Instagram and Facebook shouts the beauty and glory of travel. I see these all the time, I am in FB groups where families regularly spend weeks or months exploring the globe.
I know families who travel domestically full time in RVs, and familie who join other traveling families and live communally for a few months at a time.
Why shake up the norm and uproot your kids to travel?
Do Vacations Matter?
When we talk about travel in my family, we are usually talking about vacations. 1-2 week trips within the US that we take when we have time off work.
Vacations are important for families. They create shared memories and they give your kids a taste of the world outside their neighborhood.
Consider researching the place you will be visiting before you go. This will not only increase anticipation, which reduces stress, but it also makes the trip more interesting for your family.
Did you take family vacations as a kid?
We drove 600 miles twice a year almost every year when we were younger. We were driving to see family and we almost never stopped anywhere except for a rest stop to go to the bathroom.
Even with that sorry excuse for a vacation, it still built a really strong family culture and memories that we still talk about often.
Vacations are worth it, and if you want my super simple road trip planning system you can find that information in these posts:
Best Formula for Road Trip Miles Per Day
The 2/2/2 Rule for Stress Free Travel
Epic Road Trip Planning (Month Long Trips)
East Coast Road Trip Planner (With Printable)
Can Families Travel Full Time?
This is a question for my friend Amanda, she has been traveling full time since she married James. James has been traveling full time with his large family for his whole life.
They live in RVs and they sing along the way to make money. It is a life like no other.
Families can travel full time.
Many artists find ways to support themselves on the road by traveling to festivals or by selling their products online.
You do not need to have a remote job to have a full time travel experience. You can save up and spend a year on the road with your family. I will never forget a blog post I read in my early 20s about a family that did just that. They planned carefully and put life on hold for a year to see the world with their kids.
There are many ways to do it. You could even plan to travel full time for a month, or three months. Set yourself up and try it.
We will probably never travel full time, we just don’t like it. We homeschool, so we have plenty of freedom to travel, but we like being home. We learned this by taking a month long road trip.
We are planning a 6 week trip for this summer, so we love longer term travel, but we don’t plan to travel full time.
Why do we need to travel?
We do not need to travel, but if travel is an option, I think we should opt in to a life that embraces travel.
We have not done very much lavish travel, we have done a lot of road trips to visit friends. That is the kind of travel we love.
We travel to connect with people.
Sometimes our trips are just to connect with each other, to see each other in a different light.
I will never forget talking to my friend Amber, they just lived differently. During lockdown when I was expressing my frustration about being stuck at home, she asked me why I wanted to leave.
I think there is an incredible power in contentment. Being comfortable with where you are right now. I think you can live a very happy life of self discipline and contentment and never travel.
My friend Amber and her family just moved cross country to experience a different life in a different part of the country.
I reflect on this conversation quite often and it just reminds me:
“There are as many ways to live as there are people in this world.”
Wise words from the film Harriet the Spy.
You can choose how your family lives. What is important to you, we will probably never be a full time traveling family, but we love to go on road trips to visit our friends. We will always like to visit family and friends in places we used to live.
This is travel too, even if it seems less exciting.
Should I take my kids out of school to travel?
So, if you are thinking about traveling with your family you may think you are limited to school vacations.
I work as a public school teacher and I homeschool my own children, so I think I have some authority to address this concern.
After 2020 there are so many different ways to “attend” public school.
If you would like to take a vacation during a normal school day, contact the school and see if there is a virtual option for your child to participate in school from home.
At some schools, virtual learning days are available to everyone. This would allow you to hit the road without missing a beat.
Be sure to complete any required work before returning to school.
Some schools require students to log in during the school day for virtual instruction, so be sure to ask if this is required and have an internet connection available if it is.
If you want to try an epic year of travel, consider homeschooling for a year and pack it full of travel and adventure.
When you homeschool you can make your own schedule. Plan to camp every weekend, take spring break in October and spend 3 weeks away at Christmas, or plan to do school 4 days a week year round.
You can find the textbooks the school is using and just go through them at home for a more seamless return to formal schooling, or take the year to do a less traditional school program and explore your student’s interests with Fun Schooling Journals.
There are hands-off online options that require more seat hours, but will allow you to get the same credit you would be getting in public school.
There are plenty of options for flexible schooling, I list eight options for roadschooling in the linked post.
