my worldview?

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What is worldschooling, anyway?

Simply put, worldschooling is learning through direct interaction with the world. 

Learning about forced removals in Cape Town

Worldschooling is an educational approach shaped by the experience of learning in the world. Worldschooling is a form of education that combines travel and experiential learning. Rather than being confined to a traditional classroom setting, worldschooling families believe that real-world experiences, cultural immersion, and travel can provide rich educational opportunities. 

Worldschooling allows children to learn about different cultures, languages, history, science, geography, and social dynamics by experiencing them firsthand. It often involves families traveling to other countries or regions, exploring local attractions, engaging with local communities, and participating in activities and experiences that enhance their learning. Worldschooling can happen anywhere, any season, any time of day. It just requires a little curiosity and a lot of wonder. 

One of the limitations of classroom learning is that we tend to learn about others. With worldschooling, we begin to learn from others. It’s an exchange. Learners create their own opinions based on direct experiences rather than simply repeating what they hear from others or read in a textbook. You can’t fake a personal interaction. Your kids might reach the conclusion, for example, that countries maligned in the mainstream US media are full of good and kind people. Worldschooling is fact-finding; worldschooling is peacebuilding.

Worldschooling can be:

• learning to tap a rubber tree in Krabi, Thailand
• visiting WWII sites in Normandy, France to understand the legacies of those who battled
• sourcing ingredients and learning to cook kebabs with a hostel owner in Istanbul, Turkey
• taking the Junior Ranger pledge after completing educational activities at Dinosaur National Monument
• visiting the bridge on the ferry from Helsinki to Tallinn to learn about navigation equipment
• collecting river water in your neighborhood and looking at it under a microscope at your kitchen table
• calculating currency conversion to buy Uyghur currants at the Xinjiang market
• visiting with a Ski Patrol team in Colorado to learn how dogs become avalanche rescuers
• talking with your elderly neighbor about what life was like when she was a kid
• listening to an audiobook about the ancient Mayans while exploring the temple regions of Guatemala
• learning how to say hello, goodbye, please and thank you in a local language new to you
• drawing a picture and naming the phase of the moon every night for a month from your campsites

The possibilities are endless.

Learning to weave from local experts in Laos

Worldschooling varies in its ties to formal educational structures. Worldschooling can be closely aligned with unschooling (see below), theme-driven, subject-driven, or opportunistic based on where a family is traveling and what the day presents. It can also include online learning while on the road, with students completing tasks independently or connected with remote classmates. 

Over the past couple of decades, the term worldschooling gained traction. Several traveling families who considered themselves worldschoolers brought awareness to the concept as they shared their experiences online and in popular media. You might also come across the term roadschooling. For clarity, here at Wonder Year we use the term worldschooling to mean it all. We want everyone to feel welcome whether you are traveling in the US or overseas, full-time or part-time, following a curriculum or going with the flow. This growing all-comers inclusivity around the term is also what we see reflected on the internet and social media.

Worldschooling is not something you sign up for. There’s no one to register with, no dogma or governing institution. There are many resources to help you design what worldschooling looks like for you and your family. We walk readers through many of them in our upcoming book, Wonder Year: A Guide to Long-Term Family Travel and Worldschooling.

What is Wonder Year?

A Wonder Year is a season of discovery. It is an experience of being in motion with your family and adopting a mindset of growth and curiosity. Not necessarily wedded to one year, the notion applies to any length of time–three weeks, three months or three years. For these reasons, it is also the name of our book.

Worldschooling is the educational foundation of a Wonder Year. Our belief is simply this—the world is a very good teacher, and the more interaction our children have with it through family travel, the more their hearts and intellect will open and grow. 

Wonder Year = long-term family travel + worldschooling

Finding favorite books at a market in Beijing

Can anyone do this?

You may not know this, but as a parent in the United States, you have the right to withdraw your child from traditional school and choose an alternative means to educate them. Some districts now have fully online options that you can do from anywhere. In most states, you will need to register your kids as homeschoolers. In some cases, you will need to record what you teach and how you teach it. But then you get to watch the magic unfold. What happens when your concept of education expands beyond the four walls of a classroom? What happens when you notice learning opportunities can be anywhere at any time? The world becomes your school. 

Changing his own flat on the Oregon coast

Won’t my kids fall behind if they don’t go to school?

By rolling into worldschooling, you are choosing to step forward and align yourself with the forefront of innovative educational models. Public and private schools are recognizing the value of travel as part of education. International Baccalaureate (IB) programs promote “intercultural understanding and respect…as an essential part of life in the 21st Century.” Leading universities encourage study abroad programs. Some people may say worldschooling lacks academic rigor, but the evidence will be clear when your kids return to traditional school from a Wonder Year with grit, confidence, and a global frame of reference.

What are some terms used in the worldschooling community?

• Homeschooling: learning at home rather than at a public or private institution    
• Worldschooling: learning through direct interaction with the world
• Roadschooling: a form of worldschooling that most often refers to domestic travel
• Nature schooling: using the natural world as the primary classroom; sometimes called forest schooling
• Gameschooling: a form of homeschooling that teaches concepts and skills through games like chess, cards, board games, and manipulative toys like Rubik’s Cubes  
• Unschooling: using students’ curiosities and interests instead of prescribed curricula to drive self-paced learning (more on this soon)
• Hybrid schooling: anything goes! a blend of any of the above

We hope these definitions and context help you enter the conversation and community. For a peek at what worldschooling can look like, check out our Fernweh Families posts in this blog. We hope they help inspire your own journey!

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