How one family is exploring the world while World Schooling their kids
Astrid runs The Wandering Daughter, a blog about approachable world travel for families. She’s travelling the world (currently in Mexico) with her husband and two children. We chatted to her about life on the road, and most importantly homeschooling their kids as they go. Astrid is a proponent of World Schooling, a version of homeschooling with a focus on the world around you, and incorporating experiences around you into learning.
Astrid, tell me about your family and your journey…
I’m a family travel writer. I write a blog called The Wandering Daughter, and we’ve been travelling full-time as a family since 2018. Before that we were living in Seattle, Washington in the US, but decided to rent out our house and travel around the world.
We initially planned to travel around 17 countries in 3 years, but have since decided to slow down a little bit, as well as dealing with the effects of the pandemic. Since 2018 we’ve travelled to Mexico, Costa Rica, France, Italy, Indonesia, Singapore, the Philippines and Vietnam. We were in Vietnam when COVID-19 started, and by May 2020 decided it was time to head home for a bit. Then in the New Year 2021 we headed down to Mexico again, where we’ve been ever since!
How old are the kids?
They’re 10 and 7. We started travelling with them when they were 8 and 5.
Do they get a say in where you travel to?
Definitely! When we were first planning our travel, we asked each of them 3 places they’d like to go. Our daughter said Italy, France and China and our son said Africa, New York, and the beach! We didn’t manage to get to China because of visa issues, so we asked our daughter if Vietnam was a suitable replacement for China and she agreed.
Carving masks in Bali
How do kids find the travelling?
It has its ups and downs, like everything. I always think back to the theory of the cultural adjustment curve – there are 4 stages to adjusting to a new place. The first is the honeymoon stage where everything is really exciting. Then there’s a crash, “Oh, I don’t want this”, then adjustment then acceptance. I see that happening with my kids.
It’s been really helpful for us to have a routine that we go through in each new place, so they can be familiar with the routine even if they’re not familiar with the new place.
“It’s been really helpful for us to have a routine that we go through in each new place, so they can be familiar with the routine even if they’re not familiar with the new place. ”
That applies to adults as well with travelling, there’s always an exciting phase, and then an “I just want to go home phase”.
Exactly. Because we’re slow travelling, we can space things out and don’t feel like we need to visit every site in a short period of time. We’re currently in Mérida for 40 days, so we have plenty of time to see some different cenotes and eat at the restaurants we want to visit, but we don’t have to cram everything in.
When families or friends join us, we really see the difference in how they want to see all the sights straight away – it’s very exhausting.
You’re a big proponent of World Schooling, as part of your homeschooling journey – tell me more about that.
There are a bunch of different definitions of World Schooling – some families believe that travel is integral to World Schooling, whereas others see it as a globally informed mindset when teaching kids. Personally, I think World Schooling is not about where you are but about how you’re using what is around you to inform your kids’ education. Anyone can World School if they’re considering how they fit into and relate to the world.
Visiting a farm in Bali
What does World Schooling look like for your family?
Although we’re homeschooling, I think of my daughter as approximately in 4th grade (Year 5 in UK) and my son as 1st grade (Year 2 in UK). We use the same content for both, but scaled in age. We use lots of YouTube videos because they’re accessible everywhere in the world. We watch lots of different educational channels for basic info about countries and we’re big fans of the Ted ED series on mythologies around the world.
I use eBooks from our online library back home in Seattle for lots of other information.
We do a lot of hikes and outdoor stuff. In Costa Rica we did a zipline canopy tour, which was very touristy, but it allowed us to learn about all the different levels of the canopy and the animals in the jungle and the jungle floor. There was also a lot of learning about sloths.
“ In Costa Rica we did a zipline canopy tour, which was very touristy, but it allowed us to learn about all the different levels of the canopy and the animals in the jungle and the jungle floor.”
I always try to think ahead about what experiences we might be having in a particular place and then tailor our learning to support that.
So, you can almost use the experiences as examples to fit into what you’re learning anyway…
Exactly. The maths and reading stays mostly the same across countries, but this approach gives us a focus for history, culture, geography and plenty of other subjects.
Snorkelling in Mexico
Do you learn languages as well?
We try to. Here in Mexico we enrolled the kids in a language class with other kids, but they ended up speaking English a lot of the time. Right now, we’ve been doing Duolingo with them. We did Indonesian classes when we were there, we had a private Indonesian teacher. I think my son was a little young, but at least he was being familiarised with the sounds. But my daughter got to the point where she was comfortable saying her name, asking for things and counting to 10.
Now we’re back in Mexico, and although the kids get a little nervous, they could both order “dos tacos, por favor!” if they need to.
Vietnamese was a lot tougher because it’s a tonal language, so we got the basics, but not much more. You just learn the basic words to get the basic needs covered.
In the DTK workbooks we try really hard to not shy away from talking about the “difficult” history or politics of a country – the stuff that some people avoid teaching kids about. Our philosophy is that kids can learn almost anything, so long as it’s presented to them in age appropriate language. Is there stuff that you come across in different countries that you shy away from, or how do you approach that issue?
We try not to shy away from teaching kids about those kinds of things. We were in the US this summer, during what was a pretty tumultuous time, with the anti-Black and now anti-Asian violence that’s happening. We talked to our kids a lot about that. We’re a blended family, so we have family members of all different races and ethnicities – it’s always been present in our family, and when you travel you see that even more and can acknowledge it.
We used the BLM movement as a jumping off point to talk about the history of slavery and then moved onto learning about Native American and indigenous history, pre-colonisation and how those cultures have been suppressed over the years. Obviously, I’m not going to go in-depth into some of the violent parts, but it’s important to acknowledge those parts of a country’s history.
Here in Mexico we’ve been learning about indigenous cultures, but we haven’t had a chance to get into Spanish colonization yet. We’ve noted how there are people who are more privileged than others and that inequalities exist in the world.
I think it’s really important for the parents to be educated about that stuff before they start talking about it with the kids too. I do wish there was more content to help parents with that.
“I think it’s really important for the parents to be educated about that stuff before they start talking about it with the kids too. I do wish there was more content to help parents with that. ”
Don’t worry, we’re planning a range of adult versions of DTK workbooks for some point in the future. Fewer wordsearches, but a bit more digging into the history and culture of countries in a readable way. What do your friends and family back in the US think about your approach?
They’ve been pretty supportive in general. I did the Peace Corps when I was younger, in Togo in West Africa. So lots of my friends and family expected it from us, that we would do something different. For some, it goes against the grain of what people are used to. People equate long term travel with young backpackers on an extended holiday. But we’re both working while we travel and the kids are “at school”.
The one thing which is sad is not being able to see family as much. The timing can be off sometimes.
What are common questions that you get asked about your lifestyle?
The first few questions are usually about money – “how do you guys afford it?” or “how can I work remotely?”. Then it’s practical stuff like “how do you manage schooling?”.
And you run this blog, the Wandering Daughter, how long has that been going?
I started it after I finished the Peace Corps, so around 2008, but at that point it was more of a personal diary/blog. Then in 2016 I rebranded it as a family travel blog. It’s something I was doing before we started travelling full-time, but now it’s informed a lot by the places we travel to. I’ll use it for showcasing the places we travel to, and helping other families to know what it’s like to travel full time and then also how they can be world-schooling families.
Hiking in Flores, Indonesia
If there was no pandemic, where would be your dream locations right now?
One of the places we want to go is Madagascar. My son is obsessed with aye-ayes, which are a type of lemur, and wants to go and see them there. It’s closed right now due to COVID but we’d love to go there.
There are a few places we’d love to go which are connected to our family ancestry. My dad used to live in Norway and my Mum lived in Australia, so we’d love to visit both places. My husband has some Irish ancestry, so we’d love to take a trip there too.
I’d love to take the family to some of the places I’ve been to. We are planning on going to Ghana and Zambia this summer, which are both places I’ve visited on my own. It would be great to take the kids to Togo as well, but we need to check how easy it will be in terms of visas.
I spent some time working in Kosovo and that’s actually where I came up with my daughter’s name, so I’d love to take her there and tell her about how she got her name. I love travelling to places which have personal meaning.
Yeah, the places that have additional meaning are fantastic. Or even just, we’ve learned about this thing, and we want to learn more. Like your son with the aye-aye in Madagascar – how cool is that? You say, I want to see aye-aye and your parents go “OK, let’s go”. He’s going to remember that so much more than a random trip to Canada, or wherever. It’s going to have so much more meaning for him.
Definitely. World Schooling has definitely given us an opportunity to spend much more time with each other. Being together 24/7 can be stressful sometimes, but you get so much better at communicating as a family. You get to understand your kids better, what triggers them, what makes them light up with excitement. It also helps you work out those things for yourself as well.
