Feature photo: Focal Point Aid Photo: Lebeccio
Responsible parenting usually involves a stable home, a permanent job for one or both parents and a conventional education for the kids…or does it?
Travel can be hugely beneficial for kids.
Taking your kids traveling, even for a few weeks at a time, can expose them to a whole different culture and be a fantastic learning experience.
Ex-pat kids tend to grow up with a better understanding of foreign cultures and world geography, and are often multilingual.
Photo by Clairity
But kids living ex-pat lifestyles tend to stay in one place for a year or more at a time and often have access to exclusive private international schools.
At the other end of the spectrum, kids on a two week vacation with their parents will return to their stable home and school at the end of the trip.
But what if you, and your partner if you have one, simply want to keep up the globetrotting lifestyle you had before you had kids?
Can kids fit in to this lifestyle, and is it responsible of you to expect them to?
Extended travel is possible with a family in tow, and it can even be an enriching experience for everyone involved, whether you’re traveling for a set period or embarking on a truly open-ended trip.
Kids are always finding excitement in everyday activities.
I’ve heard it said that kids need a routine, but I’m not entirely sure that’s true. Often it’s adults that need a routine, and usually we find one fairly quickly, even when we’re traveling.
How many of us have got into the habit of an early morning coffee in a particular café, for example, even if we are only in a specific place for a month, or even a week?
Kids will find their own mini-routines as well, or more likely, help their parents stay out of them.
Kids are always finding excitement in everyday activities. Just as you get settled into that morning coffee routine, they’ll notice that the café across the street has a giant chess set, or a gumball machine, or a pet parrot, and you’ll have to change to a new place.
Of course kids have to go to school don’t they?
Well, no actually, legally kids have to be educated, not necessarily schooled.
That’s why home schooling is a legal option in countries all over the world, and why many home schooling parents actually prefer the term home education.
Photo by Ben Zvan
Educating your kids while you travel is feasible, and easier than you might imagine.
To feel comfortable keeping your kids out of the formal education system (or taking them out if they are at an age where they’re already in school) it helps to first re-define exactly what we mean by education.
My personal definition of education is the acquisition of knowledge, preferably knowledge that will be useful in everyday life.
In my opinion it’s not necessary, or even desirable, to acquire all of this knowledge by sitting down to a classroom based set of lessons each day.
Kids on the road learn naturally.
They learn about physical and human geography, world history, religion (although not just the dominant one in their country of birth), wildlife, nature, environmental issues, campcraft, cooking, art and science.
They also learn manners, tolerance, and respect for other cultures. They learn to make friends, and say goodbye.
They learn foreign languages, and how to communicate with someone when you don’t have a single word of formal language in common.
They learn budgeting and the value of money, and that if you run out of money you may have to make base camp somewhere while mom or dad works for a while.
They learn that one of the most pleasurable and satisfying things you can do is not “acquire more stuff”, but “learn new things”.
How you choose to educate your kids while on the road will depend on your plans for the future.
Of course you want them to have the advantages of being literate and numerate, but whether they need the advantages of reading the entire works of Shakespeare and understanding advanced calculus, only you can decide.
Photo by Focal Point Aid
If they are returning to formal education at a later date I can’t guarantee your “home schooled on the road” kids will know everything their classmates do. I can only guarantee they will know an awful lot of stuff that their peers don’t.
On a planet where world leaders send troops and weapons to places they can’t find on a map, your child will at least know the layout of the world, not to mention a little about the everyday lives of people who live outside their own country, culture and political system.
If you’re cradling your new born baby, or even waving your grade schooler off onto the school bus, and you think your days of long-term travel are over, you may want to think again.
What could be irresponsible about raising informed world citizens who recognize just how interconnected we all are?
Community Connection
The Matador community believes in the educational power of engaged travel. For more, check out the following articles:
Why Travel as a Teenager is the Best Education
Youth Travel Programs are Vital to our Security
How to Raise Successful Kids While Living Overseas
To follow one family’s educational journey around the world with their kids, be sure to visit the inspiring Soul Travelers 3 website or visit their Matador profile.
If your a parent of high-school age children who believes in the educational value of travel, check out the youth travel programs offered by Where There Be Dragons.
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15 Comments... join the discussion!
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As an avid, multilingual traveler, former ex-pat kid (parents in the foreign service), and father of 5 boys, your article resonates hugely with me. I had so many wonderful experiences growing up all over the world, and truly consider myself a global citizen. That said, I also believe that kids DO need roots. Fabulous to be able to relate to cultures around the world, but at the end of the day, you need a place (with all its unique customs and routine) to call home. Without this stability, you may not necessarily be adrift, but certainly lacking a home port. I have found that a great way to get the best of both worlds is the self-imposed sabbatical – an opportunity to have an extended stay in one place (or many), get a true sense of living the region, and returning home all the better for it.
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Thanks for your thoughtful comment, Evan. Sounds like you really speak from experience.
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Great ideas, Karen – I’ve been saying this all along to my cousins but they too feel the need for routine and stability.
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I actually got chills while reading this—how rare to find an article on unconventional parenting that you so truly, deeply agree with! I myself dropped out of high school at 15 to travel and experience the world firsthand, much to my parent’s chagrin, for sure. Later, I returned to college (when *I* was ready) and just graduated this month from a top public university— without a HS diploma, GED, SAT’s, or any of that typical nonsense! My only regret is that I didn’t drop out earlier! Brilliant work, Karen!
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You make some great points Evan. As I mention on my profile my kids have British passports, Spanish birth certificates and (temporary) Canadian residence. It’s true that they also have somewhat confused identities (the question ‘where are you from?’ can really throw them). I do sometimes worry a bit about their ‘lack of a home port’ as you put it, but they are incredibly well-adapted, knowledgable about the world, bi-lingual and happy so I can’t get too concerned about it!
Hal, you might want to check out http://homeschooling.gomilpitas.com/weblinks/traveling.htm
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Great resource, thanks!
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Have any of you watched Surfwise? About the Paskowitz surfing family (parents + 9 children) who traveled and lived in a small camper:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLrx_QSd44E
It’s a bit to the extreme, and although the adult children seem pretty well adjusted, I got the sense there were things they regretted. But as they said, they wouldn’t trade their upbringing for the world.
Great article…my wife and I still haven’t decided on the kids question yet, but surely if we do have any they’d be on the road with us! And home schooled.
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I’ve read about the surf family – haven’t seen the documentary yet though!
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I’d heard of those guys before but never watched Surfwise. Just looked at the YouTube clip. Amazing. The Dad’s last words in the clip are stuck in my head – “Wisdom is what you get through experience and that’s what my children had a lot of.” No kidding!! Thanks for sharing that, Carlo.
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My pleasure. It’s an amazing and inspiring story. For anyone who says they can’t travel with one or two kids, this will surely prove them wrong!
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I totally resonate with everything you wrote. My husband and I live an international lifestyle with our four small children that started when our oldest was four and the youngest was 2 months. We home educate them, but there is so much that they just pick up by being abroad that they wouldn’t get at ‘home.’
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Thanks so much for mentioning us! We were busy traveling when this came out, so I’m just now finding it as we settle down in “our” tiny, ancient white village in Andalusia, Spain for our 4th winter.
(Coming back to this same small village every winter so far where my daughter attends the local school in Spanish…while also continuing her year round studies in English…is one way we provide a consistency for our child. Next year it will be Malaysia for winters we think, where she can immerse deeply in her 3rd language Mandarin).
I couldn’t agree more about the tremendous educational value of long term travel with kids! We have been on an open ended world tour as a family since 2006 & our primary motivation was & is to educate our child and have more time together to bond as we slowly explore the world.
Our child was 5 when we started and just turned 9 – four continents, 32 countries & over 175,000 miles (most over land) later (with every conceivable mode of transportation & types of lodging) – and I can say that this has been the best possible education for our child ….better even than I imagined. PLUS, we can travel the world for MUCH less than live at home, even in “expensive” Europe.
The internet makes it possible today to work and school ANY where AND immerse deeply in a new culture while keeping up with friends, family and everything in one’s home culture.
This is a NEW paradigm, that no one has lived from childhood to adulthood yet, but I see it allowing all the great news of “third culture kids” with none of the bad. It’s nothing like the old one that meant expensive, difficult calls home or long delayed snail mail communications that would isolate one from the “home” culture. Nor does it have to mean expensive international schools.
Free Skype webcams has allowed my child to show grandparents missing teeth and latest drawings or art projects, giggle with cousins, aunts,uncles etc from both sides “live” on holidays like Thanksgiving or Xmas a continent away, share intimate friendships with old “best-friends” at home or new ones made on “the road”, she can enjoy the local school here with friends in Spanish or go to flamenco class or participate with them in traditional festivals and then talk about it later in English with friends and family at home (often with blog or youtube videos to show more details!), they can share exciting things in their lives in the same way…not to mention doing piano & violin lesson via Skype webcam with teachers on another continent, using home libraries with tons of digital books and taking classes online with kids from around the country with great resources like John Hopkins University’s CTY program, or doing service projects online like the thousands of disadvantage school kids that we took with us virtually from Harlem (& met) or those we met in person in Morocco. etc, etc, etc.
I grew up with lots of moving around and I think it was one of the best parts of my childhood ..I see every where as my home & wanted my child to experience that as it has served me so well and I think that kind of global knowledge, flexibility and adaptability is what 21st century global citizens will need …more than anything.
Yes, I DO agree roots are important for kids to a certain extent, but I think that can be achieved today, even with a traveling lifestyle!
One of the things we did when we went home for a visit after 2 1/2 years of travel, was have our child tested at barely 8. She tested MANY years ahead of her age peers…including high school level in many subjects. So not only do we see it being great for her and our family, but the top academic tests show that one can educationally thrive on travel, less than 2 hours a day formal schooling & few months of winter immersing in a local school (primarily for friends, routine and language/literature immersion)!
She will also have no problem finding her way on any of the worlds subway or bus systems, cargo ships, country to country ferries, planes or local markets or hyper-markets around the world!
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I see that you are using 2 of my photo’s. Could you please properly credit them as “Focal Point Aid/Joe Mckay” instead of Lebeccio.
As all rights are reserved on these photographs I am not requesting that they be removed just properly credited.
In the future I would appreciate being contacted concerning such use. One of these photographs is very important to the organization Focal Point Aid (www.focalpointaid.org). The close up shot of the young girl was taken in Coffee Bay, South Africa while she was attending school. Focal Point Aid is currently raising funds to improve the conditions of her school and others like it in the Eastern Cape of South Africa.
Thank You
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I love your article! We have been traveling with our children since they were 4, 3, 2, and 2 months (they are now 7, 5, 4 and 3).
They are accustomed to moving, and they love it! Their favorite game to play is ‘World Traveler’, and are always off to exotic places like China and Alaska.
Before our youngest was one she had been to Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama (as well as the U.S.). We’ve also lived in the Dominican Republic. Next week we move to India.
Traveling as a family has added immeasurable value to our lives. It’s developed character in my children and myself. We couldn’t imagine living any other way.
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