Hello, everyone!
Here’s another episode of #FamiliesOutside and today we are interviewing Alyson from World Travel Family.
Alyson and her family started out traveling part time but eventually decided to go full throttle. They currently homeschool their two boys while they travel the world. This is definitely the dream life I wish to have.
1. Give us a short background of your family.
We are an Australian/British hybrid family, we have two boys now aged 8 and 11. We’ve lived in London and Australia previously, but now we travel full time and have done for the last 2 years. Mum (Alyson, that’s me) was a hospital biomedical scientist before quitting to raise the children, I am now the owner of three websites and I make an income online. Dad ( James) is a Chef and now only has to work for a few months of the year.
2. Do you travel full time or part time? When did you start and why?
We were relatively normal until June 2013. Until then we’d only take 2-3 week holidays with the children, visiting places such as Thailand, Bali and Florida from our homes in Australia and the UK. When the boys turned 6 and 8 we sold our possessions and took off to travel full time with them. We’ve been living this amazing life for just over 2 years now.
Why? Well, why not? We thought it would be fun, give us more time together and be a fabulous part of their educations. We already knew that we loved full time travel, Chef and I had taken a 12 month RTW before the kids were born. The boys were homeschooled already and we knew that travel was cheaper than paying bills and a mortgage, so there was nothing stopping us.
3. How do you afford to travel as a family? Do you also work on the road?
This evolves over time. For our first year we used savings, we have posts on the blog about what that first year cost. These days Chef is working part of the year in London. As time goes on our income from the blogs is growing, we hope to become fully location independent in time.
We are about to buy a house in Europe to use as a base, that will give us somewhere to live with almost no bills, whenever we need to stop.
4. How do you plan out your trips (and for full time travelers, are you always out or do you have days where you just stay in)? Do you particularly choose those “family-friendly” or “kid-friendly” destinations or are you flexible and just simply adapt to the place?
We don’t plan anything, we just do what we feel like doing. Our travel normally comes about because of an amazing deal on flights, a chance invitation or just a whim.
Everywhere is “kid friendly” we just spent a month in India, not many people would consdider that “kid friendy” but there are facilities for children and other children who use them, wherever you go. My boys favourite countries have ben India and Sri Lanka for all the fun we had in the surf and Florida for Disney, of course!
We rarely “just stay in” because we eat out 3 times a day in most countries. But yes, we live a normal life on the road, you can’t rush about sight-seeing every day, that quickly gets old, we just enjoy exploring and discovering the things around us. Some days are taken up with laundry, school work , planning or online work. We’re not on “holiday” as such.
5. What is that one item you can never travel without when you are with kids?
My laptop. With kids or without, it’s just essential. It’s what we use for planning, booking, education, work and entertainment. I’d never leave home without it.
6. There are varied opinions when it comes to learning while traveling VS. formal schooling. What is your stand on this? Does travelling really give an advantage to your kid’s education, based on experience?
You need to understand that we are providing an education outside the school system. Most travelling families don’t adhere to school curriculum, nor are their children working towards the normal school exams in their home countries. We’ve opted out of that. If you mean education in that context, as measured by school style academic success, I don’t know, we’re not a part of that.
But I do know that kids outside of the school system learn a lot more than is on any curriculum, I’ve read them and studied them, I used to have to for our homeschool registration in Australia, they learn so much more when they’re not confined to a classroom.
A teacher friend said to me recently that our style of learning is what classroom learning tries to create, and mostly fails to achieve.
It’s learning at source, not from books, that’s the difference.
My eldest would be starting high school next year so we’re looking at the British iGCSE system, designed for kids who don’t go to school to sit GCSE exams. He can do those if he chooses, with absolutely no need to ever go to school. It’s up to him, he can take a few or not, all they have to do is learn a slim volume of course work and turn up for the exams. There is no need for children to spend years and years in school, at all.
7. What advice would you give to families who want to start out a traveling lifestyle?
The simple advice is just do it, there is nothing stopping you. Our lives are changed beyond measure, we are free and that’s a wonderful feeling. But I would suggest that they make very sure that a travelling lifestyle is what they really want before they sell everything, maybe try a shorter trial run trip first and certainly start homeschooling and get used to how that works for their family.
8. Where else can we guys read about your family adventures?
We blog at World Travel Family, World Travel Chef and Homeschool Group Hug. The second two sites are still small, we struggle to find time for them
Follow Alyson and her family at:
Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Pinterest
Happy Travels!
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#FamiliesOutside is an interview series to help encourage families to go out and explore places, near or far. Bi-monthly, we feature families who love travelling – full-time or part-time – or who simply love including the outdoors in their daily activities.
Always impressed with World Travel Family. I love following all the adventures and taking in the countries from the comfort of my computer until we get the chance to do the same again ourselves when the time is right for us. In the meantime, we love homeschooling and living life however we choose and we have the added bonus of learning about all these countries from World Travel Family.
Same here — on the part that we can’t leave things and travel just yet. But we definitely are doing some small steps to get us closer to that goal. Families such as World Travel Family is truly an inspiration to us all.
I’ve been following along since before Alyson and her family left Australia. As she advises, I think it’s a good idea to perhaps try a month long family trip before selling or renting out your house. My parents took us to live in Mexico for a year ( from the US) when I was 9 and my sisters were 7 and 4. However, that was in 1963—no Internet. We went to 2 schools, but because of language issues didn’t learn anything substantive there. However, as Alyson asserts, we learned a lot by osmosis and were able to return to our proper grade levels upon our return to the US after the year. The experience also sparked a wanderlust that has taken me around the world since.
Wow — we really take inspiration from people who have been there. We are taking baby steps for now but hope that our small, young family will get there soon. Thank you for inspiring us!
Hi there! Thanks for interviewing us!
It’s come out great.
I feel I should ad that we did by that house, in Romania, our next project is a big refurbishment to create a bill-free eco friendly base to use between travels. More about that on the blog.
I’m happy to answer any questions anyone has.The last 2.5 years have been A-mazing!
Thank you for gracing the interview, Alyson! We hope to follow in your family’s footsteps soonest! 🙂