Welcome to Wander Worldschool! It’s trivia time. What city features the world’s tallest building, largest choreographed fountain system and longest driverless metro network? 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, Colorado and soon Japan.. 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 exciting pop up locations for the fall and our Listener’s Locations, including the answer to this episode’s opening trivia. We also discuss highlights from this month's episodes and our Deep Dive is a special episode with my mom to celebrate the 50th episode!! She recounts her adventures studying abroad in West Germany in 1969 as well as my parents year-long around the world travels in the mid 70’s. My how travel has changed! And yes, that’s right, there are now over 50 episodes out and I’m so proud of each one!

In fact, will you help me celebrate by going right now to your Apple Podcast or Spotify and leaving a review? You can also give 5 stars on PocketCasts and leave a fun comment on any episode on YouTube! Please help me spread the word about the amazing stories on the Wander Worldschool podcast! Thank you so much for doing that!

Before we jump in, how has your month been treating you?

In April, I did my first longer stretch of the Camino! This historic trail, well, really it is many trails, that lead to Santiago de Compostela have been a favorite of thru-hikers and spiritual seekers for centuries. I was lucky enough to fit in 113 km of beautiful trails before attending my second CampFI, that is FI as in Financial Independence, in Santiago. This event prompted me to finally start this podcast last year so it was wonderful to be back and share stories with those on their way to financial independence and those already there. We chatted about nomad travel, logistics of healthcare aboard, navigating saving for the future and our children while enjoying today and so many other insightful conversations. I highly recommend checking out a CampFI event in your area if you want to learn and explore more about how to use money as a tool to live the life you want! Colorado has many CampFi’s in July every year too! And now we are on our worldschool pop up in Naples, Italy! I’ll share more about this current amazing adventure next month.

Are you based out of Ludlow, Massachusetts , Dubai, UAE or San Diego, California ? I love looking at the listener locations from the past month!  Dubai is that city of superlatives from the opening trivia. It boasts the tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa, and so many other cosmopolitan developments.

Shout out to Jana who left me a not saying ‘I’ve been listening to your podcast and it’s sooo good, congrats’! 

I love this! If you find value in these episodes, will you leave a 5 star review on Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen to your shows? Links in the Show Notes! Or leave me Fan Mail with any feedback, questions or ideas for future episodes!

For this fall, my Osaka Worldschool Pop Up is officially out! Join us Oct 11-17 in beautiful Osaka, Japan! There are so many wonderful locations for pop ups this summer and fall! You can check out Bulgaria in May, San Francisco or Romania in June, Germany or Laos in August, and many in Mexico and South America this fall! Link in the show notes. 

For the Monthly Episode Recaps, listen back to Basoa Summer Camp, Maddy Novich, David and Natalie with Harmony Alternative and Tasha Martin if you haven’t yet! You don’t want to miss more about forest schools in Spain, crafting the perfect European summer camp itinerary, the upcoming SEA and South America programs with Harmony or all the details on full time RV life with teens. Follow on Facebook, Instagram and Youtube for Reels and Shorts that highlight the most important clips! 

And now to celebrate episode #50, my conversation with my mom about studying abround in the late 1960’s and gap year travels in the 1970s. 

Suzy: We have a very special guest on the podcast today for the 50th episode. We introduced Grandma Wander, my mom, Marcia, to the show. We're going to talk about travel before kids and then, in a future episode, we will get into more about what travel is like as a family when my brother and I were younger. Welcome to the show. Introduce who you are and where you grew up and a little more about you.

Marcia: I was born in Western New York. I'm the oldest of five children. We lived in the same town that my mom was born in and had lots of family and relatives in Western New York. So, we did very little travel as a kid. We did go to my grandparents' farm, which was about 200 miles away. And that was an all day trip with five of us in the back of a station wagon. So, it wasn't fun. But being at the farm was lots of fun. So, most of our summer vacations were there. I did have one trip with my other grandmother. We went by train to visit relatives in Indiana and then also relatives in Michigan. Our travels weren't too far away.

Suzy: And you worked in the public library system for many years.

Marcia: Yeah, well, yeah. I went to college for undergraduate 50 miles from home and then traveled a little further for graduate school in Michigan and then have worked in public libraries primarily here in the West, in Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado. So, I'm a Westerner now.

Suzy: You have two children and three grandchildren. I'm doing a series called 30 Days of Worldschooling. And I just talked about the benefits of the public library system, how the books there, the activities there can really open your eyes to culture in the world, even if traveling is not accessible right now. Do you feel like books were that ticket to understanding the world a little bit more when you were young?

Marcia: Well, I did go to the public library a lot as a high schooler. Libraries today have wonderful preschool story times and online activities, wonderful programs for all ages, especially teens, which we didn't have back in my day.

Suzy: Absolutely. We love our library system. You traveled not too far growing up, but at some point you did travel more because you studied abroad in Germany in the early 1970s. Tell me a little more about your college experience and how you ended up studying abroad in Germany.

Marcia: Very early in the 70s, from 1969 to 1970. The college I went to, I was studying German and a German professor suggested that there was an international program with a college in Germany. My first thought was, I can't afford that. But I found out that my scholarships and grants and everything that I had in Fredonia still applied for the year I was in Germany. And then when I was a student in Germany, students don't have to pay for things and I got a stipend. I had living expenses and a little opportunity to travel as a student in Germany. So, I was there for the whole school year.

Suzy: Which town were you in and tell us a little more about what that experience was like.

Marcia: It was Oldenburg, which is in northern Germany, at a Pädagogische Hochschule, which at the time was a teacher training school, which Fredonia in New York was originally too. I attended all the classes that were in German. I did take one English class while I was there, but sociology and all sorts of programs were in German. I had a couple of opportunities to travel out of Oldenburg. One was interesting: in December 1969, there was a strike at the school. There were lots of international strife and anti-war things happening in Germany as well as in the United States. They stopped having classes for one week in December. And during that week, I joined another student and went to Berlin. And the interesting thing was that my very first airline trip was from Bremen to Berlin. I was 20 years old.

Suzy: How did you get over to Germany then?

Marcia: The German student who had been to Fredonia the year before wanted to go by ship, so we did. My parents took us to New York City and we got on the SS United States, which was an old fashioned steamer ship. But they had a lot of international students traveling there. But I got seasick and sprained my ankle. So, that wasn't my favorite experience.

Suzy: How many days over was the boat trip?

Marcia: It was supposedly the fastest ship at the time, which means it didn't have many stabilizers. So, it was a rough road. We landed in England and France before Germany. So, I think it was about a week. And on the last leg through the North Sea, there was a huge storm. My German friend was the only one who went to lunch that day and she was out on an open deck talking about how wonderful the experience was. She was the most amazing, full of life person I'd ever met. And one of the saddest parts of my year in Germany was that while I was in Berlin, she had gone home and she ended up dying of spinal meningitis the day after her 21st birthday. So, that experience of a funeral in Germany was pretty tough, but her spirit stayed with me and that made me think, well, Gertraude would do this, I can do it too.

Suzy: That's always been a very special story. And she was very adventurous, obviously, having spent her exchange year in New York.

Marcia: She did handstands in Central Park in New York. She just was full of life. And so, maybe she knew that it was going to be a short life. So, it reminds all of us to take advantage of every opportunity whenever we can and live life to the fullest.

Suzy: That's very well said. It's really meaningful when you have those realizations early in life because it gives you that opportunity to carry that forward through your travels, through your adventures, just knowing that tomorrow's not a given. And when you were in Berlin, this was when it was West Germany and East Germany, correct?

Marcia: Right.

Suzy: Did you stay in the West Berlin side? Tell me more about what that experience was like.

Marcia: Yes. But I did spend one day on the eastern side. I had to go through Checkpoint Charlie as an American, and my German friend had to go through another entry point. And this was early December, cold and miserable. We were just going to meet on the street in between. I waited and waited and waited. And I was really panicking. Should I go back? Should I stay? He finally came, but they had given him a real hard time. But we made it, and we got to go to the Bertolt Brecht Theater that night. And I did go in a department store where all I could see were umbrellas and something else. The stores were few and far between. I learned from other German friends that East Germans had books, at least they had books in their bookstores. But I spent more time in the West, definitely.

Suzy: Yeah, so shopping was a challenge. And we were just in Berlin last summer and did our pop-up there and have a photo in front of Checkpoint Charlie. So, it's really unique to think that you were passing through there when it was a functioning border patrol. You studied German before you went abroad. Then you were there. How do you feel like that German preparation was before you arrived? And then while you were living there, was it a crash course in German?

Marcia: Yeah. I was minimal before I went. I actually had Spanish from second grade through 10th grade and then just took the German class two years in high school.

Suzy: Wait, wait, I don't think I ever knew that. You had Spanish from second grade until 10th grade. They were doing that back then? And now we only have to do two years in high school in the current system.

Marcia: Minimally, in elementary school, it was some real basics, but I took the state regents exam in 10th grade and barely passed it. So, Spanish was not my forte, but yeah. Well, it was just another opportunity and sounded fun. And you had to take something your junior and senior year.

Suzy: That's why you switched to German perhaps? Or why did you switch to German? But you kept it going in college, and you had this chance to study abroad.

Marcia: Yeah, for two years. A lot of students wanted to speak English with me, the German students. And I'd say, no, I came here to learn German. If you want to learn English, go to the States. So, I tried really hard to mostly speak German. The German student and I and her family were wonderful because it really was difficult, I was really overwhelmed. And my language skills were pretty poor considering I've met young people in Germany and other places that, even as a 10 year old or 12 year old, they speak pretty good English.

Suzy: They do start really early nowadays, but you had that crash course of living in Germany, and you did not have Google Translate. What did you use to learn? Was it just speaking or just listening to books?

Marcia: No. Reading, listening, and practicing. I practiced all the way to the store what I wanted to say in German. In Northern Germany, most people thought I was British because that had been the British portion of the dividing after the war. But they'd still speak German to me. In Southern Germany, where there were so many American bases, they'd just answer in English. So, I could read and learn and do some things now, but 50 years later, I am very rusty in German. I can talk to your boys in German.

Suzy: And you've kept in touch with the families that you got to know back then?

Marcia: Oh, yeah, definitely. It's a fascinating story. The day I learned about Gertraude dying, this new student came out and introduced herself to me. And that was Barbara. And she was from southern Germany. And most of the students at that college were from that state and that area. So, she was the first one to introduce herself to me. So, we became fast friends and have been friends and travel mates ever since.

Suzy: And her son is six months younger or older than me, similar. Yes, similar in age. We have a picture of us as one year olds together. Barbara and you were here in Spain visiting us about two years ago. It's been really cool to see that friendship continue for decades. It's really special.

Marcia: Another friendship was with the German professor, a mathematics professor, who brought his family to Fredonia, my college in New York, the summer before I went to Germany. When I got to Oldenburg, of course, he was there too. Actually, at the college, the man who was supposed to be coordinating it said, oh, we thought you were coming next year. So, there wasn't a space for me in this 10 story dormitory that they had. So, they found me another place. And this mathematics professor and his wife took me there. There was a window above the bed that was chipped and broken. So, the next day they said, you can't stay there. So, they made arrangements for me to stay with some friends on their third floor. They had three different rooms for students. So, I had my own room that was safe and a very nice house and nice hosts that entertained me once in a while. So, it was a fun experience.

Suzy: And the professor and the Besudens, we've kept in touch with over the years. Hana Besuden is still alive. Her grandchildren are the same age as me and I've kept in touch with them when I lived in Germany and saw them two summers ago. They have kids the same age as my kids. So, it's been fun to keep that friendship going over the years. And then, so you got back from studying abroad. When did you and Dad decide to take a gap year?

Marcia: Well, I graduated from Fredonia and then went to Western Michigan University for my master's degree in library science. And that's where I met John, your dad. He graduated a little before I did, six months before I did. And he got a job at Arizona State University. And after a year, I moved to Phoenix, Arizona area too. So, we were there a couple of years. We got married in 1975 and started planning a trip probably even before we got married. But he had been in Korea in the Army. I had been in Germany as a student and his brother was a teacher in Western Australia. So, those three places kind of got us thinking, we could go around the world. John sold his house and we put some things in storage and got rid of a lot and took off. We went to Hawaii and Japan and on around. We had an around the world airline ticket with TWA, but we actually never flew on a TWA flight. So, it was an open ticket that was just based on the miles. We had kind of said, we'd go to Japan, Thailand, and India. But then as we got closer, we stopped at more places in between, but it didn't add to the cost as long as we kept miles going west. We couldn't have gone back. We always thought we'd go to Australia. And I think I read more books about Australia than anything else. His brother had gone back by then. So, we met a lot of Australians and they said, oh, you don't want to go to Australia. It's too expensive. It's a lot cheaper to stay in Thailand, Malaysia, India, that sort of thing. So, we traveled five months in Southeast Asia. Burma was the most interesting and unique. And when we got to England, we bought bicycles. And so, that summer we bicycled primarily in England and France. So, we had a variety of kinds of travel. No guidebooks, really. The one book that was an inspiration, probably more than a guidebook, was Paul Theroux's The Great Railway Bazaar: By Train Through Asia, published in 1975. While he did most of the Southeast Asia that we're talking about, or that we did, it was very interesting to read his experiences and learn from him. For example, in Burma, you did not want to order this little hors d'oeuvre that they would sell at the train stops that was a fried bird, so, barbecued bird. I don't know, mostly bones, I think. We loved fried bananas in Southeast Asia. And we really thought about when we got home, we'd open up a shop in malls called Going Bananas that would have fried bananas. But then I learned the bananas you get in the United States are totally different than the ones there. And it probably wouldn't have worked. But we enjoyed it.

Suzy: You could have been world famous with your Going Bananas franchise.

Marcia: Well, I also think, the idea that we should have written some travel books. We were doing that about the same time Rick Steves was starting to do his travel books and industry tours and everything he does now. He got wealthy on the kind of travel we did too, and there was a need for more travel information for young people, especially.

Suzy: Yeah, Lonely Planet books started in 1973. So, without many guidebooks and travel books, how did you decide where to go, how to get from point A to point B, where to stay? Walk me through what that looked like.

Marcia: Well, we got lots of information from travelers going the other direction. Between England and Australia, there was kind of a standard route, a trail, I guess. And so, we met some people along the way. Occasionally, we would actually ask at the information desks at stations for some ideas. Most of it was word of mouth or learning from other travelers, or we did have a kind of guide to youth hostels. We also were able to become members of the YMCA. And there was a YMCA in several different cities. In that part of the world, we didn't camp. When we got to Africa and Europe, we did more camping. So, we were just winging it. And the one thing that was good about our open ended sort of ticket is that the night before we were going to fly from Hong Kong to Bangkok, John got sick and we postponed it and went another week or so later. We had, well, I guess we had some travelers checks and occasionally we could get American Express, but it was always a little tricky. And communication home was pretty much non existent. We went to Singapore right around Christmas hoping that we would get some mail from our family because they could do an American Express office drop to Singapore. Well, we didn't get anything. And in addition to Christmas, there were two Chinese holidays, so we couldn't get hardly anything done. We just muddled along and we tried to stay safe. I think one of the things we learned was to get out early and do activities during the day and not spend so much time out in the evening where it could have been not as safe. And we'd spend a lot more money. So, we were pretty frugal and pretty anxious to just learn things and experience whatever we could. You would meet someone in the youth hostel, say in Bangkok, and then run into them in Calcutta later. So, there were travelers like us.

Suzy: And you get to learn from each other and talk with each other. That's what I love about youth hostels as well.

Marcia: Yeah, yeah. We met someone in Burma and had given them some information about the youth hostel or something. And then we got to stay with them when they were back in Switzerland. So, there was that.

Suzy: I love to see those connections continue. This was possible because you sold the home in Arizona and you saved up a little bit, quit your jobs, and hit the road. You were quite frugal with, you said, camping in some locations. Which countries did you go to in Africa again? Kenya? Okay.

Marcia: Egypt too, but there was some kind of disagreement between Tanzania and Kenya, so we couldn't cross the border, but there was plenty to see in Kenya. We met two Germans, medical students that were on a break. And they actually bought a little VW Bug. And that was our safari vehicle for the four of us. One was about 6 foot 4 or something. And he was blonde and then got very sunburned. The Africans were very fascinated by him. So, we ended up talking our way into a private preserve one time while the leader of the safari was gone. So, we were treated like paying guests even though we weren't.

Suzy: What an adventure. And your German came in handy. And how did you navigate languages while you were traveling?

Marcia: Well, most of the time we were in former British colonies. So, English was acceptable. In Thailand and all, just, well, I remember sitting on the train with an old woman and she was teaching us how to count in Thai. So, we made do with whatever language you had. I do remember in a rural part of Korea seeing a big sign that said Information. And the woman didn't understand a word we said after that. So, she wasn't too helpful, but they tried.

Suzy: Hand gestures and pointing, you somehow muddle through it, like you said.

Marcia: Yeah. And, you know, we played it safe. We learned how to say shrimp fried rice and didn't try to get anything too exotic.

Suzy: Yeah, you don't want to get sick when you're on the road as much.

Marcia: Yeah, well, we call it deli belly. Every traveler has one someday or another.

Suzy: Exactly. I know travel spending some years ago was a little different. Inflation has played a role. Do you remember any of the costs from your trip or how you figured out what you needed to save for that trip? Tell me a little more about that financial snapshot of that gap year.

Marcia: Well, we had saved a fair amount and didn't know what to expect, I don't think. In Japan, we had a friend that we stayed with and then in Europe, friends, but we didn't worry about money. We did have an around the world airline ticket. We often felt that if something disastrous happened, we could at least get home. We had met some people in Thailand on the train that bought these cheaper tickets. And we were sort of lamenting that we hadn't done that. And we said goodbye to them and got off the train and read the headline that that airline had just gone broke. It just stopped. So, I think having the safety of a trip was good. We traveled light. And I still wonder how in the world we went for weeks on our bicycles with just the panniers in the back. But we didn't carry a lot of food. We stopped and had bread and cheese along the way.

Suzy: You shared that the around the world tickets cost about $2,000 from your recollection.

Marcia: I believe so at the time. It sounds like a lot for back then, but it probably was the biggest portion.

Suzy: That's approximately $11,000 in today's dollars, but that did get you, like you said, all the way around the world and you had the flexibility with it. Whereas I do not believe that that same type of airline around the world, open ended, flexible ticket exists nowadays. It seems like people more piece together certain flights at certain days and times. Maybe because flying was less common then. It's interesting how that's evolved.

Marcia: Yeah, we would make a reservation for a certain flight, but we could cancel it or change it somehow.

Suzy: And you made the reservation by going to the airport often or the offices in the major cities? Okay.

Marcia: Well, the offices in the major cities. That's one of the things. We traveled by air from major city to major city. But we tried to get out of the major cities. Things were cheaper. People were friendlier and they weren't as accustomed to having travelers. So, it was always fun to be a little off the beaten path. And things were different. We spent a couple days in Phuket, Thailand, in a kind of grass shack. And they had food and everything there. And then I learned later, you know, when there was the big tsunami in Phuket, how developed that was. Today it was always interesting to meet different people, see different things. Back to the airline, like I said, the ticket was purchased through TWA, but each segment we could pick whatever airline. So, we did the Thai airline or the Japan airline. I won't say it was good to pick EgyptAir. That was one of the problems, but most of the time it was interesting to be maybe the only Americans on the flight.

Suzy: Yeah, absolutely. There's part of me that would love to go back to that era of travel to experience it. I do recall a little bit when I went to New Zealand and Australia when I was in high school and I had to find an internet cafe to send you an email that I had arrived. And I had travelers checks. I remember that from one of our early trips. Nowadays with credit cards and just the access, I don't even need my physical credit card. I just use the credit card on my phone. Technology has made travel easier in many ways and it has allowed us to connect with places that maybe were inaccessible before and for more people to travel. But at the same time, it has certainly changed things and social media has changed things a lot. So, I've appreciated hearing your stories over the years of what it was like. And I think my takeaway from this and from hearing you talk about it over the years is you had years of what I call memory dividends from this trip where the photos continued, the stories continued. It's an important part of your relationship. And here you are retired. You had a successful career when you got back, you raised a family. You know, taking a year or so off did not completely derail your future. What do you have to say if someone's in that spot of "should I take this time off either before kids or when I have kids?" We'll talk about that in the future with family travel. What advice would you have for someone that is wondering should I take this trip?

Marcia: Well, just go for it. I think it's good to plan and try to organize yourself and all. And it's probably much easier now with reservations or whatever you need or to go to one of these hubs you're talking about. So, it is very different. I have to say that in Asia, I think only one time did I see people in a youth hostel that had children. So, it was certainly not as common for families to travel. I think just do the best you can, realize there are going to be some bad things happen, hopefully not too bad, and realize that some of those make great stories to laugh about in the future.

Suzy: Absolutely. This has been wonderful. Is there anything else you would like to add?

Marcia: Well, I think you had asked about costs and while they're totally not comparable at all, I figured we probably spent about the same amount of money we would have spent at home. So, you don't have to go into great debt to do some travel. I know there's much more expensive ways to do it and much more luxurious ways, but we were young and willing to put up with whatever and we were happy.

Suzy: You were willing to stick four people in a VW Bug in a Kenyan Safari or bike across England and France to have the adventure at a lower price point.

Marcia: Yeah, right. We did buy our bikes in England. More or less. I think we just got rid of the last one.

Suzy: And you still had them until recently? Wow. Well, that's impressive that it lasted as long as it did. That's so cool. Before we wrap up, let's learn more about you in a lightning round. What is the best or worst food you've ever tried?

Marcia: Pickled eel was the worst. And I think that was in Germany.

Suzy: That's funny. And the best?

Marcia: I think the apple and berry pie that my grandmother made. So, you can't top that.

Suzy: Absolutely. That sounds delicious. I miss grandma's pies. What is your favorite travel related movie, book, or story?

Marcia: I already said The Great Railway Bazaar by Paul Theroux, written in 1975, was a real inspiration and a fun guide to kind of keep us aware of what travel by train can be like. I like lots of other travel narratives, not guidebooks so much, to hear people's real stories about life as a traveler. And there's some wonderful authors.

Suzy: What about if you could teleport to one place right now, where would it be?

Marcia: Well, I guess it would have to be to your apartment there in Sevilla. I would like to do that. I did go there once, but it was a long trip. So, the teleporting would be a wonderful advancement.

Suzy: Yes, you've not been to this specific apartment. I wish we could do that. That would be lovely if we could teleport. It would definitely cut out my least favorite part of travel, which is those travel days sometimes.

Marcia: Well, talking to you and seeing you is kind of fun too.

Suzy: Yes, you did not have this luxury when you were on your gap year to see your parents for a whole year. And here we can just text all day long if we want to. It's pretty impressive. If people want to connect with you more, how can they get ahold of you?

Marcia: Well, I have an email account and I'd be glad to share some stories with anybody, but it was a different world to travel in.

Suzy: I'll put your email in the show notes. I think it's really special that you were able to travel so much at a point where it wasn't as common. And that has led to our family travels growing up. And then I would say that has also led to my interest in traveling now as an adult with my family. And we'll touch on that more in a future episode so that we can really deep dive into some of the amazing ways that we were able to travel affordably and slow as a family when I was growing up. Thank you so much, Marcia. Appreciate it.

Marcia: Well, thank you. Good luck with your future and travel advice to other people. I'm learning a lot.