Suzy: Welcome to Wander Worldschool. It's trivia time. What European city hosts their country's busiest airport and claims the namesake of a famous hot dog variety? Tune in to this month's listener locations to find out. I'm Suzy, a travel-loving money nerd, mom of two, and our family lives between Spain and Colorado. On this show, we discuss the stories, logistics, and finances of traveling families and the many ways to learn along the way.

Today's end-of-the-month episode includes a funny story from our family adventures this month, listener locations, and tips for exploring that European city from this episode's opening trivia. We also discuss highlights from this month's episodes, and our deep dive is something I'm really, really excited about. I'm bringing all the voice memos that I've been collecting over the last few months from lots of world-schooling and traveling families.

It’s all about their favorite holiday memories or what they have planned for this holiday season. On this show, we recognize all the ways that families celebrate holidays that are important to them. If you're listening to this the day it releases, Merry Christmas. December also commemorates Saint Nicholas Day on December 6th, which my family also celebrates as my husband's from Germany. The kids put their shoes out the night before and wake up to treats and small gifts.

Let me tell you, being a multicultural family around the holidays is a lot of fun, but it can also get expensive because there are lots of different holidays to plan for. I have to plan out what my kids will get ahead of time for each holiday since we also celebrate Three Kings Day on January 6th in Spain. Otherwise, it can get out of hand quickly. Other global December holidays include Hanukkah and the end-of-the-year New Year's Eve celebrations, alongside other culturally rich observances such as Mexico's Our Lady of Guadalupe, Sweden's Saint Lucia Day, the African American Kwanzaa holiday, and Japan's Omisoka, plus other important UN-recognized days like Human Rights Day. All of this showcases a mix of religious, cultural, and secular events worldwide. However and wherever you're celebrating, I truly hope you have a wonderful holiday season.

But before we jump in, how has your December been treating you? Our December was, of course, busy with holiday projects. I went to Florida for a work trip, fitting in family ski weekends, and we had an amazing world-schoolers meet-up at the Denver Christmas Market. So that was a lot of fun. But let me tell you about a funny story from when we went with our family to the Denver Christmas Market earlier in the month. The market is quite traditional. They have little shops, Glühwein, Bratwurst, Schnitzel, Kussmund mugs, and often traditional German music. Think accordions, Oompa-style stuff—you get it.

But this night, with my parents, my in-laws, our brother-in-law, and their kids, the musical performance was a fun mix of drag—Mrs. Claus outfits and all—and it ended with an indoor snowball fight with these foam snowballs. It was quite the show, considering the majority of the grandparents are all 80 and above by now. So it was a lot of fun. If you're in Denver, Colorado, around the holidays, I highly recommend the Denver Christkindlmarket.

Are you based out of Lisbon, Portugal; Phoenix, Arizona; or Frankfurt, Germany? I love looking at the listener locations from this past month. Today we will feature Frankfurt, an often overlooked central German city. It is also that city from the opening trivia. It boasts the largest airport in Germany and is home to the Frankfurter hot dog.

I lived about an hour from Frankfurt for two years a while ago, and that airport connects directly to Denver. So I have flown through that airport quite a few times. Once we explored the red-light district of Frankfurt, which was honestly not as exciting as the one in Amsterdam back in the day in the early 2000s. But for you, Frankfurt may also just be a stopping point to other German cities. Next time you're there, I do encourage you to check it out. You can explore the old town, Römerberg, and the riverbanks; head to the Museum of Art, ending with a panoramic view from the Main Tower; or take a relaxing stroll in the Palmengarten—all with a fraction of the tourists that Munich or Berlin get, though I, of course, do love those cities as well. In fact, Frankfurt's Oktoberfest is starting to rival the one in Munich, so put that on your festival bucket list.

Shout out to our Apple Podcast reviewer, Hammock Hoppers, who said, "Suzy's podcast is great. I appreciate the consistent flow across episodes and the wide variety of families represented. After nearly two years as a full-time, slow-travel, world-school family, I still learn something new each time." Aw, thank you. I realize I'm a bit biased, but I feel the same way when I'm editing and listening back to the episodes. These guests are truly amazing.

If you want to be a guest, please reach out. And if you're enjoying this episode, will you give me a holiday high-five by leaving a five-star review on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your shows? Based on your awesome feedback, I am switching up these monthly episode recaps to highlight why I liked my conversation with this guest so much and why you should go back and listen to it if you haven't yet. I'd also love to share any feedback or thoughts or love for the guest, rave reviews of the episode, or anything like that. Send me a shout-out, question, or feedback using that text link above in the show notes.

Back in episode 29, I spoke with Stephanie Tolk from Deliberate Detour. I really love the adventures that her family took during their gap year. She was real about how it changed her daughters once they returned. But more and more, I really think that every family should, at some point before the kids fly the nest, take an extended trip—take a gap year. It does not have to be two and a half years like Stephanie's family, but during their adventure, they got to learn Spanish, make Workaway friends all over, including ones that they visited in Czechia again recently, and they knocked off some amazing bucket-list destinations. And as Stephanie shared, it inspired her to start Deliberate Detour so that families in Oaxaca, Mexico, and Cusco, Peru, can truly immerse in the local culture. I am so inspired by Stephanie's efforts and I cannot wait to take one of these hubs someday.

In episode 30, I chatted with Maggie Tucker from the Inside Out Money podcast. Maggie keeps it real about their personal finance journeys that led them to early retirement in their 40s. I think it's so important for people to share those personal finance journeys to help inspire others to lead a non-traditional lifestyle. Also, she shared how she did work really hard and maybe didn't always need to put in that extra time while she was in her corporate job. The book Die with Zero also sums up some of this sentiment, and it is one reason we are taking more of a "coast-style" journey. We worked really hard in our 20s and 30s, we saved and invested, and now we're coasting a little bit. We're prioritizing time with our kids at these ages and stages, traveling the world while we can. It was a joy to chat with Maggie about their amazing six-week European summer trip. And while they fit a lot in, it is a reminder that it is okay to slow down, because sometimes fast travel can be exhausting. I get the urge to fit it all in, I truly do, but it's okay to slow down and take your time. It will be worth it.

In episode 31, I'll admit I was a bit nervous to chat with Courtney because they have a pretty large following on Instagram and YouTube, and yet she was so down to earth. She drops some truly inspiring yet very real facts about full-time travel, the messy parts of building a life away from your family and your home base, the joys of your kids picking up languages, and also how important it is to represent diverse and especially underrepresented groups in travel. I feel very privileged as a white woman to go to many places around the world and not be under the same scrutiny as a person of color. I mean, I'm still a woman, so there are definitely things that I have to consider that maybe my husband doesn't have to as much. It is a privilege, though, and I'm grateful for women like Courtney for putting forth their stories so that other Black families and families of color can know that they too have a place in the travel world. Their family retreat in Granada next summer sounds like an amazing event. Go check it out.

Previously on these roundups, I shared my favorite clips from each episode, and I'm now sharing those as Shorts on YouTube and Instagram Reels. So go back there and check those out for episodes 29 with Stephanie, 30 with Maggie, and 31 with Courtney if you have not listened to them yet.

It is time for our deep dive, which is fittingly all things world-schooling at the holidays. Because today is Christmas, which about one-third of the world's population celebrates in one way or another. So if today is not Christmas in your part of the world, thanks for joining me still. This is a community-powered show. So I recruited many of my past guests, people in my world-schooling business group, others in the world-schooling Facebook groups, and yes, even my mother. My mom tuned in with her thoughts on world-schooling and traveling during the holidays. So listen to the end of this super special episode.

If you missed contributing a SpeakPipe voice memo this year, don't worry. I'll be requesting voice memos for a variety of episodes in 2026. So stay tuned for your chance to participate. And for all of these memories shared, I will include the speakers' episodes and their contact information in the show notes. Please connect with these wonderful world-schooling families.

Let's start with Anna from the Wanderlust Hawks back in episode nine. Her family did a full year of travel and they're preparing for more travels in 2026.

Anna:

This is Anna with the Wanderlust Hawks. We are currently in the United States in North Carolina. This is home to us. And this holiday season, what we wanted to do was really bring a lot of our travels from the last year to us. So we did that by celebrating Diwali this year. We're also going to be doing an ofrenda and Día de los Muertos—just those fun things we really picked up when we were traveling that we want to continue with our family now at home.

Suzy:

And chatting with the Rome-based kids was also one of my favorite episodes of this year. Back in episode 27, these three kiddos shared their world-schooling thoughts from San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Here, they share their upcoming holiday and travel plans.

Micah: Hi, I'm Micah. I'm 15 years old. And my family is going to be in the States for the holidays, but right after we're heading out.

Sammy: I'm Sammy. I'm 12. And we're probably going to be in Europe for the holidays. Going to Austria. Maybe get some Christmas markets in. Yeah, and a Krampus Parade. I'm ready to see Krampus and see if it actually does scare me. I know it's going to scare Griffin.

Zuri: Hi, my name is Zuri. I'm 12 years old. I'm going to be spending the holidays in the US and the next destination is undetermined.

Suzy:

Gives you an open world to explore next year whenever your family can do another experience like this. Do you need some yoga in your life? I mean, what mom is not in need of yoga at this point of the holiday season? Brianna from Bria Yoga—on her Instagram, she shares yoga tips to bring ease and movement into your mama journey.

Brianna:

This is Brianna of Bria Yoga. I am a single mother of two little girls. We're currently in the US and this holiday season we will be traveling to New York City. Christmas time in New York City is so, so magical. We're going to see the big tree and go to the markets and meet Santa Claus. And I'm so excited and my girls are so excited too.

Suzy:

Annabella, who lives in Rabat, Morocco, shared her family travel plans.

Nabila:

This is Nabila, my husband and our five-year-old son, Noury. We started world-schooling just last year, exploring Morocco, Spain, and Portugal. One of our favorite holiday memories is our van trip when Noury was two. Slow days, living freely, surrounded by nature and learning together. This season, we are excited to continue growing with the world-schooling community and to join more hubs as a family.

Suzy:

If your travels take you to Rabat in Morocco, follow her at Slow Parenting Rabat to connect with other like-minded families. Connie from the Flow Journey Substack newsletter, which is quickly becoming my favorite newsletter... she had her first Christmas on the road in Sevilla of all places. It was fun to hear her memory of one of my favorite places. We met last June in Spain and our kids played at this fun lake near Arcos together, which was lovely.

Connie:

Hello everyone. My name is Connie and I have my own online business called Flow with Connie, where I create community courses and programs for parents who are into personal development and self-mastery. So I've been traveling with my husband and two girls, two and four, around the world as nomads for the past three years. Right now we're in Northern Thailand and we'll be spending the holidays here. During our very first Christmas on the road, we just got to Seville by bicycle and we didn't know anyone, but we got invited by a Spanish-American family on Facebook to join them for Christmas. It was super nice as we got to meet so many people from around the world. We really enjoyed it and loved spending that Christmas with new friends. And since that Christmas, we've been in different countries every holiday season. After that, it was Malaysia, Portugal, and then now we're in Thailand. That's part of the fun of being a traveling family nomad like us.

Suzy:

Rachel Carlson from episode 14 shares where they are right now and their favorite of many world-schooling memories on the road.

Rachel:

Hi everybody. This is Rachel Carlson with the World School Pop-Up Hub. Happy holidays to everybody no matter what you celebrate. I currently am on the Greek coastline in a small town called Monemvasia. This is an island town and there are two parts to the island. There's the lower town, which has been amazingly restored with cafes and restaurants and tiny little alleys and all this stonework and beautiful churches. And then there is the upper part of the town, which we also visited. You climb roughly 50 flights of stairs to get up there. And the upper part of the town is equally beautiful, but it's all in ruins. So this part has not been restored yet, but the views are incredible. And I honestly just love these areas of ruins because it makes me go back in time and wonder what life was like way long ago.

We finish off this road trip soon and go to the UAE for Christmas celebrations with some world-school family friends of ours. We will be meeting two families there and we have a little Secret Santa planned already and we are super excited to reunite with some of our friends that we haven't seen for a couple months or maybe a couple years.

I've got two stories to share. The first one goes all the way back to maybe 2011 or 12. My family was traveling in Costa Rica. And to tell you the truth, we did not plan holidays out ahead of time. So when it came time for Christmas, we didn't have any stockings and our kids wanted Santa to visit. So what they did is they all found some socks—actual socks—and they put socks out so Santa could visit them on Christmas Eve, and Santa did. Also, Santa was fairly unprepared, but my daughter, who's an adult now but was five years old at the time, still remembers that they put out socks and their socks were filled with all these teeny-tiny jelly jars, like what you would get at a fancy hotel buffet—the marmalade and the strawberry jam and the honey—and they loved those little jars of condiments. It just cracks me up that that's one of their favorite Christmas memories, and it was actually a memory that I would not have made for them. It was kind of a mistake. But honestly, sometimes the mistakes and the things that we do to adapt while we are world-schooling become our best memories.

A second holiday memory I would love to share with you is over New Year's from 2023 into 2024. My family was in Kuala Lumpur and we happened to be there with loads of other families that we knew and we all rented apartments in the same building so that we could celebrate together and also have some community. That was fantastic because there were a couple of high-rise apartments and we could all share the workout facilities and playground and swimming pool. However, for New Year's Eve that year, a few of our other friends got apartments in the building so we could all be together. And we all went up to the rooftop. And when the clock struck midnight, we had displays of fireworks from around the city. We could look any direction and we saw fireworks going off and people cheering and we could hear music played in the background. It was such a fun way to celebrate together.

Suzy:

Tricia from the Rhythm in Rome podcast and episode 23 shares key memories of the holidays as her family has grown and expanded over the years.

Tricia:

Hi, this is Tricia with Rhythm in Rome podcast and I'm located in Houston, Texas. And my favorite holiday memory is being able to spend the time on Christmas morning with our children opening gifts, but particularly the ones that were homemade and how that all brought us together during that time, even now that our family has expanded with significant others. If someone in our family is not with us, they will still FaceTime or video in or conference in somehow so that they can be a part of that experience.

Suzy:

I also had some recent guests share some memories like Stephanie from episode 29, who talked about their first holidays away on their gap year adventures and how they spent Thanksgiving in Turkey.

Stephanie:

Hi, I'm Stephanie Tolk with Deliberate Detour and I'm in Portland, Oregon right now. And one of my holiday memories took place on our first major world-schooling trip and we were in Turkey and it was my daughter's first time being away from the States for the major holidays—Thanksgiving and Christmas time. I had met a family, another mom on some Facebook group who was living in Turkey, had just moved there from the States with her kids and they were alone at Thanksgiving, but they moved permanently to Turkey. And so all through Facebook and then probably WhatsApp, they invited us to their home in Izmir. And we had Thanksgiving with them. The mom spent a lot of time trying to find a turkey in Turkey to eat, and I spent a lot of time trying to bake an apple pie, and we got together with this wonderful family.

Suzy:

Courtney from episode 31 dropped an amazing memory from Morocco.

Courtney:

Hey y'all, this is Courtney from Family Adventures. And my favorite world-schooling holiday memory has to be when we were riding camels through the Atlas Mountains in Marrakech, Morocco, on Christmas Day, followed up by some mint tea.

Suzy:

Coming up in January, you'll also hear from a few guests who graciously shared their holiday voice clips. From Lauren and Tiago from Koli Co-Living, Tiago shared a holiday memory from his childhood.

Tiago:

Hola, I'm Tiago Miranda and we're currently at Koli's Costa Rican co-living residency. And one of my favorite memories is in Kruger Park in South Africa during Christmas time with my family and it was just such a great experience to be seeing and living with those wildlife animals. And obviously, I remember also staying at such a beautiful place—beautiful food, beautiful people. And that's when I got my Game Boy.

Suzy:

I can see that! So memorable to have both that juxtaposed with the safari and the animals. That sounds like traveling from a kid's perspective. You'll also hear from Maxwell Lee from Taiwan coming up in January.

Maxwell:

Hi, I'm Maxwell living in Taipei with my family and our favorite thing to do in the holidays—I'd say my recommendation for you as well, if you're here in Taiwan—is to come when it's cold and then go to the hot springs. There's a bunch of hot springs of every style and type, including some that are extremely family friendly. So that's what we look forward to doing when it gets cold here—is to go to our favorite hot springs and let the kids play. It's like a water park; they play with their friends and we just hang out and it feels great to be in the hot springs when it's cold outside.

Suzy:

And Brett and Christina, who bake sourdough bread all around the world.

Christina:

I'm Christina Cann from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Currently, I'm in Chieti, Italy. And my favorite travel memory is from last year. We had just set off on our world-schooling journey in November of 2024. And we happened to decide to visit my cousin, Kara, whose husband was stationed on an Air Force base in England. So Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday and I was a little bummed that we were going to not be in the United States for Thanksgiving, but luckily we were on a US Air Force base. So we were able to have a nice traditional American Thanksgiving while also seeing family, and we travel with our sourdough starter and we were able to make really amazing, delicious, pull-apart dinner rolls for our Thanksgiving feast in England.

Suzy:

And I promised the memo from Grandma Wander—yes, my mom. I cannot recall if I have shared in the past that my parents took off for a year of travel back in the 70s. They did an around-the-world trip. And it really boggles my mind how easy it is to travel now compared to what they had to arrange to do that. The money, mailing letters home, carrying film and giant cameras. I'm not saying I'm totally nostalgic for that era—I do think we have it pretty good now—but I wouldn't mind teleporting back to the 70s or the 80s for a trip just to experience it once.

Grandma Wander:

Back in our day, before cell phones and the internet, we did have to depend on the advice from other travelers. Our security blanket was a round-the-world airline ticket. Only a few times we met travelers with children. Heinrich Bissoudin was the best example of a traveling family. He brought his German family to the US twice while he was a visiting professor in Fredonia, New York, and Tempe, Arizona. I believe he was in Arizona long enough for his teenage kids to attend an American school. I love your podcasts and I'm glad you can provide such interesting experiences for your kids and share helpful information with others.

Suzy:

Thank you, Mom. I'll finish with my husband Mark's memory of the holidays. It's been a joy to cultivate the holiday magic within our family.

Mark:

Hello, this is Mark. We split our time between Colorado and Spain. And one of my favorite world-schooling holiday moments was our first Christmas in Sevilla when my family came in from Germany. We went to midnight mass in the cathedral and spent the holidays in the warm sun. We've really enjoyed that. And it just felt natural and special. Nothing fancy. Just us together.

Suzy:

Thank you for listening through this special holiday episode journey with me. What are your thoughts? How did your holidays go? What are your New Year's Eve plans? Share with me in the "send us a text" link in the show notes. And a reminder, please use the link in the show notes to support this show. Have a wonderful rest of your holiday season and until next time, stay curious and keep exploring.