Image by Soultravelers3
One of the things we hope to convey with this site is the fact that there is no single *best* way to be location independent parents, travel the world nor educate your child. We all choose to do different things, based upon what works for each of us. So with that in mind, we have interviewed a wide range of location independent parents (of all types – nomadic or not) to demonstrate this!
We also have found it useful to be able to point to others living this lifestyle, when faced with questions and challenges from friends and family – so with this series, we’re hoping to give you plenty of social proof for this very purpose!
In the first of these interviews, we feature Soultravelers3 – a family of 3 who travel full-time around the globe together…
What type of location independent parent are you? Please give us a brief overview of what you do & how it allows you to be location independent.
We are a digital nomadic family on an open-ended world tour. Since 2006 we have traveled over 175,000 miles to 32 countries on 4 continents so far.
We use every mode of transportation from camels to cargo ship and stay in many places from 5 star hotels to pensions, but our primary mode is slow, green, frugal travel via small motorhome for 6 or 7 months of good weather and then wintering in a lux but cheap rental home in a warm location. Thus far it has been the same beautiful white village in Southern Spain where our daughter goes to the local school in her 2nd language (1st thru 4th grade), but next winter it will be in Malaysia where our daughter will immerse in Mandarin.
Please give us an overview of the benefits you feel that being location independent brings to you & your family?
There are so many…including:
- Greater bonding as a family
- More time together
- Best possible education for our child as a 21st century global citizen
- We can travel the world MUCH cheaper than living at home
- Wonderful shared experiences
- Meeting amazing people
- Seeing and experiencing untold beauty of this earth
- Total freedom
- Living the dream
What about schooling? How do you do it on the road?
We homeschool all year round in English. We have it down to a science on the move, an easy habit like brushing teeth, so it only takes an hour or two a day for basic work & we can carry homeschool supplies with us even when we go off for months of travel with just a small day pack each. Our child is doing school work many years ahead of age peers in school.
It truly is much easier than most people realize and a perfect combination with travel. We find that we can get much more education out of much less time put into it. Life as a family global field trip is an awesome education!
We homeschool a small amount daily at her level in English all year round and also use the local school in Spain for 5/6 months out of the year for deep immersion into her 2nd language, literature & culture. Next year she will start immersing in Mandarin in Malaysia while she is still young enough for her brain to be more open to learning languages.
Immersing in a language deeply allows one to immerse more deeply into a culture and the literature. Based on demographics, we think knowing Mandarin Chinese and Spanish well will be assets to our child’s future, so we started exposure while she was in the womb. We personally find that going to a local school and living in an area where the language is dominant is one of the best possible & easiest ways to learn a language.
Much of our daughter’s homeschooling is done through her reading – books are and always have been the mainstay of our homeschooling. Raise a reader and life becomes easy because they learn so much on their own just having fun!
Our basics for on-the-road homeschool is Singapore Math, books geared to the travel we do such as historical fiction, Core Knowlege series, Brain pop, Educational CD’s like Zoombini’s, Mathra, Zoo Tycoon, Storybook Weaver etc. plus journal-ing every day, book reports, lots of discussion, games, violin & piano practice, story of the world at bedtime…plus legos & snap circuit!
We also do her piano lessons via skype webcam from a teacher on another continent and do classes with John Hopkin’s University CTY program online and other online opportunities. She has her own laptop so does some of her homeschool on that with fun educational programs, digital libraries ( our home libraries in Santa Cruz & San Jose have huge amounts available for kids) and more.
What fears did you have before you hit the road, that turned out to be unfounded?
We were primarily worried about the following:
- Not having enough space, things
- Costs
- That we might not like it
- That it would be hard
- That we’d get homesick
- We’d miss our home and stuff
- That it might be a scary (crime, bad medical care etc.
Any fears that materialised? And if so, how did you overcome these challenges?
None of the above, but we have run into some challenges…such as having enough English books for our child who is a voracious reader. We have found ways around that and still spend considerable time in book stores and libraries where ever we roam, but the opportunities are quite different with this lifestyle. I am a big believer in “if there is a will there is a way” so we do our best to make the most of what we do have and stay open to out of the box solutions. We focus on classics & do lots of re-reading and use digital libraries. Perhaps at one point we will get a kindle or similar thing.
Music lessons have been much more challenging than at home. We were also spoiled by a fantastic musical community with superb teachers and our child would probably be more advanced at violin and playing in the orchestra now if we had stayed. Our child plays both violin and piano (we take these instruments traveling the world with us). We have met the challenge by keeping up with daily practice and we have found an extraordinary teacher who teaches piano and music theory online. We’ve had a harder time finding a consistent violin teacher, but we’re trying a new one online this year.
We were warned by others that we would find bad dental and medical care in Europe, so we had some worries about that before leaving. We found that the opposite was true and we have gotten excellent dental and medical care (including extensive dental work as well as hospitalization, surgery, ambulances & physical therapy) at very low prices (much lower than our home country for equal to better care).
If your primary source of income to fund your travels isn’t from online ventures, how do you finance your travels?
We fund our travels primarily by investments. We have always been frugal savers and investors that enjoy living large beneath our means & we sold our dream home, vineyard and all possessions in California in 2005 and mostly got out of the dollar in 2004/5 as we try to be ahead of and take advantage of coming trends like the current recession.
We rely primarily on investments but have created a popular website and youtube channel about our travels and experiences. We live large on just over 600 dollars a month each and are in the process of writing several books about our experiences…all of which allow us to travel the world indefinitely and live a location independent life!
What are your top 3 tips for parents or soon-to-be parents wanting to be location independent?
When I read this I was convinced that the universe had led me to this blog on this particular day. I have been travelling around the globe with my daughter now for almost a year but have been getting more and more resistance from family as she is turning 5 years old soon and they want me to settle down and put her in a traditional school.
This article has proved to me what I felt all along, that the travelling and experiences we have had together this past year is contributing so much more for her education and that homeschooling her will NOT put her behind her peers at all.
Yeyyy!
Thank you for this,
warm regards and enjoy Malaysia, its an absolutely beautiful, awe- inspiring country with warm hearted people where the different cultures and religions live peacefully alongside each other, something many other countries could learn a hearty lesson from!