The Birth of a Book
Will and I had started talking about an extended trip with our kids before we had kids. When I got serious about making the trip a reality–this trip of our dreams–most of my friends looked at me like I was crazy.
A few looked at me with envy.
I looked online for the guidebook that would help me plan, and I couldn’t find one. I found memoirs of families that had done something similar, but I wanted the equivalent of a Lonely Planet guide for a Wonder Year, the nuts and bolts for how to actually pull this thing off: from the finances, to marital challenges to lesson-planning. It wasn’t there.
I mentioned to an old high school friend that we were planning to do this. She told me that her friend had done something similar and shared her contact number with me. That was Angela, my coauthor. Over lunch one day, she gave me the details I needed, the assurance that I wasn’t crazy and planted the seed that life might look very different after we returned. She was inspiring, down to earth, and extremely helpful!
Julie Frieder and I had been friends since our kids were in preschool together. Her environmental integrity and zest for life have always made her one of my idols. When she shoved off for her year on the road, we were at the send-off gathering at the local park and we had a tour of the RV or “rig.” Her excitement and creativity in sculpting her domestic year gave me great ideas that I was planning to use in my own international year. I relied on her experience, knowledge and again, her permission that this idea wasn’t totally cuckoo.
And then when we returned from our year, I realized that this book–the book that I wish I’d had–needs to get out there. There are so many families who are dreaming of a Wonder Year, but don’t have an all-in-one resource to support pulling it off. If this book could help just one family make the commitment and leap into the world, then it would be worth it. So, in a casual conversation, the three of us said, “Let’s write the book we wish we had.” Collectively, we have four years of on-the-road experience, and decades of planning tools, that just might make your family travel go more smoothly and have greater purpose.
Families we know are craving connection: to each other, to the planet and to themselves. We want this book to be a catalyst for thinking of ways to make this happen, to carve some parentheses around the unconscious scripts we are living. We hope that you will worldschool or make the Wonder Year that works for you. We ask the questions to help you decide if you need time off. (Don’t we all?!?) We help you to get on the same page with your partner, children and extended family.
There may never be the perfect time to pack up your life and set off for adventure. All our kids are growing up. Like the Rolling Stones tell us, time waits for no one.
We hope Wonder Year speaks to you, or that it might be perfect to share with your friend, your sister, or nephew. We hope to give you the community and the book that will help you create your own wonderful adventure.
Join us.
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