Welcome back to the Wander Slow Family Travel Podcast. I'm Suzy, and if you caught our first episode, you'll know we're a family of four spending time in Colorado and the beautiful city of Sevilla Spain. Today, I want to take you a little deeper into our family story, the experiences that shaped our path to slow travel and how we're approaching our children's education with the spirit of adventure and immersion.

My own childhood was steeped in a love for books as the firstborn daughter of two librarians, but beyond the pages of books, my parents also prioritized travel. They were masters at finding economical ways to see the world, whether that was visiting friends and family in Germany that my mom kept in touch with from her study abroad time there in college, or utilizing the Servas host network where we stayed with local families.

I remember vividly my brother and I gallivanting up the Swiss Mountains with our Servas host family. My parents also helped me raise funds for educational school trips to London and Rome, and a swim trip to Australia and New Zealand, where we raced against local swim teams. We opened our home to exchange students like a French teen

we took backpacking and a Japanese woman who left me my very own kimono. These weren't just vacations, they were lessons in openness, cultural exchange and the incredible kindness of strangers, that early exposure to different ways of life, to being both a guest and a host, opened so many doors for me.

After studying nursing, my journey to the Air Force took me to California and Germany, and eventually a transformative backpacking trip through China, Nepal, and Southeast Asia. Each experience layered on new perspectives, a comfort with the unfamiliar and a growing desire for immersive experiences.

My husband, Mark, has a similar story etched into his upbringing. He grew up in Germany, but a high school exchange year in Colorado and made such an impact, in many amazing ways, that he decided to stay for his undergrad degree. Though he returned to Germany for a master's and even spent time working in China and studying in Mexico, that international thread was firmly woven.

So when Mark and I found each other in Colorado, our shared histories of travel and living abroad made it almost inevitable the travel would be a cornerstone of our life. One of our first big adventures as a couple was a multi-month exploration of South America after I finished my master's degree in public health. Living and studying Spanish in a Guatemalan home and dining late into the night with family friends in Buenos Aires solidified our love for deep dives into new cultures.

It felt like a no-brainer that we'd want to share this big, beautiful world with our children. But as many parents discover, traveling with littles is a whole different ballgame. Our first international trip with our eldest, who was just 14 months old at the time, was, well, let's just say it was a learning experience.

Despite the fancy airport bassinet, he barely slept. The jet lag clung to him for days and the honest truth, he really did not care one bit whether he was in a new country or his own crib. We made precious memories with families, absolutely. But it was a clear sign that the fast travel model, trying to see and do a lot in a short period of time just was not going to work for us with young children, the pandemic pressed the global pause button on travel for everyone.

But as things began to open up, we felt that itch again. In 2022, we embarked on what we called our test run trip, a two month slow road trip through the Canadian Rockies. This was our chance to see how Mark's remote work would function on the go, what it required to rent out our Denver home, and to truly dip our toes into the waters of slow travel.

What we learned was invaluable, primarily that even a week or two in each location still felt like it was too rush for us. We wanted more time to settle, to connect, to just be. This realization helped us create our broader travel philosophy. While we truly believe there's value in all kinds of travel,

even short tourist focus trips can bring immense personal joy and vital economic benefits to communities, but we also felt a pull to dive deeper. We want to increase our awareness of issues like overt tourism and how our choices as travelers can impact local environments and the world.

For us, this means valuing slowing down over trying to fit everything in. It means choosing to explore closer to home when time is short. And saving those far-flung dream destinations for when we can spend more time truly immersing ourselves. It's about looking for ways to build genuine community connections and perhaps even give back.

It's not just about ticking off all the Instagram worthy sites, but also about discovering those lesser known gems that might not have made it into every guidebook. Ultimately, we welcome making travel choices consciously. Whether that means celebrating world cultures at events in your own hometown, purchasing carbon offsets for flights, seeking out local embedded tourist organizations, or exploring world schooling options that are embedded within a community.

Again, we welcome all travel stories while also taking into account our impact. This brings me back to 2023 when we decided to take an even bigger leap. Living abroad with a primary focus on language learning.

Our boys were already picking up German from Mark, but we knew that true fluency thrives on immersion, something that's hard to fully achieve when you're primarily speaking English at home and in your community. We also felt passionate about Spanish. It's such a vibrant global language, incredibly prevalent in the US and spoken across so many fascinating countries.

With Mark and the kids holding EU passports, Spain was in a natural choice, and after much research, we landed here in Sevilla. Our boys attend German school. This has been an incredible experience on so many levels. It's not just about the formal language learning in the classroom.

It's about the everyday interactions and the friendships they're forming with their primarily Spanish classmates. It's provided a wonderful gateway for us as parents to meet other families as well. And yes, Mark and I are improving our Spanish as well. This brings me to the heart of our educational philosophy for our children.

First and foremost, we want to cultivate a genuine love for learning, both inside and outside of the classroom. School's important and we're thrilled with their German school here, but we also believe so much learning happens organically, exploring the historic Alcazar of Sevilla, figuring out the currency at their local mercado or trading La Liga football cards on the Spanish playground.

Secondly, we aim to foster an openness to other cultures, histories, and customs. Living and traveling within other cultures allows our children to see firsthand that there are many ways to live, to eat, to celebrate, to communicate. It's about normalizing differences and appreciating the richness that diversity brings to the world.

And finally, a key goal for us was encouraging multilingualism. We want them to see that speaking multiple languages is not just an extraordinary feat, though it is in many ways, but also a natural and valuable way to connect with more people and understand the world more deeply. Hearing German at school, Spanish in the streets and English at home with me is creating a rich linguistic tapestry for them.

This journey to slow travel and immersive living has not always been easy. There are challenges, of course, navigating bureaucracy in new countries, moments of homesickness, the complexities of raising kids between cultures. Just some days the kids don't wanna go to school, regardless of what country they're in, but the rewards are immeasurable.

Seeing our children switch between languages, watching their curiosity about the world expand daily and growing closer as a family, as we navigate these shared experiences, that's what's been making this all worthwhile. Our approach isn't about rejecting traditional education. I loved my public school experience, and I've worked in schools for last decade, but about enhancing it.

About showing our children that learning is a lifelong adventure that happens everywhere all the time. And that brings me to an important point for this podcast. While we found a path that blends formal learning with immersive experience-based, education, we respect and are eager to explore the myriad of ways that families approach education, whether it's dedicated formal schooling in one place,

world schooling with a set curriculum, the fluid journey of unschooling, or any blend in between, we believe every family must find what resonates with their children and their unique circumstances. Ultimately, we know that families make different choices for deeply personal and valid reasons.

First and foremost, here, we listen. We don't judge. We truly believe that we can all learn from one another, even if, and perhaps especially if, we end up choosing different travel and educational paths for our own families. So that's a deeper look into our family's path and the educational values guiding us here in Spain.

It's an ongoing story and we're learning and adapting every day. I hope sharing our experience gives you a little bit of insight or perhaps even some inspiration if you're dreaming of a similar path for your own family. In future episodes,

I'm so excited to bring ,you the stories of other families who are also embracing slow and long-term travel, each with their own unique approach to life and learning on the road. And the plethora of world schooling options is growing all the time, and I can't wait to learn alongside you and share more about these opportunities with you.

Thanks so much for listening.  If you're a long-term or slow traveling family and would like to chat, please reach out. If you're a world school leader or hub creator, I'd love to hear more about your program. See the show notes for more information. Until next time, please share with a friend. Hasta luego!