Suzy

I'm Suzy and welcome to the Wanda World School 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. Today, I'm joined by Liz Quayne. Welcome to the show.

Lizz Quain

Thanks, Suzy. My name again is Liz Quain. We are from the Seattle area and we're currently at our home base. I am a solo mom of now 16-year-old twin girls. They're fraternal twins. We started world schooling when they were seven and a half, so August of 2016. I'm one of the oldies around. I have done lots of different digital nomad, online, and in-person jobs and businesses over the years, but I am now a world school coach and course creator. I have a course on how to travel extensively as a family, not just vacations, and how to educate, how to world school your kids. I also recently partnered with Kate McAllister of The Hive and the Dominican Republic, a world school hub, and Rachel Carlson, who runs the world school pop-up hubs, and we have a course for world school parents who want to launch their own world school community in a stellar way that's sustainable and works really well for all the families that participate as well as the family hosting it. That is a key thing.

Suzy

This is great. You bring a wealth of information on this topic, so I'm really excited to dive into your experiences, your hubs, your offerings. But I'd also like to hear a little bit more about where it all started.

Lizz Quain

I grew up in Seoul, Korea. My mom is Korean and my dad is American, and they both worked for the US government in Seoul. That's how they met. I kind of lived in that lifestyle. We did travel a bit in Korea, and we would go to Hawaii regularly because I had relatives there, and then to the mainland. Once we moved to the States when I was nine years old, we just did regular travels up and down the West Coast. We were in Seattle. I think maybe growing up in another culture and being multicultural, I was really interested in other cultures. Then when I was in college, I started traveling to Europe. I backpacked around the world in 1998, '99. So now I'm close to 50 countries. It's been a huge passion of mine and now a passion of my kids. Back in 2016, I was really burned out from running a really intensive children's business. It was an indoor children's play cafe that also had a preschool and it also had three birthday party rooms. So for six years, I was really in that world. I just really burned out, and my kids were getting too old for my business, so I sold it.

During that time, I learned about the whole concept of being a digital nomad and world schooling. World schooling actually came later. The first thing was following the digital nomad influencers and podcasters. This is when I discovered world schooling, and Lainey Liberty had some content online. She and her son run the Project World School Teen Retreats now; we've become friends. I eventually sold my business, pulled my twins out of school after first grade. One of them has ADHD. School was not great for her. They just wanted her to sit still and not walk around the room and touching everything and stop being so curious. I figured out she had ADHD, and we started doing some counseling. I was kind of against medication at that point, so I said, "Let's just travel for a year. Let's go to Asia," because I knew it well. They were really into nature, and my mom was going to meet us in Korea, and we were going to go to Bali. They really like swimming and with the turtles and all that stuff. We were in Southeast Asia most of the time and Japan and Korea. It got too hot for us, so we went to France for a bit and then back to the States. We voted. I have my kids vote, "Do you want to do it again?"

We went to Columbia for six months, then Peru for six months. I hired nannies, and I also put my kids in local schools in Peru. So then I started teaching English online because we were traveling on the proceeds of my business sale and my bank account was going down, down, down. So I started supplementing that by teaching English online. Then through some world school friends, I heard about this online school that was launching. I was on the launch team and was there for three years. It was really good for a few years. We grew to over 200 students around the world. It was very focused on skills of the future and self-directed learning. But the CEO was making changes, and it was really difficult. I co-hosted a homeschool global summit. I learned a lot about homeschooling and unschooling and online schooling. I have interviewed a number of progressive online schools and a bunch of other guest experts about education and travel insurance and even a couple of accountants on how to save money traveling. They were in my Facebook group, World Schooling, Traveling, Trailblazing Families. Half of them are up on my YouTube channel.

Because of all the stuff that I learned from working in alternative education and interviewing all these people and my own life, and literally meeting hundreds of world schoolers in person since 2016, that made me decide to launch my own course and teach people how to world school and travel extensively as a family.

I went to some of the first in-person world school summits and conferences. The World School Hub took off, and my kids and I started visiting some over the years. We even hosted a teen World School Hub in Fethiye, Turkey, for a month. At the end of that, my kids and I decided we did not want to be a hub founder. We didn't want to run hubs because they're really complicated, but we wanted to be customers of them and we wanted to shine the light on them. I partnered with Kate McAllister and Rachel Carlson on how to launch a stellar hub, a good sustainable hub that runs really well, because there's about a hundred hubs out there, and a lot of them are pretty good, but there's so many things that people who are new to running a hub don't anticipate. There's a lot of hiccups, and there's a lot of stress for both the hub founder and the participants. So that's why we put together a course on how to do this.

Suzy

Sometimes you don't know what you don't know. That's where the courses and the coaching can come into play to just help work through that: "I have an idea, but how do I put it into action?" So you've been a participant for hubs. You've put them on. You've learned over the years ways to make it a positive, sustainable, enjoyable experience for not just the participants, but also the creator who's pouring often their heart and soul into this opportunity.

Lizz Quain

Totally.

Suzy

And so it's a lot to consider. I'm curious, though, since you've shared a little bit more about your traveling journey with your kids and your family now that they're 16, what have their thoughts been over the years with world schooling?

Lizz Quain

They were seven and a half when we started, and they didn't choose to travel and world school because they were so young. At first, they thought we were on this really nice vacation. We were in Bali; that was the first place. Initially, I had us staying at a really nice resort with a kids club and multiple pools and all sorts of beautiful rooms and activities and food and music and all that. A few days later, I moved us into a cheaper place, and then a few days later, I moved us into even a cheaper place. That's when I started meeting with other world school families and started hanging out with them. It was a little bit of a shock, and the first three weeks was great. But after a few weeks, they said, "When are we going home?" and they were starting to get homesick. So I had to kind of explain to them, "We're going to be traveling for a year, and we'll see how it goes."

They did great when they were really, really young. I'm really good at finding other people and finding things to do and activities and immersing into the local culture. It was a really great experience. We would go home to visit my mom, who had really helped me raise my girls since birth, so she's a very active grandma and kind of a co-parent. So we would visit her once a year.

We were in over 20 countries that we lived in, and we tried to slow travel, but sometimes we fast-traveled a little or we visited. When they turned, I think 13, this is when I was running the hub in Turkey, Aubrey really missed Grandma. She wanted to spend the summer with Grandma, so we flew back to the States a month earlier than we planned. Gabby wanted to continue. So Gabby and I went to Argentina while Aubrey was spending the summer with Grandma. Then we FaceTimed each other, and this is when she said, "I want to try school."

I did research, and the school she would have gone to, the middle school, had a couple of kids bring guns to school. That was one of the wonderful things about traveling the world is we didn't have to deal with guns so much. I did research, and I found there was a Montessori middle school that I could put her in. She enrolled there, and Gabby and I, after four or five months, we came back from Argentina, and we spent a month or so in the States. Then we went to Turkey, Bulgaria, Italy, Germany, all the stuff that we were planning to do. So I was traveling with only one of my kids. It was really hard. Aubrey sometimes wanted to meet us, and she wanted to do both.

After a while, I launched my course on how to world school, and it's not easy to run an online business and be actively world schooling at the same time. So we came back to the States, and I put Gabby into the Montessori middle school. I put her in eighth grade. I didn't force her to do math for six years because we had tried homeschooling, then online schools. I had hired teachers and tutors and nannies. I enrolled my kids in local schools in Peru and later in Mexico. We had gone to world school hubs, and then we also unschooled. So my kids had done it all. I didn't force Gabby to do math for six years. She was initially getting a C, then a B, and now an A. Now she's a straight A student. And Aubrey, even with her ADHD, she's getting a 3.8. So it shows that all the years my kids world schooled, it didn't ruin them academically. They're thriving. The teachers are always telling me how mature they are and independent and obviously worldly, but how they're good leaders and adaptable and they know how to learn.

So throughout all our experiences, they weren't in this school system, in the four walls of just following the curriculum that the school district forced on them, so my girls really know how to learn. Even though they're getting top grades, they're still self-directing their learning on the side. They still value all the years that we traveled and world schooled and all the friends that we made. So world schooling part-time for them works. They're still friends with a lot of the kids that they met world schooling, and they still want to travel. Gabby, she's really interested in marine biology, even though she's really creative and artistic. She misses all the times that we were spending at the beaches and islands and all the science and nature. She knows all about insects and animals. Aubrey wants to go to Greece because she's really into Greek mythology. Before that, she was into Russian history. They're still spending a lot of time learning and becoming experts, deep diving into stuff that they love. All these years of world schooling, it helped them become who they are now. They're very open-minded to other cultures, which I think is sorely missing in our country, and they have made friends all over the world of different backgrounds. Also, Gabby especially speaks a bit of Spanish, so she has some Spanish-speaking local friends.

I remember saying for years, I want to raise my girls in a way where, at the age of whatever, 18 or 25, I can drop them in any major city in the world and they'll be fine. They'll be able to figure things out and get home or get to where they need to go. So I think they're pretty good at that.

Suzy

And you also touched on your approach to education while traveling. I'm really curious if you feel like at certain ages and stages for your kids, there was a certain type of world schooling or education that worked best? Or is it really just so individual to the child theirself? I know that not every environment works well for every child, and I get the desire to pursue different things at different phases. Any thoughts in that regard?

Lizz Quain

We had tried all different ways. In my course, I go really into depth on each of the six ways. One of my modules gives an overview over the education system and why I think today in 2025, it's really antiquated and not preparing our kids for the future. I also talk about how to homeschool while world schooling. That's parent-led education. With the homeschooling, I share a list of 700 online learning apps. The next way is online schools, and I share a list of 70 online schools. Then I have hiring nannies, teachers, or teachers either at the destination or online or to travel with your family, and I share a list of 40 online tutoring companies. Then we have in-person local schools, classes, and camps at the destinations around the world, and I share a list of 100 world school friendly local schools around the world. Then world school summits, hubs, and pop-ups, and I have a list of 100 world school hubs. That's the list that is hardest to keep up to date because there's so many new ones popping up or going away, and some of them have some learning, and others are just for social connections and cultural stuff. The last one is unschooling, self-directed learning, child-led learning. Then I have a module on the future of world school kids, helping them get into university if they choose that route, or become an entrepreneur, or get a job, or whatever they want. So all of those different things we've tried.

I've met hundreds of families, and I always ask them, "How do you fund the travels?" I have a list of 300 income ideas. The second one is, "How do you educate your kids?" I've just heard from so many families, and it really depends on the kid. I do think that for younger kids, I would really focus on self-directed learning, child-led learning, going to world school hubs, being around other kids, maybe enrolling them in local schools if you're at a country long enough to do that, because that's especially for them to learn another language and really immerse in the local culture and meet local kids. I wouldn't focus on super academic stuff or online schools, I think until the kids are at least eight. You could do some Outschool classes.

Initially, when I was world schooling, I met this American mom who lived most of the time in Morocco, and she was using the Charlotte Mason method on her kids. They sat down for a couple of hours every day. At first, I was trying to get my kids to sit down with me and let's read Harry Potter and let's go on Khan Academy and do some math. My kids were like, "No, Mom, there's a spider out there on that big tree. We want to go check out," and "There's also a pig next door, and there's monkeys." They just wanted to go out there in nature and just explore. I'm so glad that I didn't force them to sit down and do academic stuff at that age. They got really into animals and biology and nature.

So it depends on the kids, but for younger kids, I would really relax. It's not important to stay on grade level. Like I said, Gabby was behind in math, now she's a 4.0 student getting an A in math. Kids will learn what they want to learn best. There's a thing called a learning pyramid, and forcing kids to learn via lecture and reading is one of the worst ways for kids to retain that information. The best way is if kids are going to have to teach others how to do the thing. The step above that is immersive, like learning by doing. I think it also depends on the kids. Some kids do really well with teacher-led or parent-led learning. Other kids are really against that. There's a lot of kids, depending on their age, that start world schooling in middle and high school. They hate school. They're so burned out from all the years of being forced to learn boring stuff that they were not interested in. So they need to de-school.

It really depends on the kids, on where they are in their life, their age, what they're interested in. I'm really glad that we tried the different ways. My kids decided to go to this high school, a small art school. It's a magnet school. It's a mix of academic classes. They're doing chemistry and world history this year, and English and all that. Then a lot of creative classes like graphic design, illustration, theater, music. One of my girls is related to music, songwriting, becoming a record producer—not just playing music but the business side of it. There's a lot of project-based learning. I would recommend that if you go back in the school system, find something where the kids get a choice in what they're learning.

There's so many different ways to learn, and it really depends on the kid, the age of the kids, the family's philosophy. Also, are you going to be world schooling for a gap year or are you going to be world schooling for 10 years? Do your kids want to go to university? Do they want to go in the trades? Do they want to become a doctor or nurse? Do they want to start their own business? There's so many paths out there for kids. I really think that world schooling and just kind of going with the flow and slowing down and not stressing over the academics, I think that really helps.

I've interviewed other parents whose kids were unschooled, and then between 16 and 18 or 19, both her sons did online school for a community college in the US. It was all online. This was during COVID, and they did great, and they're both going to really competitive universities in the Netherlands. So I would just tell parents not to worry.

There's so many different ways to learn, and I think the most important thing is for kids to learn how to learn because the future is really unknown. You know, in five, 10 years, AI is going to take over a lot. Learn 21st-century skills, which are critical thinking—we have a lack of critical thinking in our country—collaboration, you need to learn how to work as a team, thinking ** creatively** out of the box, and communication, knowing how to communicate with others. That's one thing that I really see with world schoolers and homeschoolers and unschoolers: they know how to communicate with adults.

One family, she had her kids in this online program, and her boys were doing fine, and they were kind of world schooling, unschooling. But her daughter was struggling because I think her daughter had some ADHD. So they did one-on-one tutoring with her, with a company called Cicero Learning that I recommended. It's expensive, but her daughter was rocking it. She got so into these classes that she was struggling with. She was doing really well with the one-on-one focused attention, and you really got to try different things and see what works for your kids. One thing that's really great about world schooling is you actually spend a bunch of time with your kids versus the regular lifestyle where you're going off to the office and then the kids are going off to school and you barely see each other.

Suzy

Yeah, in the normal schedule, you don't necessarily see where they're at in their education journey, what they're liking, what they're not, how they're learning, and you can be more adaptive to their needs through world schooling.

Lizz Quain

Spend time. Right. Exactly. And even though as a single mom, I was busy working online or whatever I was doing, I didn't have the time to homeschool my kids. But I was able to choose different ways for them to learn that I liked. As they got older, they would give me feedback about what they wanted to do or what they didn't want to do. Just listen to your kids. Have family meetings and see what works.

I think the kids who know how to learn, they're going to be the ones who can jump in and adapt. A big complaint that employers have is that kids nowadays don't know how to learn, how to figure things out on their own. They're so used to being trained and taught by a teacher, and then they want to be taught by a supervisor. AI is replacing a lot of entry-level jobs. There's more and more university graduates who are unemployed. There's also not a lot of education in school on how to start your own business. Even getting an MBA, that's to work for a corporation, to be a management consultant or work on Wall Street, or whatever, not launch your own business. If kids learn how to launch their own project or nonprofit or business, they're going to be so much better off than just applying to thousands of jobs online.

Suzy

I like to feature a one-month spending snapshot. I know you're at your home base currently, but for a family that's wanting to maybe start out on a long-term slow traveling journey, what's like a budget range that you found worked for you and your family?

Lizz Quain

Sure. We started traveling in 2016. There's been a lot of inflation. I have spent anywhere from between $1,200 US a month to about $5,000 a month. That's a big range, and it really depends on where we are. I think that $1,200 a month, that's when we were in Peru. I found this property where I rented a large room with two double beds for, I think, $250 a month, and it had a kitchen next door and it was kind of a shared space. It was a Peruvian man who was trying to turn it into a hotel. I posted on one of the world school groups and I said, "Hey, who wants to come to Peru?" Like 20 families passed through over the four or five months we were there. So it was really cheap, and we became friends, and we went to Machu Picchu with a group of people. It wasn't really a hub; I just invited people to come, and they paid the guy. My girls went to a local school there, and it was about $200 US per kid. We were trying to cook from home and all that, so yeah, $1,200 per month was pretty good.

Then there were times when we were kind of fast-traveling through Europe, and we spent the last summer, Summer 2024, 10 weeks pet sitting in the UK. We hadn't pet sat in the earlier days because we would just go to lower cost of living countries where other world schoolers like to hang out. But we like to mix it up with more expensive countries now, and we try to pet sit when we do that. We actually went to San Francisco for spring break last year, and we pet sat for part of that two weeks that we were there.

It depends on how fast you travel or how slow you travel. Again, we used to do slower travel. We've been in Medellín, Colombia, for six months and Peru for six months. We were in Mexico for a long time because of COVID. We were in Playa del Carmen for six months and hanging out with all these other world schoolers, and Lainey Liberty had her Project World School Summit. We were heading to Guatemala to be in a Stone Soup pop-up, but that was March 15th when the world shut down. Border guards wouldn't let us through, so we went back to the Mexico side, and luckily they gave me another six-month tourist stamp. So we went back to Mexico and went to Puebla for a while. I hired a nanny to live with us because I was working for the online school that was blowing up because of COVID. So I hired a nanny to cook three meals a day and clean up and speak Spanish to my girls. Since everything was shut down, everything was closed. Eventually, we went to the Republic of Georgia for six months. So we like to stay in places kind of long. I always try to get a deal on accommodations.

I think nowadays, it's 2025. I think $2,000 a month for a family of four would be a struggle unless you're living really like a local and lower cost of living countries. So it's harder nowadays, depending on where you travel. I saw a Facebook post of someone, a family of four, who spent $300,000 in one, maybe a year and a quarter. I've interviewed people who went on African safaris, and they're spending $50,000 for the month. They're doing everything, and they bargain. They really found a good deal for that $50,000 for an African safari. So it really depends on where you go and how long you're staying there.

This is more from a Western Europe, American, Australian, Canadian point of view. It's hard to live in the States in a big metro area for $3,000 a month. So we save money when we go abroad. I have learned how to do mileage points, and again, the pet sitting and house swaps. There's so many different things. I interviewed a whole bunch of people who do all this in my YouTube channel.

There's people who travel only during the summer, and they're spending a lot of money because that's when everyone else wants to travel. Budgeting is interesting. There's ways to do it on a budget and others to splurge. They've been saving money for years, and they have their beautiful house rented out and someone taking care of their dog, so they're able to do it just this one year. I'm a single mom of two. We typically go on a budget. It's typically around $2,000 or $3,000 a month since 2016. Obviously now, when we're in the UK, even with the pet sitting, we pet sat for, I think, about 50 nights. I'm guessing that saved us around $5,000. I still spent $3,000, $4,000 a month over those three months.

Suzy

The UK is a great place. I watch Trusted House Sitters a lot. It is, I think, where the website started because there's so many there. If someone wants to go to the UK, you should absolutely look into house sitting. There's so many places, and you're maybe not going to get your downtown central London, of course, but you're going to find hidden gems. You're going to find houses that have enough space for you and your family, and you can still usually access public transit for many of them. Or you rent a car and you can see the countryside. I've even told the Spanish families that we know in Sevilla, "If you want to vacation to England, you should look at this website because you can get relatively affordable flights to England, and then now your accommodation is taken care of."

Lizz Quain

We did the Lakes District in Scotland.

Suzy

And yes, there's the pet component to it, which my kids love. We love part-time. I don't need that full-time, love it part-time. So, yes, this is great. Before we wrap up and share resources, let's learn more about you in a lightning round. Top three places, cities or countries.

Lizz Quain

Three is hard. I'll tell you places I've gone back to repeatedly: Thailand, Spain, Italy, Ireland, and Japan, and Bali. I keep going back.

Suzy

Great places, great locations. Most unusual food that you remember trying along the way.

Lizz Quain

Aubrey is my foodie, and she and I love food. Gabby is a really picky eater. Aubrey, she has tried all sorts of shellfish and escargot and even fish eyeballs in certain countries. So she is more adventurous than I am.

Suzy

One item that you cannot travel without.

Lizz Quain

My AeroPress. I'm a coffee snob. This is a hack for parents of younger kids. Instead of going out to find a cafe in the morning for your coffee fix, I bring my own. I used to own a cafe, so I really got into good coffee, good Seattle, Portland coffee. I even had a handheld grinder, and eventually I got an electrical grinder. But I use the AeroPress, and when my kids are still in bed asleep, I can make my coffee in the morning and not rush out to find my cafe. So my AeroPress has been amazing.

Suzy

Makes sense. First thing you do when you arrive in a new country.

Lizz Quain

Get a SIM card.

Suzy

Yes, gotta communicate. Favorite subject to world school.

Lizz Quain

History. And food. History and food, yeah.

Suzy

And you're right. That's where traveling really shines is seeing the history in action and the food. Sounds good. A piece of advice for families to starting out.

Lizz Quain

Take my course. It will teach you everything that you never even knew that you wanted to know, and it'll make your trip so much less stressful. You'll be less overwhelmed. I have an A-to-Z step-by-step course, and you won't make so many newbie mistakes, some of which can be very costly.

Suzy

You've shared, you have a quiz that's coming out. Can you tell me a little more about that quiz and how that can connect people to the right resources for them?

Lizz Quain

Yes, right now I have a lot of resources like the top six ways to world school and a list of 300 income ideas and a bunch of other stuff. I just post them here and there on Facebook. I have put together a quiz on "Is world schooling right for you?" There's about 20 questions, and I'm manually going to be reading the answers and putting you within three categories. First category is: Yes, world schooling is right for you, and I will send you some videos on what your next steps are. The middle bucket is: World schooling might be right for you, but you still have a bunch of ducks to get in a row, and I will share with you a bunch of stuff about world schooling and also send you in the right direction for people or companies to talk to to get your ducks in a row. Then maybe you can get back to me in a year or whenever you figure that out. The last one is: World schooling is not right for you. Some people join my Facebook group, and they would like to do it, but in reality, it's just not something that makes sense for them over the next few years. So I still send a bunch of resources and the interviews just to inspire them.

Suzy

Sounds good. You have other links that I will make sure to link in the show notes: the course information, the Facebook groups, the YouTube channel, Instagram, and the World School All-Stars. Is that the website that focuses more on the hub creation?

Lizz Quain

Yes. So we are almost finished creating the first part of the course, and we're going to have five modules, two-hour videos each. We did a live with the three of us and whoever can show up to the live meeting to ask the questions, and then we get homework. We quizzed them before we launched the course on what specific things they wanted us to focus on. So we have that almost done, and it will be available online in evergreen format. If there's demand, we will launch part two, and that will be a more advanced course. We will be interviewing more guest experts of people who run nomadic hubs or, like Patty Rojas, she's one of the first hubs, like what inspired her and just some of the other leaders in this space because we all do things differently. After each course, once you finish the homework, you will get a badge that you can use on your marketing materials to show that you have been trained by the World School All-Stars, people who are highly experienced and know the ins and outs. Everyone can reach out to me at liz@trailblazingfamilies.com. That's L I Z Z.

Suzy

So many great resources for people to check out. Is there any final note that you'd like to end on?

Lizz Quain

Even though we are no longer world schooling full-time, and I will get back to traveling once my kids fly the coop and go off to university, I will definitely be doing some type of travel-oriented business. I do not like living in the boring suburbs of Seattle, but what can I do? Anyway, even though we're not doing it full-time, I am so happy that more and more families are world schooling. I'm really proud of the families that took my course and are launching out there. I'm envious at watching their videos and Instagrams and Facebook posts. I'm so proud of them and how happy they are, and they're thriving, and their kids are doing well. Obviously, there's bumps in the road. It's not a perfect lifestyle. There's always some pros and cons. So I'm just really wanting to encourage more people to try world schooling, even if it's for a long summer or school breaks or a year or 10 years. Your kids and you will be better off if you do it this way because you will learn to become a global citizen, which is more important than ever. You might learn a language or two. You're going to open up your mind and your perspective about what the real world is really like, not just what the media tells you. You will make amazing friends from all over the world. I just think that when you're on your deathbed looking back on your life, what do you want it to mean? And having these amazing memories with your kids that go beyond just the 18 summers you have with them before they fly off, it's really precious. So see if you can make an investment and do this. Again, it can be cheaper to world school, depending on where you live and travel abroad than living in your home country. If you figure out how to fund it, save up, and there's other ways to just work part-time and freelance and teach English online and whatever here and there just to make an extra thousand, $2,000 a month to help fund the travel. There's cheaper ways to do it with pet sitting and house swaps and so many different ways. Just really consider it because this will be an amazing gift to give to your family. I really want to encourage more families to give it a try.

Suzy

I love it. That is so great. A great note to end on. We'll make sure to link all those resources in the show notes so people who are learning to world school can connect with you with your course. I really appreciate our conversation. I've learned so much today. Thank you.

Lizz Quain

Thank you.