Out in the World: Family Life on the Road

Your communication and decision-making skills will be put to good use during a worldschooling adventure. You may find that as a traveling family you adopt principles or rules and identify limits or green lights. We’ll talk about a few decisions you’ll want to make together, and share some insights about being a family out and about in the world.

Risk Tolerance

We all live somewhere on the risk-aversion to risk-seeking continuum, and traveling to new places may change your perception of, and relationship to, risk. Are you okay not knowing where you are going to sleep? Not knowing where you will find food? Not knowing if you have to go left or right when it’s getting dark and there are alligators, hyenas, and hill bandits out there? What if you are running out of gas or someone needs to go to the bathroom?

 

Risk tolerance is simply how much exposure to risk you are willing to handle in terms of where you venture, who you’re with, what you do, and who’s in charge, as well as physical activities and abilities. While you are traveling, you will need to make decisions, sometimes in the moment, that work for your whole team. You will need to sort out where you stand with your partner and family. If you are with friends or acquaintances, there will be more viewpoints to work through.

 

We invite you to test your risk tolerance, keeping in mind it’s probably not the same profile as that of everyone else you are with. Let’s drill down a bit to illustrate the concept. Say you meet a couple of families at a worldschooling summit and you get along well, so you plan to meet up again in the Philippines. One of the moms, a professional rock climber, organizes a canyoneering trip in the Kawasan Falls that will have you navigating water, cliffs, slots, ledges, and waterfalls. On your way from point A to point B, your adventure requires that you launch yourself off a cliff into a pool of water twenty feet below. Does your kid want to jump? Will you let them?

 

Matters of risk, coupled with cultural differences, can get even trickier. Here are two hypothetical scenarios to test your tolerance:

 

Scenario 1:

Your kids want to run down the street to a busy city market. There are a lot of people around. It’s 8:00 p.m. and dark outside. You want to give them some freedom, and trust they can get there and back safely.

 

Do you:

* Say yes and give them some extra cash with a request to bring you a chocolate bar?

* Say yes but watch them out the window the entire time?

* Say yes but sneakily follow forty feet behind?

* Say no, but your partner says yes?

 

Scenario 2:

You’ve arranged to rent motor scooters to travel around a small island in the Caribbean. You pay for your scooters, and then you walk to the shed to get them. No helmets!

 

Do you:

* Hop on and rev the engine?

* Politely ask the operator for helmets. They bring you a helmet, but the straps are all cut. Do you then:

     * Encourage your kid to hop on and tell them to do two thumbs-up so you can snap a photo?

     * Hop on with a frown?

     * Politely ask for your money back?

     * Emphatically ask for your money back?

 

While you don’t want to be the person who offends the locals and keeps the family from doing something fun, you also don’t want to expose your family to potential harm. We give you permission to be the adult in the room when you know it’s the right thing to do. When locals dismiss, laugh at, or are angered by your ways, here, too, you can hold your line.

 

Once you feel comfortable identifying and articulating your own feelings about risk, then it’s time to communicate within the family. Maybe you’ll decide to identify the lowest common threshold, meaning the place where you all feel safe, and that becomes your plan. Or you decide to do more research and education to work through fears and arrive at a compromise. Some families divide and conquer—those who want to do something adventurous can, and those who aren’t comfortable choose something different. Be sure to empower your children to speak up, especially if they are feeling scared or uncertain. The practice of honoring, supporting, and working through this exchange with your family can build individual confidence and lifelong family values.

 

If you are traveling with other families, good communication around risk can avoid awkward moments, discomfort, strained relationships, unsafe situations, or changes of plan. Give yourself the benefit of the doubt: understand what you are exposing you and your family to, and communicate these personal considerations before the point of no return. And when you decide to jump, be sure to make a big splash!

Travel Cadence

Travel cadence is the rhythm and speed of your journey. Some families aim to visit as many countries, states, or destinations as quickly as possible. Peripatetic parents, we salute you! Their beat matches their curiosity, and they would dance their way to the moon and back if they could. Others opt for depth over breadth as they settle in for weeks or months at a time.

 

Your cadence can be intentionally set by your trip itinerary, or it can modulate in response to your family’s energy levels, budget considerations, or new opportunities you may hear about en route. For some traveling families, it works great to have off days for moving about freely, and on days to do school. If you have a bucket list of destinations, your cadence may be zippier with shorter stays in each place. If there are countries you want to visit that are more expensive, you may choose to have a shorter stay in those places.

 

Some families get tired and want to slow down; they may need or want to work or enroll their children in a local school. Others simply find themselves in a place they love and want to stay for a while. In doing so, you can minimize your footprint, commit to volunteer work, reduce expenses, or participate in community service or cultural exchange. You can belong to a place.

Local Culture and Customs

Visiting new places may require some study and preparation. Families can learn together about a new country, state, or region—its Indigenous peoples, geography, inventions, art, food, and language. You can practice local greetings, customs, and courtesies. Your research can equip you with practical knowledge about a place while deepening your respect for local customs and beliefs; it can also serve as a great worldschool lesson.

 

For example, in many cultures elders are treated with reverence—they speak first, and they are served their food first. In some places pointing is rude, or looking someone in the eye is considered offensive. On the other hand, in some cultures, people are more direct in their communication, and you may hear things you might not at home. Annika was told outright she could not be the mother of her daughter Lucy because they are not the same race. People might openly comment on your appearance in ways you’re not used to hearing. It’s all part of noticing our cultural lens. Our friend Monica’s son, Ty, reflected, “The other ways people do things aren’t weird; they’re just different.”

 

Be prepared to have sensitive conversations with your children as they experience things that are new to them. Some families look for opportunities to examine racial and social dynamics wherever they visit because they want their children to have a deeper perspective of places, not just see the sites. Getting out there, meeting new people, and having conversations can be profoundly enriching for everyone.

Privilege

Resource disparity and injustice exist everywhere. Many kids have a heightened sense of fairness and tend to notice the inequities around them. Traveling brings these realities to light and provides an opportunity for families to grapple with them in real time. How ready are you to talk about power and privilege? Revisit the ideas in “A Conversation on Inclusivity” in this blog 1 to weave these topics into your family’s ongoing dialogue.

 

Worldschooling, by definition, is going into the world to learn and connect. Some worldschoolers have been criticized for the privilege of being able to move relatively freely while others cannot. They are aware of the tension between using, but not exploiting, that privilege to better understand their place in the world. They also recognize that it might be easier to stay at home and leave the harder questions unexamined. Instead, worldschoolers make the choice to travel, learn about complex issues, engage in meaningful relationships, and build creative solutions.

 

Toward the end of her year, one worldschooling parent said, “Traveling gave my kids an understanding that the existing power structure treats so many people unfairly, and it has motivated them to make a difference. And for me, interacting directly with other cultures throughout the year exposed my own biases. If these are the things we come to understand over the course of the year, we can consider it our most important lesson learned.”

Giving and Receiving

At its best, travel is an exchange—of ideas, culture, language, and work—and there’s a place for both giving and receiving. We hear from some traveling parents that they feel they are taking and consuming more than they are contributing or connecting, and they feel a need to recalibrate their priorities.

 

Maybe your Wonder Year can be a time to examine your impact, participate locally, or spend time in places that are not just tourist destinations. You could look for opportunities to apply your professional or vocational skills in the service of communities you visit. Perhaps you could support a school by tutoring English or math or donating sporting equipment.

 

In some cultures, the actual exchange of gifts is a significant gesture and a thoughtful way to show your gratitude in a culturally fitting manner. Many families carry with them small thank-you gifts or handmade cards to share with hosts and new friends. Among our families, we brought inflatable globes and beach balls, deflated soccer balls with a small air pump, handwritten thank-you cards, notebooks, and art supplies to leave as gifts.

 

It takes composure and grace to receive. Maybe you’ll be invited for a meal in a local family’s home. Or, on a hot day with a tired kid, passersby might offer a cold beverage and a shaded bench. The more open and attentive we can be, the more we can find contentment in each moment. Savor these encounters. Let yourself give and receive gifts of the road.

Celebrations and Milestones

Speaking of gift giving and local traditions, you’ll likely want to hold on to some customs from home, too. Family traditions and celebrations can provide grounding during a year that may otherwise feel uprooted. These celebrations can take on a new and elevated significance when honored from afar. Do not underestimate how much your kids will love having the tooth fairy visit them in Zambia! No joke.

 

It can be disappointing to miss celebrations back home, but there are many things you can do to acknowledge special moments and create new rituals. For example, you might pack some birthday candles for the RV or an Elf on the Shelf for your Vrbo rental. If you celebrate Christmas, you might find a fabric store and sew your own stockings with felt. We all learned how to host virtual meetings during the pandemic, so virtual birthday parties with games and laughter can be a fun option. You could Zoom into your cousin’s b-mitzvah or create a video or audio recording to be shared with the folks back home. Think small luggage space and big impact, and be spontaneous on the road.

 

One worldschooling family spent Halloween night at an airport hotel with adjoining rooms in Guangzhou, China. The kids were devastated to miss out on their favorite holiday. So, their parents bought bags of cool Chinese candies, and the kids had to create as many costumes as possible from what was in their combined luggage. After each outfit change, the kids would stand on one side of the connecting hotel-room door, knock, and yell “Trick or treat!” Their parents would open the door and give them their candy.

 

Academic or extracurricular milestones can also be cleverly celebrated. A visa photo or a US Junior Ranger headshot can stand in for school pictures. Completion of third-grade math or their last day of schoolwork could culminate with a meal of the kid’s choosing or a splurge event. With a little forward planning and on-the-go creativity, you’ll have a new collection of meaningful and travel-inspired festivities.

Roadblocks and Detours

No matter how much planning, communicating, and going with the flow you muster, extended travel may not go well for everyone all the time. The mental, emotional, and physical transitions take time, and you may need to get past early jitters and a rocky start. People may adjust at different rates, too. We’ll briefly share some remedies and strategies for coping, and we encourage you to hang in there. It can be challenging as you confront homesickness, burnout, or just not finding your groove.

Homesickness

We are all likely to miss people dear to us, favorite places, beloved activities, and the familiarity of the lives we left. Kids are sensitive, and homesickness can show up as sadness or in unexpected ways such as disrupted moods and sleep, unusual behavior, or even physical ailments. It will typically pass, but know that a tummy ache might not be caused by something they ate.

 

Redirecting attention to a favorite book or card game, taking part in physical activity, and providing tenderness can ordinarily remedy a bout of homesickness. Accentuating the positives of your time away can also help bring a new perspective. Perhaps the most effective remedies to homesickness are time, connecting with loved ones back home virtually or in person, and making new friends as you travel.

Burnout

Another bump in the road might be burnout. Yup, sometimes you need a vacation from your Wonder Year. Many traveling families hit a wall of exhaustion, loss of inventiveness, or just get sick of all the togetherness. Like any endurance event, there are peaks and valleys both physically and mentally.

 

Practice self-care especially through these times. Take a week or two off of planning and moving about, and make some time to chill. Or hunker down in a place you love and rent an Airbnb for a month or more. Establish simple routines. Spend some time with your hobbies or look for short-term employment or volunteer opportunities. Most likely you’ll get a second wind if you can hang in there.

When You Just Can’t Find Your Groove

But what if that second wind never comes? Sometimes family dynamics are too rough to navigate, stress goes up, or parents know their kids aren’t thriving. Sometimes there are real budget shortfalls or medical problems. The visit from Grandma did not help; your week at the beach did not help.

 

If the stress on the family is too intense, it’s okay to explore other options, including cutting your trip short and returning home. It happens, and we know families who wrapped up early. And who’s to say that a six-month Wonder Year is any less valuable than a sixteen-month one? The contingency plan you put in place before you left exists for these reasons. 

 

There, we said it and you read it. So, tuck this conversation away in the bottom of a duffel bag, but know it’s there if you need it. If the flip-flop were on the other sandy foot, we would have wanted you to give us a heads-up, too.