Welcome to the Wander Worldschool, and Slow Family Travel Podcast. Today I'm joined by Rachel Carlson. Welcome to the show. Please tell me more about you and your family.

Rachel: Hey, Suzy. Well, we met in person, so this is exciting to talk with you now. My name's Rachel Carlson. I have been full-time traveling for seven-plus years. I have a husband with me and I have two of my three kids. So they are 15, 18, and 20 years old currently. We've been traveling for so long that we had a time where there weren't very many ways that we could meet community.

So we fixed that and we started the World School Pop-Up Club, which we'll talk about a little bit today. And I'm really excited to share these opportunities with the world. We've been going for four years now, over a hundred events, and I don't see us stopping anytime soon. So it's really exciting to see all the different places that we can meet world schoolers around the world and that we can meet with people who are passionate about this kind of lifestyle and figuring out all the little strategies we could use to approach the challenges we have because it's not always easy.

Suzy: Absolutely. Just about a month ago, I was in Sarajevo with you, now I'm in Colorado, and we get to talk more about the pop-up hubs, which I really love. They're one of my favorite ways to world school right now. But before we talk about those hubs, I'd love to hear more about your personal travel origin story.

Rachel: So I give my mom a lot of credit. She took my sister and I traveling quite a bit. My dad always worked in summers and she was working in the school system, so she had summers off. So we got to travel around the United States a lot. And when I was 21, she took my sister and me to Europe for the first time. This is pretty embarrassing, but when I got to Europe, I had such an America first mindset that I thought, oh, everybody over there has it worse off than America. They pay so much in taxes, how could they enjoy their lives?

I got there and my goodness, like the architecture and the cobblestone streets and the cafes and just the laid back lifestyle, it blew me away. I was like, what? How did I ever believe what I've been told? But I think it's because I never got out of the country. So that just created this desire for me to explore the world. It's definitely shaped my desires for what I want to do with the world and what I want to do with my family and that having the sacrifices we've made to create this lifestyle have been more than worthwhile. And I'm willing to keep making those sacrifices so that we can explore the world and share this with our children.

Suzy

Europe can blow you away the first time. Just the public transit system, the culture, it's also compact. It's a great launching point to learn more about the world. So you've been traveling as a family for quite a while. Fill me in on where you've been and where you're going.

Rachel

My husband and I always traveled together. We met when I was 18, so we have a lot of experience together and we loved travel. As soon as we had children, everyone would say, "Now you can settle down." And it made zero sense to us. Why would we settle down if this is what we love? All of our babies had passports. They had all been on flights, long haul flights, within the first eight months of their lives. We traveled mostly in the Central time zone because we were based in Wisconsin, so we went north and south for a lot of our travels. That meant we were in the Caribbean, Central America, we did Argentina, Uruguay. But then when we went full time, it gave us a lot of opportunity to get to other continents and explore other pieces of the world that we hadn't seen before.

When we first started, we had a minivan and we did loads and loads of national parks. We loved the junior ranger programs for the kids. We took the kids to New Zealand, which was one of Lansing's, my absolute favorite countries. We spent three full months there and we got the kids over to Europe for the first time. Our eldest, he traveled with us for four years and decided to go back to high school for his final year. And since that time, the other two kids and my husband and I have been all over Europe. We've been to Southeast Asia, Central Asia, Eastern Asia. And I guess all of us have been to Africa before. We did have two special five-week trips when the kids were little, where we got to go to South Africa and Namibia. So those were really important trips for my kids because they were so young.

Suzy

When you first started traveling was this intentional to make it a full-time or did it start out more limited than that?

Rachel

So we knew that we did not want to live the normal lifestyle. We tried that, we went to school, we got our degrees, we got good jobs, we bought a house, we had kids, and that house really slowed us down. The house was in Wisconsin. Wintertime is when we wanted to leave, and it was the hardest time to leave. But it meant that we were not able to travel the way we wanted to. So when we started, we didn't even know we were going to travel full-time. We just sold our house with no plans. And we moved to Hawaii for a couple years, and then we moved to South Carolina for a couple years. But it meant that we were already working online. Our kids went to public school during that time. And then one day, my husband said, "You know, we're working online. We could work anywhere with an internet signal. Why are we staying in one spot?" Even though they were great spots, they were fantastic.

At that point, we said, "Listen, our oldest is going into eighth grade with the homeschool laws for the state of Wisconsin." I did not need to write a transcript for that year. And I thought it would be the perfect time to just start unschooling. So we committed to one year of travel just to see if we liked it and one year of unschooling to see if that worked out well for our kids. So it just came from knowing that something was off for us. And once we sold the house, that was the catalyst for doing something different. And eventually it turned into the opportunity to work online and just go wherever we want and see new and exciting places.

Suzy

Having a house can be difficult for people choosing a full-time travel lifestyle. Either it can be a source of rental income, but as someone who has managed rentals from halfway around the world, it can be a source of stress along the way too. So I do understand why people sell it all when they hit the road and not always keep that home base. I think it's interesting how people explore that point of their journey when they are launching into full-time travel. You mentioned that you transitioned to unschooling for that first year. How did that transition go? Was it a learning opportunity for all of you especially when coming from a traditional school environment?

Rachel

I am a certified teacher in mathematics for secondary education. I taught in the public schools for a number of years, ages 11 to 18. I come from a big long line of teachers and public educators and people who appreciate the public education system. However, when I quit teaching, I was able to take a step back and look at what this system does for kids. And of course there are benefits, but there are also drawbacks. And I really started becoming curious about unschooling. I knew with my kids, they learn a lot faster if it's something they want to learn about.

So basically we let their own interests drive what they're learning. They take online courses if there's something they want to learn more about. We're very good about visiting museums and ruins, historic landmarks, culturally significant sites, but we go places that they want to go. So if they wanted to learn more about Roman ruins, well, guess what? We're in Italy or we're in Turkey or we're in Spain. They're all over the place. And we really thought, let's just give this one year. And at the end of that year, I realized the kids were very, very engaged with learning things that they wouldn't have learned otherwise.

When you are in the environment, it becomes so much more interesting. For instance, I'm in Sarajevo right now. I knew very little about the wars here and all of the disputes with borders. And now that I'm here, I've taken walking tours, I've watched a couple documentaries, I've been putting together the pieces, going to the museums, the genocide museums. It's not an easy history, but it's also relevant to me now that I'm right in it. And now I'm interested and now I want to learn more about it. I guess I'm unschooling also. I'm not forcing myself to learn anything. I'm just following what is interesting to me at that time. And it's working well for us and I love it. And I'm learning right alongside the kids.

Suzy

That is quite common that there are people who have an education background, which I think shows a love for learning and a love for the world and what learning can teach us about the world, but then realizing that schooling in a traditional sense doesn't work well for everyone. I'm a nurse and so I equate it to that with healthcare, where I care about helping people and I care about health, but working within the current healthcare system where there's insurance demands and not enough time to actually do what we want to do for patients, it can be a distraction from why we got into that profession. And so it's great to step back and find the pieces of it that are meaningful for you and your family and let go of some of the things that weren't working well for you. What ages were your children when you started your first year of unschooling?

Rachel

They were eight, 11, and 13. So the oldest was going into eighth grade for the US system.

Suzy

And do you think those ages work well for unschooling? I think of it with mine, they're five and eight, like unschooling for a five-year-old is like, let's just go play in the backyard. And that's fine, that is very age appropriate. The eight-year-old was a little more interested in some of our Cerevo tours in history. So I think we're getting there, but I understand interest-led learning looks different at different ages. Was there any age that you felt like was a sweet spot for where the kids get really involved in where you're at and what's going on there, or did it really just depend on the person?

Rachel

That's an interesting question. I think for my kids, each of them has a different personality. So with my oldest, he's super huge into fishing. So wherever we were, he was talking to locals. He was in the bait stores. He was buying equipment. He was trading equipment with locals. I mean, it was just crazy. He was learning so much just by doing. And he's very, very driven. So he was 13, 14 when we started.

Now with my younger two, they just kind of were along for the ride until the oldest moved out. And then they started calling the shots. So with my middle child, she really wanted to be in charge and she loves travel planning. Well, thank goodness for me, because there's a lot of planning that we do and I need that help and I need that assistance. So when she was 13, actually same age, yeah, she started looking into all our Airbnbs. We would give her our parameters. We need so many bedrooms. We have this timeframe. Here's the budget. Make sure that there's good internet, et cetera, et cetera. So she would sift through 300 Airbnbs, come back with six or eight of them. And then she'd always slide in one little, "Hey, for $200 extra a month, we get our own swimming pool." And then we would say, "Hey, it's February. I don't think the swimming pool is necessary." So it gave her an opportunity to follow her interests. But also, there's lots of things that tie into booking travel. There's a lot of additional information that they're learning, even though it looks like they're just learning one thing.

So for instance, with my oldest and learning fishing, he was also learning to communicate in another language. He was understanding the local fishing laws and regulations. And as soon as he turned 16 and started meeting fishing licenses, he became more frugal with, yes, I want to buy a license here or no, I don't want to buy a license there. He's learned about sailing and boating and motors and engine repair and boat remodeling. It just goes on and on and on. All these things, yes, it's fishing related, but it's really life skills as well. So it all ties together.

Suzy

That must be a Wisconsin passion. My dad's from Wisconsin and he's loved fishing his entire life. It seems like that is a common activity there. Thank you for sharing those real life examples. That's helpful for me to hear and I agree, trip planning is a lot of work. What has been a favorite memory on your travels so far?

Rachel

For me, it's not necessarily a destination. It's the people I'm with, but also I'm with my kids a lot. And we spend a lot of time together and we've learned about each other. We know what makes each other tick. We understand where one another struggles. We understand how to support each other. And I don't think that this would have happened had we stayed in the normal lifestyle path. When we were at school, it was get the kids up, get a breakfast in your belly, where's your backpack? Get your uniform on, get out the door. I'll see you when you get home. And then they get home, "Okay, get your homework done." And it was always like staying on people to get things done.

And now we have lots of time to just live life together and be in a space with each other. So for me, though I have favorite places I could go, I think my favorite travel memory is just having my family with me and having this extended time where we just learn about one another. We have grown so much as a family. There's no way to replace that ever.

Suzy

What have they shared about this full-time traveling lifestyle? What are their thoughts over these years? And has it evolved since it began to where you are now?

Rachel

Yes, it's evolved a lot. So everybody always enjoyed travel because like I said, we tried to get away every winter when we were in Wisconsin. The kids have been fantastic travel buddies, but when we started full-time, we did three years with minimal contact with other world school families. In fact, I didn't know the word world school when we started. It took me a long time to find it. And I thought, "My word, here are my people. Here's the people we need to hang out with." And we tried so, so hard to meet as many world schoolers as possible. But in the meantime, three years without much community and add COVID into that, it was very difficult to meet or chat with anybody. So at one point my kids were just, they were unhappy. I think we all were unhappy. There were outside circumstances that controlled where we could go or how we could visit destinations. And we were lonely. So at that point, all three of my kids said, "We want to quit. This is not for us. We want to stop. We want to be normal. We want to go back to school. We want a house." And Lance and I were devastated. We're like, what? We worked so hard to do this. Here we are.

At the same time, as a parent, I didn't want to push my own beliefs on my kids. I wanted to let them make their own choices, but I also knew I would not be happy with the choice they were making. And I didn't feel that they knew what they were buying into by saying, we're gonna quit, we're gonna get a house, we're gonna go to school and we'll just be normal again. So we had lots of conversations. And I think this is one of the most beautiful things about world schooling is you have time for the conversations. You can do the deep dive and ask your kids, "What is working for you? What is it you're missing? What do we need to fix? What is okay right now, but we could fix it in the future?" And you brainstorm together and you support each other.

So for my kids, when they said, "We want to go back to school," we could ask the questions, "What do you miss? Do you like the academic programming? Do you like hanging out with friends? Do you like meeting different teachers?" I mean, there could be anything. If you never ask, you will never know. And we drilled it all down and it came down to you. They wanted free access to peers. They wanted to see the same friends over and over. They wanted to build relationships. They wanted time on their own because again, all my kids were into adolescence at that point. So we had a couple of teens and a tween, and they wanted autonomy. They wanted to do what they wanted to do with their friends when they wanted to. And as we were moving around, especially if you're moving quickly, it's hard to have any sort of relationship like that. So yes, the travel changed over time. It started out as just being fun and exploring and family time, but as the kids grow, the needs change.

I do blog about that on my website quite a bit because there's a lot of development going on during that time. And if you don't support them and listen to them, you're missing out on a big piece of parenting and life. So when they said we want to go back to school, we talked about it. We realized they just wanted friends. So then we had our goal. Okay, let's keep traveling, let's see if we can bring the friends to us. So that was kind of the pivotal point for us in order to stay full-time traveling. And once we found the way to get the friends to us, we now have maintained friendships for over four years with the world's cool families. The kids play online, they Snapchat, they WhatsApp. Again, these are teenagers now, so I'm not saying your five-year-old should have Snapchat, but it's one of those things that there is the technology to keep in touch with people. There is a way to continue building relationships even if you're not together. Now we've seen some of our friends on, gosh, four continents. This is absolutely wild. We never would have dreamed this in the beginning, and now here we are doing it.

Suzy

It is part of being a family, is recognizing all the moving parts and finding what works best for everyone and moving forward. So helpful to hear that evolution. I want to say thank you for being kind of the original in a lot of this. Like you said, you started this before world schooling was even a word. And now there's Facebook groups with thousands of families that are doing this. It is a really cool evolution to this whole experience. Behind the scenes of every trip is the financial and logistical side of the journeys. How are you funding your family travels?

Rachel

I always like to preface it with it didn't just happen. It took a lot of hard work and it took work over decades. So my husband and I met in 1994. Very fortunately, we both had a love for travel and we both were frugally minded. So over years, we just watched our spending. We've never bought brand name anything. Okay, we have iPhones now. But I can tell you, we did not have cell phones for at least 10 years when everybody else did. Our wardrobes, even when we had a wardrobe, they were just the bare minimum. Shopping around, getting thrift store finds. If we went out for coffee, I mean, seriously, this is how much of a penny pinchers we were. My husband and I would go out for coffee. We would order one large coffee to split between us and then pay for one refill so that we each ended up with one large coffee that day. We just pinched our pennies and put everything into travel funds and into investments. So at this time, we do have investments and we can live off our investment income.

Suzy

It sounds like this was an intentional choice over many years. It is sometimes hard, to push back against some of the keep me up with the Joneses mentality. Being back in the US for just two days, I'm like, "Yeah, giant cars, giant houses, all those things cost a lot of money." And if that's what someone wants to invest their time and money in, that's great. But also there are other ways to live that allows you to be more flexible or live on the road.

Rachel

So because we've always prioritized travel and saving money, we do have this nest egg. But also we can spend less money traveling full time around the world than we would if we wanted to live in the US. Prices everywhere are going up. We understand that there's inflation worldwide and at this point though, if we wanted to move back to the US, we would need to make more money than what we currently are. And right now we're still saving money as we travel. So this has been a really eye-opening experience that when we put our mind to it, we're living a rich life, but we're not spending loads of money. And I think it's really difficult for people to understand. And a lot of the bits that we don't pay for anymore, we have cell phone bills, we have health insurance bills, but that's it. We don't have a car, we don't have home insurance. Every time we rent an apartment, it includes our Wi-Fi. It includes the water, the gas, the electric. I have very few bills that I pay on a monthly basis anymore.

Suzy

That's very freeing. What financial advice would you have for others that are looking to start traveling?

Rachel

I think the first thing is to make a break in your mind between vacation and full-time travel. Because when you are on vacation, you're buying the margarita at the pool. You're doing all the high-end things all the time, and it's expensive. So for us, we've realized that the slower we travel and the more that we live like locals, the longer we can afford this lifestyle. And our kids are in on it. So we often hook at home. We do all our own laundry. We rent pretty small places. Usually it means one or two people on the couch. And they're cool about that. They realize this is a sacrifice we make in order to keep doing what we want to do. And maybe it meant that we could be in the neighborhood next to our friends. They don't care that they're sleeping on a couch. They sleep fine. But overall it keeps all of our housing costs down because we're not renting the villa.

The other thing is we don't move around that fast. So right now I'm in Sarajevo for almost six weeks. It took a flight to get here. It's gonna take a flight to leave. But if I'm only paying for two flights it reduces that extra cost for the transit. Another thing we do is we travel light. So for my family, we're very comfortable traveling almost carry-on only. So we each have one large backpack, but it's carry-on size. And then we check one bag for the family because when you travel full-time, you realize kitchens are not very good. We need sharp knives. We need a good peeler. We need a corkscrew.

And so we have our kitchen kit, we have our first aid kit, so there's sharps and liquids that we need to have checked. I can tell you by only checking one bag over the course of seven years for four to five people. I mean, this is thousands of dollars that we kept in our pocket because you know what? If there's something you need, you almost always can buy it wherever you are. We're very good about keeping our wardrobe minimal. When we get to a cold area, we will buy a jacket. We will buy hats and mittens and slippers. And when we leave, we donate them. You know, the next person can use them. So yes, there are some strategies here. We also book our accommodation really early, usually six to nine months in advance. And the reason being there's twofold here. First, we're running pop-ups. We need to know where we're going to be if we want people to join us. But the other piece is that we want to normally stay about a month. So if you want to get that monthly discount, you need to stay 28 days. We want the largest selection of possible apartments. So our sweet spot is in probably about six months out. It feels so good to have all of that lined up. And I know that we got knockout prices on a lot of the places we're staying. It's just, for me, it's a no-brainer that we don't go so fast. We travel light and we book in advance so that we're not paying last minute rates.

Suzy

I can relate when we booked for Berlin back in January or so. I know we got a great deal in the location we wanted, that would have been impossible looking short notice. So the planner and me likes to plan ahead and I think that can that can pay off. A lot of families love being more flexible, planning as they go. So it's all about finding what works for every family. I like to talk about those logistical and financial aspects in a one month financial snapshot. Tell us more about one month of expenses in your past or projected travel journey.

Rachel

I normally only budget watch two different things. So our accommodation prices and our transit prices. For accommodations, even when we had five people traveling together, I always tried to keep it under $2,000 a month. So I think in US dollars. Overall, that was pretty easy to do. However, we do have some places we love, like London. OK, good luck finding anything for $2,000 in London. But we have found things for $3,500 for five weeks. I still try to keep our budget to $2,000 a month, but I also know that if we have a larger expenditure, we're going to offset it somewhere else. So when we were in Southeast Asia, that offset pretty much all the flights and whatever to get out there.

Right now we're staying in Sarajevo. We've got almost six weeks here at a two-bedroom apartment. We've got lots of room to roam around. And this cost us about $1,600, which works out to $40 a night, which is $10 a person a day. So we're really not spending a whole lot of money on accommodation. When we're in Kathmandu our two-bedroom apartment now, it's tiny It's basic, but it's 400 pounds a month and then we get to Pokhara and our two-bedroom apartment. There is less than $700 a month. So those two months are going to offset any travel costs we have to get over to Nepal.

And again, I said we watch our transit costs as well. So when we were booking our flights out there, we were slowly moving across Europe. So we start in Lisbon, we get to Rome, and then we'll go to UAE because we have friends we want to see there for Christmas. And then from there to Nepal. But that flight route worked out really well for us. So the flights did not cost very much money. So basically those are the two things I watch. What I don't watch is food because we've got teenagers and when they need to eat, they need to eat. Even when I shop, I'm always looking for what's reasonably priced locally. We don't buy cheese in areas where cheese is expensive. But then when we get to France, it's like, "All right, load up on all the cheese you want, kids." We still watch the food prices, but I don't fret about it.

Another example is coffee. I feel like I'm at a point in my life that I've earned going out for coffee every day. It's one of my favorite things. I just like sitting in cafes. I like the ambiance. I like the company I'm with. I like working in cafes. And my daughter's a coffee drinker. So now like this is our special time. So yes, I deserve a coffee every day if I want it. I've spent many years sharing one coffee with my husband. So now I can have my own all to myself. But if coffee is five or six euros a cup, well, we just do it a couple of times a week. But I tell you, when we were in Vietnam and it was about a dollar 20 a cup, well, we were getting two or three a day for everybody. There's a way that you can make this work. And part of it is adjusting the plan for the destination.

Suzy

I really appreciate you sharing this framework because I track almost every expense and food is one where it, especially with growing family, kids, at some point you just have to realize, you know, we are going, we have to eat everywhere we are, whether it's this country or that country, we're going to eat and being conscious of it, making those choices at the grocery store is great and then maybe just not stressing about it on the tracker and focusing on some of those other big ticket items. The transit and the accommodation make sense. You also shared some of your philosophy around like activity expenses. How does that play a role with your financial planning and budgeting on trips?

Rachel

So if there is a culturally significant activity, my answer is yes, we can do that. So if we want to go out to, for instance, Angkor Wat, where else in the world are you going to see Angkor Wat? And we bought the three-day ticket. I think it was $72 a person. That was a pretty big expense for four people. But at the same time, this is our chance to dive into local culture. We had a local guide with us. Anytime there's ruins, museums, maybe a special oasis tour in the desert, those type of things we will say yes to almost no matter what, almost.

But if it's something like ATVing or amusement parks, I recently was quoted a price if we wanted to go up the local mountain and rent bikes and we could ride them down the bobsled trail but it was $75 a person. And we could just go and walk the bobsled track and still see the graffiti and have the experience that way. Those sorts of things I don't normally spring for unless it's something the kids really want to do. So if they wanted to learn boutique painting or take a cooking class, we just say yes, because it's not all the time we do those things.

I know especially for my middle child, she really got into ruins and history. And when we were in Central Asia, she was so fascinated by the Silk Road and how did trade work and who was in charge when and what group came in next and took power and why were they able to take power. So those are the things and experiences I want them to have. Sometimes it just happens for free. Sometimes you just go to the free museum and it's right there waiting for you. And other times you have to pay your way. But we do discern which activities we're going to participate in based on the cost.

Suzy

It's a good framework. I also agree. Anything around that's somewhat educational, feel is worth it. Museums and things like that. You know, Berlin, we went to quite a few museums. Some had a cost and some thankfully were very low cost and we got to learn a lot. So it is a balance of finding what is your interest and what fits with your with your budget. So let's talk a little bit about your world schooling offering because this is how we met. I've just loved every opportunity that I've had on the pubs that we've attended. Even if someone is a traditional schooler and they only travel at certain breaks, I'm like, "Find a hub and then maybe plan some other trips around it." So tell us more about the World School Pop-Up Hubs.

Rachel

We started in June of 2021. So still kind of COVID-era. But the whole point of it was we said, "Listen, my family's gonna be at this spot for a week. We're gonna plan cool stuff to do. Does anybody wanna come?" And we had eight families come. We're like, "What? Yes, people want to come." And we had the best time together. At the end of the first day, my kids, all of them said, "We need to do this again." So we planned one another two months later. And in the meantime, we thought, "Okay, this is the ticket because I had tried so hard to meet organically with families around the world."

And even if we did, it was usually you would just see someone for a day or two. But now when we said, why don't you come to us, let's do a whole week together. We're going to be here a month, hang out longer if you want. That was the key to figuring all of this out. I like to say there's nothing special about what we're doing. I mean, it's special because we're reliable. We know what we're doing. We have all the backend processes down. We've got the advertising down. We've got the reach. We can bring families together. That part is special.

But the doing it part isn't difficult. And I knew that if I ran all of the hubs, first of all, that was gonna be too much for me. And I knew there were other people who wanted to do the same thing, but didn't necessarily want to start the business, And I said, well, if there's other families out there who want to host here, here's what the package looks like, here are the parameters, can you work within my framework? And I will work with you and we will put the event on together. So this is what I love is every single destination we have is created by another world school family. Other families who are traveling, other families interested in community, everybody is all in. This is what they want for their kids and for their family too, because the community isn't just for the kids, it's also for the adults. And until you get to some sort of world school community, you may not even realize what you're missing out on.

And I think that was a big learning point for me too, that I thought it was for the kids. And when I found friends for me, I was like, "Holy cow, and you understand how I feel about this. And you have a strategy for me on how to figure that out." So it was really eye-opening for me that I need a community just as much as anyone else. So what we do is we do the activity planning, we give the neighborhood suggestions, and we promise that you can come to a pop-up with us, and there's gonna be other world schoolers to hang out with and cool stuff to do together. So we get everybody connected, we get the communication groups going, location pins, it's easy to find the group. People who come to the events come with their whole family. And it's not a drop-off service at all. This is a community-based event for families. And we've had kids attend from five weeks old, this has been our youngest one, up to your kids in their 20s and 30s. So it's not just a certain age range that we're shooting for. We're trying to create events that have multi-age groups and the families with kids who are younger can learn from the families with kids who are older. The families with older kids, for instance, my youngest is 15. Well, he was always the little kid in our family, but now he gets to be everybody's big brother during the week. So he can step into a different role as well.

And what we do in order to make these events family-centric is we often plan a park or a playground during the day, usually a picnic lunch somewhere. And then we do something, quote unquote, educational. So maybe you visit a museum, the local market, something unusual like the graffiti bobsled track, things that you may not see just anywhere in the world. So we do the planning for the families, but they still need to take care of all of their own expenses. We'll let them know what neighborhoods they might want to stay in, but they pay for their transit there, they pay for how long they want to stay, all the autonomy is on them. They can choose if they're going to eat at home or eat out, but they pay for their meals. Any museums we go to, they pay for their entry tickets. So it sounds like we don't really do much. We just offer the bare minimum support for families, but what we're really creating is the community-centered event where there's gonna be friends, there's gonna be kids to hang out with at the park, there's going to be adults to chat with over coffee. And it's really blossomed into something I'm super proud of. And I know a lot of families who come, I love that they can come back. And I think one of the reasons they can come back is we try to keep the price point reasonable. So our prices are $180, US dollars per family for the whole week. Bring the grandparents along, everybody benefits. It's an amazing opportunity. And I'm so pleased to offer these over and over and over. When I finally plotted out all the destinations that we've planned, planned over 80 destinations and we've run over 110 pop-ups. So it's amazing to me knowing that the community needs this and that we can do this for the community as well.

Suzy

I love seeing how the first day kids are a little nervous and by day two, they're like arms around each other. "When are we gonna go meet our friends?" But the parents too, realizing that we need community and sitting around chatting with other parents while the kids are playing together is just so inspiring. And I've kept in touch with quite a few families from past pop-ups and it's so great to see where they're at now in the world. So I wanna say thank you for that. Let's share a little bit about some of realities of long-term travel. You have teens and adult children. How has world schooling shaped their plans?

Rachel

So I mentioned before, my eldest went back to school. He traveled full time for four years, but it's really hard not to question his lifestyle. It's really hard to know that you're doing the right thing for your family. And he was at a point that he didn't know how he stacked up to his peers. He knew he was pretty bright, but he didn't know, "Hey, if I go back to an academic setting, am I gonna fit in? Will I be able to handle the coursework?" And so he went back for his senior year. He moved out of our household and moved in with grandparents. And it was really interesting experience because he was 18 for his entire senior year, which happens, he was just the oldest in his class. He didn't have to go. He didn't need to finish out the year, but it was what he was driven to do. And even though he was surprised by how that year went, he had quite a few stories about the school, the traditions, how people are so attached to academics, but also how the kids around him, even though they were bright, were not very creative. They also didn't really know what they wanted out of life. All they knew is they were gonna get into college and university and that was their job. But they didn't know what their passions were. They didn't know what made them happy. So he said it's really difficult to move back.

Though academically he did fine, he graduated with high honors. We all kind of joked about it because he ended up with the gold cord for graduation. You know, people work their tail off to get that gold cord. And he's like, "Do I have to wear this? What's this about?" But it's just one of those things, like it was an experience that he wanted. And now what he's doing, he didn't have dreams of the university. He is very frugal with money as well. And when he looked at college options, it's a lot of money to go to school. And if what you want to do with your life doesn't need a degree, he didn't see the need to go just spend four years of his life learning a degree that he may or may not use. He's following his own passions. Right now, he is flipping cars. He's learning on YouTube, he's hanging out with other mechanics, he's got a friend who has a lift. He's learning real life skills just from living life and he's happy. That's the other thing. People are like, "Aren't you worried about him going to university?" I think university will be there whenever he wants to go. It's not going anywhere.

But right now, if we're forcing him to do something he doesn't want to do or doesn't see the value in, is he going to be happy? Where's his happiness? And shouldn't that be one of our first questions for our kids? So I love that he's super driven. He knows what he wants. And he knows how to solve problems. And when you have that confidence, you don't give up. If something's too hard, you keep at it. If something doesn't work, you try again. If you need to ask for help, you ask for help. So I see this with all of my kids. They have these skill sets. They know how to communicate. They know how to research to get the information they need. And they know that they're competent in solving problems. And heck, we traveled all the way through COVID. They know that sometimes the rug gets pulled out from underneath you and the rules change and there's cancellations and there's bumps in the road. But they know that we are intrinsically motivated to get this done. Let me fast forward now to the second child. So she just turned 18 a couple months ago. She loves, loves, loves traveling. She loves travel planning. She loves sitting in cafes with her mom with a coffee, watching the people walk by.

And again, also not driven to go to university at this point. I think also not interested in going to high school. She had the opportunity to do the same thing that Jasper did, but after his experience, she thought, "Well, that doesn't sound so great. I think I'll just keep traveling because mom and dad will take me wherever I want to go as long as it's within budget." And so now she just moved out last week. She's traveling on her own with some friends in the UK, and then eventually they'll be traveling around Europe a little bit. But she's decided to join our family again in November. And her whole philosophy was, "I want to travel with you guys when you travel somewhere I want to go." So Lance, Salem and I are going back to the States in a week or so to check in on family, see the big brother, hang out with family and friends there. She said, "We were just in the States. I don't need to go back. I've got friends I want to hang out with." But come November, she'll be back with us for Lisbon and then we're going to be in Rome, Greece, UAE and Nepal. So it's really neat knowing that our relationship has not pushed her out of the family. I don't feel that way for Jasper either, but for some kids they're like, "I can't wait to get out and I'm never coming back." So it's really nice to know that she wants to be back and she wants to be part of this lifestyle. So she knows if she's with us, we will also put the bill. So that's kind of a big motivating factor for her as well. But we also have friends everywhere we go now, which I cannot tell you how grateful I am for that because we had so many months where we were lonely, lonely, lonely, and kind of losing our minds because we didn't have anybody who understood what we were doing. And if we tried to talk to somebody, they would say, "Well, just go home. It's so hard. Just go home." Like, "No, no, that's not what I want either." So when we talk with other world schoolers, it's so much more supportive and we have ideas for each other. I've seen so many adults have deep conversations at our pop-ups and all of sudden something just clicks in their mind like, "There's so many opportunities out there that sometimes we don't know of all the opportunities or strategies," but when we start talking to other people living this lifestyle, they glean a lot of information from them.

Suzy

Thank you for sharing about your children and their journeys, especially as they're launching. I think that's very inspiring to know that the relationship just evolves and it is a little more child led how much that looks like. If you know, "Hey, your daughter wants to be with you in certain locations," you're like, "Okay, let's plan some of that." And Nepal is a place that's very near and dear my heart. I did some hiking there and I did a grad program trip there where we did research, talking with women all over the hillsides. And so I'm really excited to hear about how those pop-ups go. And it is for sure on my to-do list. I just think my kids should be a little older so that they can, we could do more of the nature there. You've shared a little bit about some of realities of long-term travel. Just keeping it real because it's not always easy to travel full time. What are some of the specific challenges or struggles either with your hub or your family that you could share a little more about?

Rachel

I do have quite a few blog posts that talk about different challenges we've had, different strategies we've had to implement, different ways we can support our kids. I talk about goodbyes with families. I mean, that's pretty hard. I talk about naysayers. We have people in our lives that don't believe in what we're doing or are concerned that we're ruining our children's lives. And that's hard to take because when we lived the traditional life path, many people would pat us on the back. "You guys are doing a great job." And then as soon as we stepped away, we were fools. So I understand what that feels like.

I talk about supporting the kids as their needs have changed through adolescence. So the blog is a great place to learn about some of those challenges that I've faced and struggles that I've had. I also am pretty open in my newsletters. And I sent one out today, talking a lot about my own struggle with anxiety and stressors right now. So we had a huge event earlier this year and there was a lot of pressure and issues that I needed to deal with in the back end. We had over 220 people at that event. It took a lot out of me to just do everything with a smile and keep everything on track. And I'm still experiencing a little bit of lingering anxiety from that. So in my last newsletter, I wrote about what I'm doing for self-care. And I have some time to sit down and think about what are the things I do to keep myself happy? So right now I'm taking some supplements, I'm trying to do a little more me time. I'm also thinking about what are my hobbies? I love writing, which I do on my blog. I can keep that up. And just different things in my life that make me happy personally and how I want to continue incorporating those into my travels. Basically, I love the travel.

I'm not giving up the travel. I love the coffee shops. I love thermal baths. I love socializing with friends. So these are all things that will continue. But also I'm upfront that no, it's not always easy all the time. There's lots of planning that needs to be done in the background. There's lots of talking with the family to make sure everybody's needs are met. There's lots of negotiating and there's lots of giving in sometimes to someone else's need if their need is bigger at that moment and knowing that tables will turn eventually. So there's a lot of nuance to what goes on in the back end of world schooling because especially for my family, so we're full time, there's lots of things we juggle. Things that need to be done when we're in our home country, things that we can take care of on the road and with adult children. And yes, I know it's regular everyday life. But sometimes when you're in an environment where you're moving all the time, there's, don't want to say there's less stability because my stability is my family unit and how we interact with one another. But at the same time, I don't just have my normal dentist that I call up and I don't just have my favorite brand of toilet paper. There's extra decisions that I need to make every day. And that decision fatigue is real. And I talk about that hopefully enough that people know that world schooling isn't all just rainbows and unicorns, that there are pieces that you need to manage. And I think we should be easy on ourselves sometimes we don't even realize how much energy it takes just for regular everyday life on the road.

Suzy

Absolutely. Thank you for sharing those challenges and how you work through those. I think it's helpful as families are planning for travel to know what to look for and how to lean on each other during those challenging moments. Because there are challenges when you're in your home base, of course, but like you said, at least you have a full kitchen you can cook out of. On the road, you don't even have a sharp knife and you're trying to make dinner and on top of all these other challenges. It requires a lot of understanding from each other and working through things as a family and finding the positive parts of it. To finish on that positive note, what are some current family or hub wins that you're experiencing now?

Rachel

Right now, I'm super proud of my kids. They are all doing exactly what they want to be doing right now. The youngest is 15. He is currently in the UK with some friends. Comes back to us for two days so we can flip over and get to the States. And then he takes off right away again down to Missouri to see two world school families there that we've been friends with for four years now. And the three boys in these three families are best buds. They're always playing together online and when they get together, it is just an enormous party. So I'm super proud of them for figuring out what they want to do and how they're going to make it happen.

And as far as the pop-ups, I love that we have so many families willing to put the time and energy into creating these events because I could not do it without the other hosts. I mean, what we've been able to create together on one platform is really something incredible and I keep pinching myself because that's what I wanted to do from the very start. I'm like, "My gosh, we could be doing this all over the world. It doesn't have to be my family. It could be any world school family who's looking for community and who likes organizing things." And we just profit share and I mean, nobody's making loads of money here. It's just something that we want to do. And I think when we create events from the heart, it really shows. It's an honor to provide this for other families. And I'm so glad that the framework that I built is working for a lot of families.

Suzy

Tell us a little more about those upcoming events, what are some of those locations that people could book some trips for?

Rachel

Yeah, so right now we've got 11 destinations on the calendar. But right now we've got events in California and Belize, all over Europe. And then what I love is we've got events all over Asia coming up. So we've got Kazakhstan. And then there's going to be Nepal. We've also over on the Eastern side, we've got Japan and Thailand. It's really neat that, you could string a couple together. And I think that's the cool part of it that price-wise, the value is there. So I'm really glad that we have created this platform and this style of travel so that it's easy to dip into community as we go.

Suzy

Where can people find out more about you and the World School Pop-Up Hub?

Rachel

It's worldschoolpopupub.com. And then we're also on Instagram and Facebook with the same tag. However, I try to keep most of my content on the website. So check the blog there. And if you want to sign up for the newsletter, that's in the footer of every page, so it's pretty easy, too.

Suzy

I'll make sure to link all this in the show notes. I look forward to seeing where these pop-ups take you and other traveling families in the future. So thank you so much, Rachel.

Rachel

Thanks, Suzy.