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My husband and I took our 2 kids traveling full time for 6 ½ years. This is how we homeschooled them.
20.11.2023 - 11:17 / insider.com
This as-told-to essay is based on a transcribed conversation with Alyson Long, 57, about traveling full time with her family for several years. The following has been edited for length and clarity.
I've always loved travel. I was born and raised in Wales, and I met my Australian husband, James, while traveling in Egypt.
I moved to London, where he was working, to be with him, and we saved up and did a 12-month around-the-world trip in 2001. We loved the lifestyle and the experience.
After having two sons, we moved to Australia and stayed in a remote town called Port Douglas.
Everything was lovely at first, but I wanted my kids to have the experiences that they'd had previously in London, such as going to the big museums.
We pulled my oldest son out of school when he was 6 and decided to homeschool him. We observed that he was learning from his experiences and what was around him.
We'd done some traveling already and it was great for us, so we thought it would be great for the kids.
My husband was an executive chef at a five-star hotel at the time, and a chef's hours prevent a robust social life if you have a family. The kids were missing out on him, and he was missing out on them. I wanted all of us to spend more time together.
We decided to pack up everything to go off and travel. We started saving like crazy. We amassed 30,000 Australian dollars within 12 months and left in 2013.
We spent our savings easily in one year. My husband then did some work in London to top up the travel fund. At that point, I had set up my travel website. It got much bigger than I'd ever imagined and was our funding after the first few years, through advertising revenue, plus more from affiliate sales.
We managed to keep traveling for about 6 ½ years. We started in Southeast Asia, moved on through South Asia, went into Europe, and crossed to North and Central America. We then headed back to Europe and took a few trips into North Africa. We spent the most time in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and South Asia.
We returned to Australia practically the minute COVID-19 hit and the borders swung shut.
We still travel a lot, but we now have a home base in the Port Douglas hinterlands, where we've got a farm.
Our travels were very unplanned. We'd book a ticket and see whether we liked the destination. If we were having a good time, we'd stay a bit longer. If not, we'd go somewhere else.
The kids got interested in ancient Egypt, so we had to go there, of course. One of them is fascinated by ancient Greece. He was our tour guide there.
When it came to homeschooling the kids, there often wasn't a routine because the days were always different.
We often traveled actively, catching buses or planes, hiking up mountains, and moving
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