Hola and hello, I'm Suzy, and welcome to the Wander Worldschool and Slow Family Travel Podcast, where we discuss the stories, logistics, and finances of long-term traveling families and the multitude of ways to learn and educate along the way. Thank you to my wonderful guests this past month for sharing their stories.
And thank you to you, my lovely listener, for tuning in. If you'd like a shout-out on the show, please send me fan mail via the link in the show notes, or send me an email at pod@susiemay.com. I'd love to feature your questions, travel stories, favorite hub experiences, et cetera.
So please send me your contributions and feedback. For this month's summary recap of the last three episodes, I'm going to pull out my favorite quotes and highlight all the best logistical and financial tips that our guests shared. Part of these end-of-the-month episodes is also a special deep dive into one specific aspect of long-term travel or moving abroad so that I can provide even more resources to you to make your future family travel journey easier.
For this month's deep-dive topic, I will be discussing all things worldschooling, all about hubs and pop-ups, and how to find friends and community on the road. I am by no means an expert, so if you have anything to contribute after listening to this, please send me a message. Okay, let's get started with our recap of episodes seven, eight, and nine.
On episode seven, we heard from Claudia Bellante about her move from Italy to Southern Spain, the challenges of freelancing in today's digital world, and how her work as a journalist led her to identify a need for community among traveling mothers. I especially love chatting with Claudia because she was kind enough to share her birthday with me and because our family had just spent time in this part of southern Spain.
I also love her focus on moms and children. Partners and dads are important too, but there's such a need for time and space for moms to be in community with one another. So Claudia created the Andalusia Nomad Moms, which is a month-long worldschooling hub in May and October in Chiclana de la Frontera, Spain.
She detailed how the program is structured, the co-living aspects, the kids' activities, and all those unique experiences that moms get to participate in. The memorable quote I pulled from our conversation was when Claudia said, "I think that you have to be very brave to do something like this because it's a month in another country, and it's with strangers, so you have to be brave, and I have a lot of respect for all the women that come."
The resources that Claudia listed are the Instagram and Facebook page for her Andalusia Nomad Moms, and there are opportunities in October to join for that. On episode eight, I was lucky enough to speak with both Sarah and Moss from the Five World Explorers. These adventurous parents sold everything not once, but twice, to travel the world full-time for the last seven years with their three children.
They talked about how they started traveling fast and how they've now slowed down to more of an experience-based lifestyle funded by smart real estate investments. They also discussed their shift from traditional schooling to a flexible worldschooling approach with self-directed curiosity by the children and using online tools like Acellus Academy.
They offered practical advice on budgeting, such as their $2,300 USD a month in Vietnam, as well as finding community in hubs and navigating the real-life challenges of constant travel and growing together as a family on the road.
The memorable quote I pulled out from our conversation was, "The more we do it, we realize it's not just about traveling; it's about the experience and opening your mind to the opportunities that are everywhere. Sometimes when you stay in one routine, you miss it."
Sarah provided a ton of great resources, including the "Worldschoolers" and "We Are Worldschoolers" Facebook groups, Project World School for teens, learning opportunities such as Acellus Academy, Time4Learning, Reading Eggs, and Duolingo. Also, they share their family platforms, which I've linked in episode eight: their YouTube channel, children's books, and travel agent services.
On episode nine, I was thrilled to chat with Anna from Wanderless Hawks all the way from Indonesia. She and her husband are both physician assistants, and they escaped burnout by saving a hundred thousand dollars to "buy back their time" for a year-long gap year in Asia with their two children under five.
She talked about their financial strategy, including pivoting from a more expensive trip in South America to more budget-friendly Asia, as well as focusing on slow, culturally immersive travel that avoids over-touristed areas. She shared their $3,000 monthly budget in Vietnam, their "reverse learning" approach where they experience sites first and then look at YouTube videos and other sites for historical context, and also the real-world challenges of constantly settling into new places while sticking to a budget.
Anna is working to create slow travel guides for the locations they've visited, which is a super helpful way to get settled into a location quicker. I'm looking through the Mexico City one now, and it's insightful. The quote I pulled from Anna was when she said, "You have everybody who goes to all these Instagram-worthy places, and when you go there now, they're just full of tourists. The culture just feels like it's kind of gone away. We wanted our kids to meet people and see how other people actually live."
Anna shared their platforms, such as their Instagram and Facebook at @Wanderless.Hawks, and also has a free ebook with tips on visas, savings, and renting cars abroad. She also shared great travel resources such as GlobeTrek for determining the best seasons for travel, The Man in Seat 61 to navigate trains worldwide, SafetyWing for medical insurance abroad, and Grab, a ride-sharing and delivery app in Southeast Asia.
Thank you to Claudia, Sarah, Moss, and Anna for sharing your stories. Go back and listen to their episodes if you haven't yet.
Okay, let's pivot to this month's deep dive. We're talking about all things worldschooling. So first, what is worldschooling? Many may define it differently, and there truly is no one right or wrong way, but in general, worldschooling is an educational philosophy that reimagines the learning environment by positioning the entire world as a classroom. It's based on the principle of experiential learning, where education's not a separate activity but just part of daily life, often in new and diverse cultural settings. Children might learn history by visiting memorial sites, geography by navigating new cities, language by ordering food at local markets, and science by observing ecosystems firsthand.
They may also take part in organic group activities in various locations. Worldschooling doesn't always have to take place while traveling. Maybe you're at your home base, and you intentionally visit global cultural events, learn to make different ethnic foods, or host exchange students from different countries.
But for many, travel is a component of worldschooling, whether going to school in a different country like we did in Spain, or homeschooling or unschooling on the go. Some families follow more structured curricula, and some practice more child-led unschooling, where learning is driven by natural curiosity and interactions with the surroundings.
Either way, the goal is to cultivate a lifelong love of learning and adaptability by directly engaging with the world's complexity and diversity. So how did hubs come about, and what role do they play? Worldschooling, while educationally enriching, presents a unique set of logistical and social challenges. Constantly moving around can lead to feelings of isolation for both parents and children, and the lack of a consistent peer group is a primary concern for many families. It is in response to these needs that the concept of the worldschooling hub has emerged and, in fact, proliferated.
A hub is a physical location or an organized gathering that serves as a haven of sorts for traveling families, providing crucial infrastructure of community, resources, and support. These hubs function as vital meeting points where people can get together. They address the social interaction piece. They also bring together families from all different backgrounds. Parents can share insights, travel tips, and challenges with other families that understand the demands of slow or long-term family travel.
Beyond just social connection, though, hubs offer tangible resources such as pre-arranged or recommended accommodation, shared educational materials, organized activities, and access to local knowledge. This also reduces the logistical burden on individual families and provides a stable anchor to an otherwise fluid lifestyle.
So even with this understanding of what a worldschooling hub may offer, they're not all the same. There is a broad spectrum of models tailored to different family needs, budgets, and philosophies. So at one end of the spectrum, you have a highly structured, permanent institution that offers a comprehensive turnkey solution. This is your plug-and-play. At the other end are low-structure, temporary, self-driven communities that prioritize flexibility and affordability. And truly, there's everything in between. So the evolution of this market reveals a trend from more of a grassroots movement to a professionalized industry.
Early hubs were often informal. They were community-led initiatives, such as basically Facebook group-driven communities of people that are in the same location for a little while. This organic backbone of the community has led to a new, growing commercial sector of more high-end or all-inclusive providers.
Still, there is something for everyone, depending on your location, your needs, flexibility, and budget. One of the reasons there are more options is due to the parent-led services that teach people how to host their own hub. This may lower the barrier of entry for families that want to put a hub out into reality but are a little less experienced or more risk-averse.
So if you want to start a hub, there is support to get that going. Overall, understanding the various options is crucial for any family seeking to navigate the worldschooling landscape and find the model that best aligns with their goals. Let's first talk about high-structure models that are permanent and school-centric hubs.
So this category is at that more structured, stable end of the spectrum. This is maybe a traditional or private school in a new-to-you country, like we did. This allows us to focus more on language learning. Some families might enroll in preschool or summer camps in different countries, depending on the ages of their children, or there are also those highly structured worldschooling hubs such as Boundless Life.
These are for families who really want consistency and a formal educational environment for the kids as well as significant logistical support. This is often in exchange for a higher cost and less individual autonomy. So this might work best for people who are just starting out or who really do need more drop-off options because of the need to work.
Providers like Boundless Life manage nearly every aspect of the experience. They're in permanent locations around the globe; there are essentially managed offices that help with accommodations. There's a dedicated education center, a co-working space for parents, and organized community events.
Families typically join for set cohort periods, such as three-month sessions, so that provides consistency for the fixed duration of the hub. I met many families at our last pop-up hub who did cohorts in Sintra, Portugal; Syros, Greece; and Kotor, Montenegro, and they loved their experience. One teen family even did the entire school year with the Trailblazers program that included a cohort in Uruguay.
And then there are also options in Xàbia, Spain; Bali; and Tuscany, Italy, and I think they're expanding into Japan next as well. So the educational approach is typically a curated blend of progressive methodologies such as Montessori, and they do have those educational centers that have age-based class groupings, and the entire ecosystem is designed to be seamless between all of those global locations.
This model is really for parents and families that need to maintain a regular work schedule, and so they want on-site education and work facilities. The primary benefit is that significant reduction in logistical friction; families arrive to a fully functioning living, working, and learning environment.
On the flip side, the most significant drawback is the higher cost. By being all-inclusive, you are also going to reduce the flexibility and autonomy of families. There also may be this "bubble effect" where you spend more time with the hub participants and less immersion with the local culture.
A different high-structure model is where someone might seek an alternative or international or a permanent school in a different country. So, friends in Sintra, they moved from the US to enroll in the Waldorf school there. Valencia, Spain also has forest schools. I think there are different forest and outdoor schools in lots of different countries.
So that's where a lot of the education takes place outside. This model does allow for established permanent schools, but there's more of a progressive or alternative philosophy, and they let worldschooling families join in on a short-term or a long-term basis. These are primarily educational institutions.
Families are responsible for arranging their own accommodation, transport, visas, and other logistics, but the school may help with that a little bit as well. This approach offers immense diversity in educational approaches. You get to pick what philosophy the school draws from, such as Waldorf or project-based learning.
Examples of this are the Green School in Bali or The Hive in the Dominican Republic. Many emphasize outdoor experiences that connect children with nature as well. So they do have a physical campus, a formal enrollment process, and a diverse student body that might be local or long-term traveling families or temporary worldschooling families.
The cost structure is highly variable. Some of them are designed to be affordable for local and traveling families, such as The Hub in Cabrera, but there are also ones that have higher fees, such as the Green School in Bali. The main benefit, though, is specialized education that aligns with the family's values, as well as the stability of a regular school routine and consistent peer group.
Conversely, this may limit your travel flexibility, as you are committing to a single location for the duration of the enrollment. For many families, they may be looking to slow down and stay in one location for longer. Perhaps this is after a period of faster travel that was exhausting. The financial costs can be substantial, and the logistical burden of finding housing, transportation, and managing daily life falls entirely on the family.
Now we're going to move down that model to talk about flexible structure models such as pop-ups and temporary communities. This category occupies the middle ground of the hub spectrum, a balance between community and autonomy. These are for families that really prioritize flexibility, affordability, and the opportunity to connect with other travelers but without committing to a long-term or highly structured program. The one I'm thinking about in particular is the Worldschool Pop-Up Hubs put on by Rachel Carlson.
These are short-term, temporary gatherings, typically lasting for one week. They're organized in diverse locations all over the world. Rachel handles all the marketing, registration, and guidance for the hosts. The on-the-ground experience, though, is led by a host family that plans the loose, flexible itinerary of low or no-cost activities that highlight local culture, nature, and history. So I've attended three of these and have now hosted or co-hosted four of them, since we are in the middle of our Berlin pop-up right now. I love getting to spend time with my children, but as well as other traveling families.
These are primarily English-speaking, but we have had many families with other language backgrounds as well. In general, the educational philosophy is really just experiential and community-based. There's really no formal curriculum, but children are learning as they go. Free museums, hiking to natural landmarks, exploring local markets, or even building sandcastles on the beach are really their lessons for the duration of the hub.
I will say that the extent of learning is really up to the family and depends on the ages of the students. For example, when we were in Sarajevo, that city has a fascinating and tragic history that we did spend some time learning about, but my five and 8-year-old were really just more excited about ice cream and soccer games in the park, and that's fine.
We did watch a few Sarajevo videos beforehand to give some context to the city, and we will always expand on this in the future. So the hallmark of the pop-up hub is high family autonomy. Families are responsible for everything except showing up on the dates of the hub, and they can attend as much or as little as they want, and they're intentionally budget-friendly.
Typically, the costs are around $140 to $180 per family to participate in the hub. Since it's highly affordable and accessible, this facilitates experiences that are available to a wider range of families. Those on gap years or traveling faster may be especially drawn to these opportunities.
The ever-changing locations provide opportunities to explore new parts of the world. Some of the potential drawbacks to consider is that high degree of self-reliance, as you must take care of all your own planning. The quality of this experience can also be highly dependent on the skills of the host family, as well as the overall dynamic of the participating group.
Next, I'm going to talk about summits or event-based gatherings. I have heard many positive things from Sarah's family, from the Five World Explorers. These are large-scale, event-based gatherings that serve as temporary events, like the Project World School Family Summit. They function as a dynamic forum where the entire spectrum of the community gets together. The people that are just starting out to the ones who've been doing it for years can share collective wisdom, co-create learning experiences, and discuss triumphs and challenges of this lifestyle.
Costs are event-based, and often families will be in charge of their own travel, accommodation, and food expenses. Next, we're going to talk about more community-driven models. These are self-organized and nomadic groups. This category is the most autonomous and grassroots, so this is on the opposite end of the spectrum from those highly structured hubs.
These are perfect for self-directed families that prioritize freedom, co-creation, and deep immersion over a pre-packaged experience. They require the most initiative from participants but also offer the greatest degree of flexibility. So this is a loosely defined, self-driven community, often coordinated through online platforms such as Facebook groups or membership websites.
There may be a physical center of gravity in a location popular with worldschoolers, such as Prague, Chiang Mai, or Spain's Andalusia region, which has a big hub in Lanjarón. Still, these lack a central, top-down organization. Members are responsible for initiating and organizing meetups and collaborative activities.
The educational approach is entirely self-directed. Every family is in charge of that for themselves. They may be doing online or project-based studies or unschooling, and often the community's role is not to provide education but more of that social structure. This is best for self-reliant worldschooling families who really just want social and community structure.
The cost may be minimal, but it does require significant personal effort to build connections and organize activities. The experience can be really inconsistent depending on which other families are in the location at any given time. I'm excited to talk a little bit about the traveling village model.
This one really fascinates me as a possibility in our future. A traveling village is a more structured form of a community-driven hub. It consists of a cohort of families who make a mutual commitment to travel together as a group for a predetermined period, such as four months across multiple pre-agreed-upon locations.
The group functions as a mobile intentional community. They share resources, and they may rotate responsibilities for childcare and educational activities. The educational approach is co-created by the group. Maybe this means parents are putting on different learning opportunities based on their expertise or pooling resources to hire a traveling teacher or collectively deciding on a project-based curriculum that leverages the locations they visit.
The traveling village is for families who seek the deep bonds and support of a consistent community but still want to move around. The cost for travel, accommodation, and shared resources are often distributed among the group members. A friend from last year's pop-up in Xàbia is planning to do this next school year, and I cannot wait to hear more about their experiences.
Something to keep in mind, though, is that yes, the children will have more consistency in their traveling friend group, but that may be a loss of individual family autonomy since you'll be needing to travel with the group. This also requires a high degree of commitment and strong interpersonal skills to navigate potential conflicts within the group.
So, considering all these worldschooling models, I'm wondering what the future of worldschooling could look like. I think we are going to see more specialized and hybrid models that cater to specific needs and niches. So maybe this is a hub specific for STEM or performing arts, or hubs for single parents, such as Claudia's option in Spain, or families with special learning needs.
There could be teen-focused immersion programs. There already are some, such as Project World School, where there are parent-free adventure opportunities for teens. But I can see this going even deeper, with project-based learning and deep cultural immersion specific for teens. There's also a very high-structured end of this niche, the traveling high school model. Think Global, where students live and learn in four different countries each year, completing an accredited curriculum along the way.
I also think that co-living spaces, which are more for single or child-free remote workers, may start to adapt their offerings to accommodate families as well. I can see how countries that are expanding their digital nomad visa programs could also form partnerships with hub organizers to really tap into this community as a valuable source of long-term, low-impact tourism.
So what if you can't get to a hub? Thankfully, there are location-independent and online support programs that exist to allow families to access resources from anywhere in the world. Worldschool Quest, The Links app, and World Schooling Hub are all sites that help traveling families create spontaneous, real-world meetups. There are also online schools like Galileo and Outschool or Cicero.
I can also see there being more hybrid models where a student is doing an online school curriculum for their core academics but popping into hubs or other project-based learning opportunities along the way. This is presenting us with a fascinating trend in modern education: the unbundling and the rebundling of the traditional school experience. A traditional school is really a non-negotiable package of teacher, curriculum, facilities, and childcare.
The worldschooling market is allowing families to unbundle this. They get to pick and choose what they want, and they can rebundle it however they like, such as Boundless Life that has all of those components all together, or pick and choose from the education, the housing, the co-working, and community activities based on what their family needs.
While often exciting, the more choices available can be overwhelming at times. So that's why I hope this podcast and listening to other traveling families, as well as worldschooling leaders and creators, may help you align your goals with what works best for your family.
The decision of which worldschooling hub model to engage with is complex. It is based on your budget, your lifestyle, and your educational needs. Ultimately, choosing the right hub for your family requires an assessment of your family's unique priorities, constraints, and goals.
So how does one decide? Here are some initial questions you can ask yourself to help guide your process of self-reflection. First up, finances. What is a realistic monthly or annual budget that you can allocate specifically to accommodation, activities, and educational program fees?
Next up, work-life needs. Do one or both parents work remotely? What do they need to do that? What are your educational philosophies and needs for your kids? What are their ages and learning styles? Also, what are your family's social preferences for the kids, but also for you, the parent? What are your travel styles and need for autonomy?
Do you get bored in one location, or do you actually want to settle down for a while? These answers can help you decide if you could start with a turnkey model like Boundless Life, seek alternative school options, focus mainly on pop-up hubs, form or join an independent community, or seek out a traveling village option.
If you need to talk through these options more in-depth, let's set up a coaching call. So this begs the question, is worldschooling sustainable? As the number of worldschooling families grows, questions around the environmental footprint and the sociocultural impact of these communities on local destinations will become even more important.
This will likely drive the growth of hubs that incorporate service learning, ethical travel practices, and sustainability as core tenets of their mission. Ultimately, worldschooling and the various hubs that are part of it are more than just a logistical solution. It's evidence of the innovative ways that families are redefining education, community, and work in the modern era. As the market continues to mature and diversify, it will offer an ever-expanding toolkit for families daring to use the world as their classroom.
On that note, thank you so much for listening to this journey with me. What are your thoughts? What can I expand on in future episodes? Have you participated in any of these hubs? I'd love to hear more about your experiences.
Send me an email from the show notes. Check out all the links there too, and share this episode with a friend. Until then, stay curious and keep exploring.
