Suzy

Hola and hello. Welcome to the Wander World School and Slow Family Travel podcast. I'm Suzy, a travel loving money nerd, mom of two energetic boys. and our family lives between Spain and Colorado. On this show, we discuss the stories, logistics, and finances of long-term traveling families and the multitude of ways to learn along the way. Today, I'm joined by Stephanie Tolk. Welcome to the show.

Stephanie Tolk

Hey, Suzy, thanks so much for having me. I'm based in Portland, Oregon, originally from the East Coast, but I've been here for 25 years. And I'm here with my husband and my two daughters who are 14 and 16.

Suzy

Before we talk about your offering, Deliberate Detour, I'd love to backtrack and hear more about you and your some of those travel adventures that you had growing up.

Stephanie Tolk

I had several international trips as kind of a tween young teen when my mom and stepdad were trying to meld four kids from different families. But we did the all-inclusive resort type of travel. there's definitely some privilege under that. I got to go to Acapulco, in the Caribbean. So nice beach resorts. which I thought was travel. Like I just felt like that's how people traveled until I had a really interesting experience right around age 12, which is very pivotal time for a people. And we spent, 10 days in the Dominican Republic at a resort. And my mom and stepdad were really into food. they decided that they wanted to go to a local restaurant, which meant leaving the confines of this massive sprawling resort with the buffets and all of the golf courses. And I just remember leaving the gates and getting into the actual town, like where the workers at the resort lived and led their regular lives. And it was just like what would be a typical Dominican town. And it was a complete contrast to this resort we were in. And I just had this moment of like, wait, where are we? Like, where are we staying? And then what is this? And why does it feel so weird? And I just, always come back to that because I think that was the seed for me of wanting to travel differently. When I realized what the Dominican Republic actually looked like, at least outside that resort, I realized that I wasn't seeing this country at all. as I grew older, I ended up doing some study abroad programs, living with host families. I was in the Peace Corps in West Africa for more than two years out of college. And I just have always gravitated towards immersion into real life as much as I can, and it all stemmed from that experience.

Suzy

I can relate. I was in the Jamaica Republic for a wedding many years ago and same thing. It was sort of surreal to be at this beautiful location. but I did feel like we came all this way here for something that did not feel unique to this area. And I feel like I didn't even get to experience what the country has to offer. So I can see how that has shaped some of your love for more of that cultural immersion piece too. And you mentioned that you have two children. And tell me a little more about what family travel has looked like for you all.

Stephanie Tolk

I knew from my own experiences growing up that when I had kids, if and when I had kids, I would want them to get out of the US for an extended period of time. I sort of declared that to my husband, who wasn't much of a traveler when our first daughter was born. And then we just figured out how to make it happen when they were 10 and 12. We were delayed by almost a year and a half because of COVID. I was hoping to get them out a little younger, but we ended up leaving in September of 2021 for about a year, came back for a couple months to Portland and then left for a second year, came back. And my kids wanted to try seventh and eighth grade, which of course all the adults in their life were like, if your parents want to keep traveling, maybe don't do middle school, but they had some FOMO. They ended up doing seventh and eighth grade, but we had planned from the beginning to pull them out at spring break. And then that year we traveled for about four or five months, spring and summer. And now they're in high school. So things are a little different with older kids, but we did do about two and a half years.

Suzy

that's lovely. What were some of those destinations that stick out in your mind? Ones that you would go back to in a heartbeat if you could.

Stephanie Tolk

Gosh, so many. We had some really incredible experiences. we had some host family stays that we figured out through Workaway, I think if you want to do a whole family stay on Workaway, you really have to work at it and reach out to hosts and tell them who you because they're posting for one person. They want one person to come and pick their coffee or help with their sheep. but I was able to finagle three different Workaway stays with three different host families in Czech Republic, Peru and Columbia. And so those are like my dreamy dream experiences because you're in some random village with a family just living there. And it's like as close to Peace Corps. I'm always trying to replicate Peace Corps. It's as close to that as I can make happen now. often it's less about the destination and more about what you're doing there, I think as a traveler. Czech Republic really has wiggled its way into my heart because we had this amazing family that we stayed with. And we actually just the summer four years later went back and visited them in Prague. So lifelong friends, mom and dad with three kids. But then, I mean, we also got to do some of the mind blowing bucket list things like we we walked into the Great Pyramid of Giza and we went to Machu Picchu and we snorkeled off of Bali and Lombok and so we definitely did some of those just incredible experiences that I've been wanting to do and I've been wanting to share with my kids.

Suzy

when you are traveling for an extended period of time, you have an opportunity to mix that up, get some of those bucket list destinations there's reasons that these are famous, right? But also interspersed it with those real life, real world situations working is, one way to really experience what it's like. What did your children think? I know you said you wanted to start a little younger. and then you were able to travel during their middle school-ish years. What were their thoughts? Like, was there any hesitation leaving? I just don't know how much sometimes families have to. sell it to their kids and you understand a kid's brain, right? They're happy where they are. They don't maybe realize what's coming and you know this is worth it for them and this experience will be amazing for your family. I'm just curious if you had any conversations like that for your family and then any suggestions for families that are like, I really want to do this. My kids are older. I know they can enjoy it, but there's some hesitancy there.

Stephanie Tolk

There are two things I wanna discuss. One thing that we did incorrectly and one thing that surprised me. So the thing that I did incorrectly is I talked about it way too early. Probably a year in advance of when I thought we were leaving. I wanted to kind of like slowly drop the breadcrumbs and get them comfortable. I've been thinking about this for 10 years and I'm like, for me, a year did not feel early. When you have an entire year to plan and you can go anywhere on the planet. But then because we were waylaid due to COVID, it became almost two and a half years and my kids kind of waiting and I could see the anxiety. It's like, we're going to do this big thing but then we're not doing it. And like, this is huge thing happening. We need to go buy backpacks but then like this kid was mean to them at school. And that's like in the now, in the moment. So I just think I was a little too eager. let them know it's happening, but then just for my kids, at least I'd give them maybe like three months of, all right, now we're talking about it. And let's like dig into the details. The thing that surprised me because of who I am and all the traveling I had done is that my kids really did not know much about the world. like geography, climate, seasonality. And I tried to include them in on the planning to have their voice and their buy-in and have them be excited about a place that they picked or an experience they selected. And they were just like deer in headlights. Like we would pull out the globe and they honestly just like didn't know that much. they were, I don't know, nine and 11-ish and they just don't get a lot in school here. my husband and I, we informed them and we included them, but we really picked the itinerary at the end of the day.

Suzy

I think there's a lot of eagerness to involve children in the planning process, but you're right. They sometimes just can't comprehend what's, what's to come well, thank you for sharing more about your long-term travels, your kids are going to remember a lot of this because they were a little older. were They pretty ready to come back to school

Stephanie Tolk

I think this question kind of leads into our whole educational philosophy and approach.

Suzy

Yeah. And I'd love to hear more about that because that's a big piece of what you do with Deliberate Detour. But also it matters to a family like what's important and traveling is a big part of how we want to educate our children. But we all come at it from wonderful and different ways.

Stephanie Tolk

the education piece was really big and complicated and confusing, honestly, because we had not been homeschoolers and neither of us are teachers. And both my husband and I have like more than one college degree. So we're in that kind of hyper-educated world of like, don't our kids automatically go to college and get at least one degree? And how do we break out of that? the, that like road that our society, at least in the U S sets us on. we had decided originally when we started world schooling that we would try to keep up with core academics. So math language, art, science, and history. And I think like with a lot of world schoolers, some of that kind of dropped by the wayside as we, as we got further down the road, they did keep up with math, which my husband loves. So he would like, kind of keep that moving forward. History became like, here we are in Giza and all of that. Here we are in Turkey and Pompeii and all these incredible places. Science became ecology and environment and ecosystems. like a lot of people, was worried because I knew they were gonna come back to public school. I just, I could tell that my relationship with my kids was more parent and less teacher. And I think the successful homeschoolers start early. They start when their kids are six or seven and it's all their kids know. My children had come from public school. So they were leaving fourth and fifth grade after having several years. I felt like they were young, but they were immersed in the public school system. And then when we tried to teach them, it was just combative. they didn't want to do it. They wanted to go watch Netflix. They needed to chill out, whatever it was. All the things that they wouldn't say to a teacher, but that they'd say to the parent. we ended up in those two and a half years, kind of like homeschooling light. They took some out-school classes. They did some math. We did. projects in each country where we explore a topic and kind of shared a project with one another between the four of us. But we were pretty chill when it came to the academic piece.

Suzy

my kids go to public school, and I am very pro public schools. I think they're very important. I also do see why people homeschool. just I respect all choices. I also ⁓ do think there's a lot of families who are really planning on a gap year. they're going to come back to their home home base. This is not forever. And so I'm really curious how that transition back to your home base and to back to public school when after this time period where, like you said, you were light on this, on the homeschooling, focusing on the core subjects. And I think that makes total sense, to really focus on where you're at and what you're doing. But how did that go when you did come back to the public school system?

Stephanie Tolk

one thing really surprised me about coming back to the public school system. I think a lot of people are worried about the academic piece. Are they going to be able to take algebra in high school or did we not set them up for success? And for my kids, it was more the cultural piece that was the most challenging. because we live inside Portland, Oregon, and our middle school is quite diverse, socioeconomically, racially, ethnically. There's all kinds of kids in that school. And it's like an American middle school, and kids are like looking at the shoes you're wearing and the jeans you're wearing, and there is a lot of pressure to be a certain way. And that was way harder, way harder for my kids, seventh and eighth grade, than anything academic. Academically, they were fine, Socially, mean, my daughter came back wearing elephant pants from Thailand and a sweater with llamas on it from Peru and went to the first day of eighth grade like that. I think looking adorable, but not wearing the Nikes and the whatever, whatever. it was a challenging year because even though this is our culture and has been their home for their whole lives, they really fully stepped out of it and got to see it from the outside and then try to step back in. So there are a lot of lessons there around like who we are and what we care about as a society and values. But I will say for an eighth grade girl to come into a school not knowing anybody, it was rough. Yeah.

Suzy

So the challenge was more on the social side of things and their whole worldview had expanded and they got to see different things while their peers were not. So I'm sure that was some of that struggle at first. How long did it take till they were settled though?

Stephanie Tolk

I think it honestly remains a struggle. Like I think that when you have an experience like that for two and a half years, you are changed, but you don't wanna be the one who's different. both of them are, they're fine. Now they're freshmen and sophomore. ⁓ And they've got a crew of friends and they're in clubs and I think they know themselves better. I think they have a little bit of like a stronger internal compass that helps them know what feels right. So when they are met with the societal pressure to be a certain way, they can kind of like calibrate whether that resonates with them,

Suzy

any tips for, families that are doing a gap year and they are easing back into, their public school. especially with teens and tweens.

Stephanie Tolk

That's a good question. I have a friend who we sort of inspired to do a gap year after we came back from ours. And they only did a year. They did a nine or 10 month school year. And her kids had less trouble reintegrating, I think because it was shorter. I mean, this is an anecdote of one family. So obviously not representative of everybody, but there's something about, you know, two, three plus years, it's different than one school year away.

Suzy

I think it's helpful to have siblings. have two boys. So I, actually loved it. they have very similar interests. I don't know how your girls are. was that maybe helpful to have each other, especially close in age on those travels?

Stephanie Tolk

Yeah, We all have this underlying shared experience that nobody else will ever understand. And that bonds you. My kids are really different and they've decided on career paths potentially, they're only 14 and 16, but that have stemmed from their world schooling experiences, which is pretty cool to see too.

Suzy

So that opportunity can live on in their future endeavors. also whenever people hear about gap years or long-term travel and they're inspired to do that, they might be wondering what is the finance piece? What is the logistical piece of that? how did you fund those travels?

Stephanie Tolk

I see all the time on Facebook, like, how do you afford this? And I think everybody has a different financial picture. We are fortunate to live in a city where we've owned a house for a long time, and we rented our house out. So we were able to net profit on the rent because our mortgage is low because we've had it for 20 years. We cleared everything out personal, put it all in like our kind of small office room and rented like a furnished house. that was our primary source of revenue. we did start in Europe to kind of have a smoother entry for the kids, but we were in and out. and we prioritize lower cost countries like Egypt, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, places like that. So that was year one. Year two, my husband worked. We had both taken off work that first year. Second year, he worked, so that helped. He was just working online. And that's how we did it. I know other people have rentals and passive income is amazing. It's hard to make happen, but.

Suzy

Exactly. It's the dream. But I agree. We also rent our, our home base house out furnished while we're gone. And that is a very key part to cutting back on the expenses. do you remember like a month or two or something of a location that you're at and kind of a price point that someone could guesstimate for like a month of lodging and food and activities

Stephanie Tolk

we actually kept track of every expense on a spreadsheet. We had one spreadsheet for country and we had it broken out between food, lodging, activities, supplies, and medications and things like that. And we actually used it as part of our math homeschooling. So this is a tip for folks if this appeals, but the girls would... you know, add up all of our expenses and put it into the little Excel cell. We talked about averages, things like that, some statistics in there. They got really tired of it. And my husband and I got kind of obsessive about it. It was fascinating. This is like such a dorky thing to admit, but it was so interesting for me to see like just how everything was adding up. so the first year we went to, think, 13, 14 countries in Europe, Africa was only Egypt and Asia. And on average, we spent $150 a day for everything. So that's $4,500 a month. In some places, like we spent a few nights in Vienna between Czech Republic and Italy. We stopped in Vienna, we knew that Austria was really expensive. So we were like four nights, we're in and out. We did four nights in Singapore as well, in and out, because mostly we were three or four weeks or up to two months. So four nights was really fast. So those places we might've averaged like 250, $300 a night. And then other countries, it would be 80 or 90, but the average was $150 a day, including everything lodging. trains, buses, everything except international airfare.

Suzy

Wow. That's amazing. That's a very doable price point for a lot of people that are looking at their budgets while they're living in the U S or UK or some of those higher cost countries thinking, yeah, I spend that pretty easily sometimes. thank you for sharing. I think that's helpful to get a starting point to know that when you slow down and you spend longer in certain places and you're strategic in that regard, you can have amazing experiences like you had with Workaway, but also really keep the price point low so that you can get more out of the experience. You also have ventured into the world schooling hub arena. I have been, tracking those opportunities in Oaxaca and Cusco. So I'd love to hear more about how this has evolved. And did this spring from your travels in some ways, or was this something that you had wanted to start long before that?

Stephanie Tolk

Yeah, definitely sprang from my travels. on our first world schooling journey, we went to a hub in Luxor, Egypt. There's one there now. This was the previous one that doesn't exist anymore. It was six weeks. And then we went to a shorter hub in Thailand and it was like a rock climbing kind of outdoor adventure hub. And then we did a pop-up hub in Mexico. That was the second year. And I had been working at museums and nonprofits in Portland for a long time. I had started a nonprofit in my twenties. I ended up learning about strategic planning, finance, HR, like everything it takes to run a business or anything, any kind of organization. So I had that. skill set, I had the passion for travel and the museum I'd been working at closed during the pandemic and never reopened. So I was kind of searching for how do I align these parts of myself. And when I went to that first hub in Luxor, this was in December of 2021, not even that long ago, but it was like the early days of world schooling hubs. there just were not that many. And I was really fascinated by it. It was such a cool mix of culture and connection and community. And I just thought that's like perfect for me. I'm not scared to start something entrepreneurial. And I love getting people connected to the world. So that's how it all started.

Suzy

That's wonderful. It's funny to hear the origin story because that is what travel does to us. It inspires us. And so this is where it's taking you. What about those two locations, Cusco, Peru and Oaxaca, Mexico were pivotal to choosing them as hub locations.

Stephanie Tolk

our first world schooling year was Europe, Egypt, as on the African continent, Asia. And our second year was Latin America. And before COVID, we were trying to do all of those places and then everything fell apart and then reorganized in a different way. And we weren't able to go to Latin America at all. So year two was only Peru, Guatemala, and Mexico. And part of it was to connect my kids to the Spanish language. So originally Deliver Detour was going to be Cusco, Antigua and Oaxaca because we had spent about three months in each place. We really slowed down and we rented long-term apartments and we just kind of stuck in those three places. As I was putting all the pieces in a place for those three hubs, World Schooling Hub Antigua opened up with Alana who Maybe you will interview or maybe you already have.

Suzy

I hope to, I've seen her hub pop up and my husband, spent six weeks there pre-kids doing Spanish language. And so it is near and dear to my heart and I'd love to learn more about what they're doing there. but okay. So that, that took care of Antigua then.

Stephanie Tolk

Right. And also those three cities are all like, fairly similar. I mean, they're so deeply connected to culture, whether it's the Inca history and the Quechua or the Mayan or the Zapotec and all those cultures show up today in modern day cities. they're just so rich and interesting. And so when we started to kind of plan out the activities, there was like a lot of overlap between what we could do. There's culinary workshops in each of them. There's craft workshops. And so it's easy to create a template when you've got similarities like that.

Suzy

That makes sense. And what does that look like on the ground then? Like for these hubs, when people show up for, I know you have the community and the cultural next year. Tell me a more about the difference there and what a family can anticipate if they join one of these hubs.

Stephanie Tolk

Yeah, all of our hubs are two weeks long. We've experimented with longer, but we do find we attract a lot of families who are on that gap year and who are traveling somewhat quickly. They want to see a lot of places. They don't want three months somewhere. next year we've got two week hubs, but you can stack them to make a month. And we've got cultural hubs and community hubs. all of our hubs all over forever and ever while I run this thing will always be deeply connected to culture. But we were realizing we were kind of pricing people out because we were buying a lot of workshops that were just like, we take the money from the parents and then we basically like give it to the workshop hosts. And so our prices are just like what they have to be to support that. And so we're trying to find for the community hubs ways to connect the kids to culture that aren't as expensive. And we're also on our end, we're not facilitating some of the add-ons that we facilitate in our culture hub so that our staff time is less So that's the difference between the two. We still have our field trips and we still have our weekend excursions and things like that. that people can add on if they want, but they can also come and it doesn't cost an arm and a leg to do the community hub.

Suzy

And this is a drop off hub. So the children can come and they spend the day there. What are those hours? And then what ages of children are a good fit for these hubs?

Stephanie Tolk

our hubs are four days a week and they run from 9.30 to about 3.30. 9.30 to 10 is a drop off window. So if you have a child that needs you to kind of settle them in slowly, you can stay. We always offer coffee, tea, fruit for parents to connect, kind of chit chat in the morning. We do a morning circle, a morning activity, lunch and an afternoon activity and a closing circle. So two activity slots that are like an hour and a half to two hours. It might be Zapotec animal mask making in Oaxaca, which would be at the hub, a craft activity connected to the Zapotec indigenous culture. It might be a neighborhood walk in Cusco where we know places where these alpacas and llamas are always hanging out. So we take the kids through Cusco, look at the Inca walls, they get to pet some alpaca. We'll do a cacao workshop where they'll learn about. how cacao grows in the Peruvian Amazon and how it's harvested. And they're like tasting the cacao and the nibs and they're making teas and they're making chocolate and things like that. So usually between the morning and the afternoon activity, one of them will be outside of the hubs. So they're getting out, they're walking through the streets. For that reason, we take kids who are seven to 16 and we take six year olds on a case by case basis. And if you have a six year old, we usually just have a chat about their ability to follow directions, stay on the sidewalk, keep pace with the group. So that's why we have that, that minimum age.

Suzy

My husband and I spent some time in South America. Cusco is one of the places we visit because his brother-in-law's wife is from Peru and has family in Cusco and Lima. it's a place that I think works well with slightly older kids who are more independent. You can be out and about, narrow streets. having kids that you can trust in a crowd is very helpful. So I can see that. And then the kids walk away with more from the experience as well, what is a memorable story from a family, about their experiences? What did they like most about their opportunity with the Deliberative Tour Hub? I'm just curious of some of those family perspectives.

Stephanie Tolk

I think that one thing that resonates with families about Deliberate Detour Hubs is how we balance the kid-only drop-off portion with parent-only activities and whole family activities. And we are a drop-off program. We work on team building and bonding, and we try to gel the kids so that they create these lifelong friendships. That's very important. ⁓ But while the kids are in the hubs, we have parent only activities, which they can choose to add on or not. So it might be a cooking class in Oaxaca. We have a mezcal tasting. We have hikes to Inca sites outside of Cusco, things like that. So if you have time and you're not working and you want to connect with other parents, you can choose those. And then we have whole family field trips as well, which are day long experiences some of ours are curated because we work with local folks. So it wouldn't be the kind of thing that you could find on your own if you were to Google it. They're kind of special experiences that we've put together just for these families. So that seems to be what people appreciate is like kind of the levels of I can explore with my whole family. I can just explore with other adults. and my kids can have their own child community.

Suzy

love that combination. And I can see if you're traveling for a full year, you probably are spending a lot of time together. So this is a great opportunity for the kids to have some independent time, parents to have parent time. I love the idea of mixing that up throughout a gap year experience. I do like to discuss some of the challenges and wins. So this could be, it'd be a challenge and a win. from your gap years that you took or from running a hub and getting that off the ground and growing that opportunity for other world schooling families. I'm curious if there's any challenges that are top of mind for you right now and then we'll cover the wins as well.

Stephanie Tolk

I'll talk about a challenge from the World Schooling Hub So World Schooling Hubs, some people would say that they've been around a while and the people who say that are thinking of the really casual organic meetups that have happened forever. pre social media people figured out how to meet up with other traveling families. But we are in a little bit of the Wild West zone of actual world schooling hubs that have been around really only, I don't know, four or five years the most. So entering it has been interesting and the challenges have been around not a lot of consensus around this industry. Like if you go to buy a pair of sneakers, like you know what sneakers are, nobody has to tell you what they are, right? World schooling hubs are different. And so there's a lot of communication that we need to do. I try to keep up our social media and our website and have Q and A's and just be super available to people because we definitely have like a vibe and we have something we're trying to do as Deliberate Detour, but it's really different than, you know, world schooling hub A, C and D. So it's exciting and it's also just like more complex than an industry that's been around a while. what's exciting is I get to like help craft it and I get to help kind of message what this whole thing is about for people.

Suzy

and building it from the ground up provides that opportunity to lay some of the framework for what your vision is. And eventually that will also allow other people to expand on these opportunities because the world is big as we all know, once you start traveling it and there's a lot of diverse interests that families have or what they're looking for. So it does feel like it's, it's like Tetris, like a family wants this and where's that piece going to fit into this big world of opportunities. that once you're in those groups, you think there's tons of people doing this, but it's actually not as many as, as the whole world. but I think obviously with the last few years, this has exploded more traveling families, And the flexibility with remote work has allowed people to really incorporate travel into their family. So I think it's exciting as a family that's growing up and figuring out what this is going to look like for us. and also to hear from people that have paved the way. I appreciate that. what is a win that you'd like to share

Stephanie Tolk

One of the tenants of Deliberate Detour is tapping into local knowledge to create our programs. And one win was start, it's a win because it started from a place of risk, which is that I needed to find people in Peru and Mexico to run these programs. And I did, and these people are incredible and it could have been, it could have gone the other direction. A lot of world schooling hubs are run by the founder who is often somebody like me, a mom in a Western country that has moved somewhere or loves a place. There's value in that for sure. Because Deliberate Tea Tour is so focused on connection to culture and the modern culture's roots in history, I am not the person to lead those hubs. I'm not Peruvian. I'm not Mexican and my Spanish is mediocre. I've spent months, but not years in either of those places. So I had to find folks in each of these countries. And I got to say like every testimonial I get about Linda and Maria and Mojaca and Camila and Mariana and Peru are like glowing. they've four amazing women who go above and beyond for every family, bilingual. creative, passionate, dedicated people. So that is a win for me and Deliberate Detour and all the parents who get to meet these four people.

Suzy

I can imagine there is some trepidation to start a business in other countries, just so many different things to consider. So what an amazing opportunity to elevate these women and their strengths and their skills and help connect people from the U.S. and other countries who are on these ⁓ gap years or on these opportunities. And they want to travel to connect them with these women who are representative of their culture and probably very proud to share it with people that are coming through, especially when it's more intentional. Is there any resources that were really top of mind when you plan your gap year or for World Schooling Hubs to be a leader and a creator in that space. Any resources or tips or tricks?

Stephanie Tolk

For our gap year, we definitely used Work Away to find those really immersive programs with other families. There's a book called Wonder Year, which is a few years old. And I think that their content has stayed really relevant. I mean, honestly, I think there's a deficit in the world school and community in that so much of this takes place through Facebook groups, like so much information and knowledge gathering. And it really takes a devoted parent to be the one like reading and commenting. I mean, one day a smarter person than me will start this amazing website where everything will just live. But right now, I mean, it's really scattered the information. Would you agree with that?

Suzy

Absolutely. I feel like there's some amazing parents and families who are being creative. ⁓ I interviewed Bjorn Boyd who has a Linky's app trying to connect traveling families. So a little more on just like, Hey, where are we? Where are these other traveling families? there are some websites that list hubs. What I find is because people do gravitate to Facebook for so many reasons, they end up in these groups or searching through and yeah, it needs to be done better. There's some telegram groups that I'm in. but then I also feel like it's kind of the same thing as some of those groups. It just gets kind of lost and one person's looking for Croatia and the other is looking for something in Southeast Asia. And so there needs to be more centralized. So I agree that could be the next endeavor for anyone that's creative in this space to find the ultimate place for all these world schooling opportunities.

Stephanie Tolk

One thing to add to that is I remember like a long time ago, people telling me you're never going to be like, wake up one day and feel like you're ready to have a baby. You just have to kind of like, you'll just have one if that's where your journey takes you and you'll figure it out. I kind of feel that's a really good analogy for world schooling. The resources. I mean, you can be on a million blogs, you can be all over Facebook 15 hours a day, but you just kind of have to go and start. And I think there's so much you learn on the ground. There are things you learn at these hubs from other families. I just would encourage people not to wait until they have every question answered before they leave their country, because it's just not going to happen.

Suzy

Absolutely. I'm to jump right in and figure it out as we go. That's part of the adventure. So I'd like to learn more about you with a lightning round. So a couple of quick questions. Most delicious food you've ever tried.

Stephanie Tolk

When I was before kids a long time ago, 25 years ago, in Tuscany, in a small town, there was an older woman making fresh gnocchi with tartufo truffles. And it was like the dreamiest meal 25 years ago. I will not forget it.

Suzy

that sounds amazing. One item that you cannot travel without.

Stephanie Tolk

Ziploc bags rolled up with an elastic band around them and then a separate little thing that has butterfly clips in it.

Suzy

And what are those often used for?

Stephanie Tolk

Those are for like open anything. Like, I don't know, sunscreen products. You're right. yeah.

Suzy

So don't get all that all over your bag. That's smart. What is your favorite subject to world school?

Stephanie Tolk

I didn't know that I even liked history until I started world schooling. I'm like fascinated by history and it really just was like a side effect of travel for me.

Suzy

History really needs to come alive in the stories and that is so easy to do when you're in the places as well. If you could teleport to one place right now, where would it be?

Stephanie Tolk

Well, as you were asking that question, I was picturing beaches in Thailand, like Krabi, Koh Lanta. I mean, picture postcard perfect beaches.

Suzy

Beautiful, beautiful. what is your favorite tip to save money while traveling?

Stephanie Tolk

I would just say cooking a lot of your own food. We tended to cook two of the three meals a day. We would eat out once, but starting breakfast, getting my kids moving in the morning, we ate at home. then usually when they were little, it was usually dinner because they'd be so tired at the end of the day. That's a good way. Although caveat is not cheaper in Thailand. where I want to be on the beach because street food is so insanely good and inexpensive.

Suzy

Yes. I love when you can be somewhere and eat out all the meals and not feel any guilt about the financial ramifications of that. I'd like to share all your resources in the show notes so everyone can connect with you Are there any other ways that people can connect with you?

Stephanie Tolk

we've got social media and our website and I'm sure you'll include those in the show notes.

Suzy

Absolutely. This is great. So I'll make sure that people can connect with you and learn more about the opportunities. I know you have some around the holidays at the end of this year and then kicking off in 2026 as well. this has been so lovely to chat. Thank you so much for joining me today.

Stephanie Tolk

Thank you, Suzy. It was wonderful.