Island Parent Submission #2: Trip around the world: getting into the nitty gritty

travel

This is being submitted to Island Parent for publishing.


Last time I wrote, I let you peek inside the realm of what it takes to go on a trip around the world. I’m going to break down some of the bigger topics like money, world schooling and what to do with your home.

Money

How much money does one actually need to travel the world? My husband, Luc, created a spreadsheet that had the daily cost to budget when travelling to different countries. Estimate how long you will be in each country and multiply that by the daily cost and that will give you an estimate. Lonely Planet is a great resource to find out how much the daily costs are in certain countries.

Slow travel is something to look into. Not only is it cheaper, it also integrates you more into the daily life and culture of a country. You no longer are visiting somewhere, you’re living in it.

Airplanes/trains/boats are expensive! Look for credit cards that give you cash back, or where you can redeem points for travel. We got a credit card that had a big signing bonus of points and we were able to travel from Victoria and New York for a family of 4 for approx $75 (one way).

Look for places you can stay for cheap or free. We’re staying in a studio apartment that Luc’s dad owns in the South of France. We also will be living with them for 4 months in Switzerland (big savings!). You can’t go wrong with Airbnb either.

Sell your stuff. Start as soon as you commit to travelling. All that money adds up!

Schooling

I was surprised when we talked to our principal of Violette’s elementary school how easy it is to pull your child from our school district. I believe Violette will be transferrer to SIDES (South Island Distance Education School) while she is away so we can take advantage of any long distance resources we might need.

I am definitely not an expert by any means on world schooling and there are many different terms when it comes to this: unschooling, home schooling, world schooling… the list goes on. I don’t believe there is a strict way we will be doing this. I also believe that it really depends on the age of your kids too. It’s quite different if your child is in grade 2 versus grade 10.

How we will be doing it is going to be a combination. We will teach a lot by doing, interests, visiting museums, asking lots of questions, using our 5 senses, learning in the moment and observing different environments. I’m looking forward to opportunities to learn about nature, different money, patterns, reading, being curious and finding the answers. We will look into khanacademy.org, SIDES distance learning and the BC curriculum to support us. We will bring electronic books and try to find libraries where we can.

The world will be our classroom to learn!

Your home

What to do with your home? If you rent, consider ending the tenancy or subletting if that’s allowed. If you own, now comes the big decision of what to do. Do you sell or keep? If you keep it, do you rent it out? Who looks after the property. I’m not going to lie, this part of the puzzle has been the most challenging for us. We have changed our minds so much on this, I actually thought that we weren’t going to go because this part was just to hard to figure out.

We decided to rent out our house and we’ve enlisted one of our friends to “property manage” the place while we’re away. Currently, we’re getting the place ready fixing, cleaning, packing. If you can believe it, our ceiling and hot water tank both decided to start leaking in the same week. When it rains it pours. Luc continues to remind me that it’s better it’s happening now. Yes, and we still have so much to do!

We have also chosen to rent the suite fully furnished so that we don’t have to store our big belongings. This works for us.

This entire process has been a journey of learning, creating, being open to other opinions and ideas.

If you have a passion to travel and you have kids, a job, a house and feel like there’s no way you could even consider a trip around the world until you retire, I’m here to say, you can do it. All that’s stopping you is just the logistics of how to make it happen. It’s all possible – I promise.

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