Suzy: This delightful conversation with Carolyn from the Field School of Hvar takes us back to her pandemic-era move to Croatia and eventually falling in love and raising a family on the idyllic island of Hvar. Her mission with the Field School is to provide worldschooling and local families with a nature-based pedagogy of belonging. We cover the cost of living along the Mediterranean, navigating multilingual parenting, and the logistics of starting the program in a country new to her. Listen to the end for Carolyn's advice on overcoming financial hurdles to cultivate a life of simple curiosities.

Suzy: Welcome to the Wanderer World School Podcast. 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 we get to know Carolyn Matijovic. Tell me a little bit more about you, your family, and where you're calling in from today.

Carolyn: Thank you. Thank you so much, Suzy. I am here on gorgeous Hvar. There is not a cloud in the sky. It is the sunniest island in Europe. So very happy to be here. I am American by birth and upbringing, as you can hear. I spent most of my life in Virginia and Massachusetts. My fun fact is I was actually born abroad. My dad was a diplomat. So I was born in Vienna, Austria, but lived in the United States until about six years ago when we relocated to this beautiful place. My son was born here in Croatia; he is four now, and he attends a local preschool here on the island. And my partner is local, which has been such a great cultural exchange and also very helpful in terms of getting integrated into this still very small and in some ways traditional Mediterranean community.

Suzy: Yeah, Croatia has changed a lot over recent history. It really opened up to tourism, but it probably still has some very traditional structures to it. So I'd like to hear more about life in Croatia too. And then you run the Field School of Hvar. Am I saying it correctly?

Carolyn: Usually, I think for foreigners the best way to pronounce it is "war," like "what are the..." The Croatian pronunciation is "Hvar."

Suzy: Okay.

Carolyn: Also, we have dialects here in Croatia, which is so cool. Again, one of these historical features that you just touched on: Croatia never underwent the process of nationalization that countries like France did. And so, local identities and local dialects are really pretty vibrant here. Even here on Hvar, there are many different pronunciations of the name of the island. All that to say, you can't go wrong. If you say something crazy, just say that it's your dialect.

Suzy: I love that excuse. That's a great way to be able to tackle language bumps. I love it. We'll get into the Field School as well. But I always like to go back and talk about that family travel origin story of yours about what helped you have a desire for travel, living abroad, things like that.

Carolyn: Yeah, so as I mentioned, I was actually born abroad, and so I feel like travel has always been in my story and it seemed very natural to me even as a kid. I felt like my family traveled a lot. In particular, my family—we would take these huge road trips in the summer. So we grew up in Massachusetts. I spent my childhood in and outside of Concord and Lexington, if folks know that area, and we would visit family in Arkansas, in Texas, and my dad had some work stuff in Colorado. So these long multi-day road trips—and that has really stayed with me. And looking back, I can see it really shaped my understanding of "What is America?" "Where are we coming from?" These vast open spaces that are both lonely and kind of full of opportunity. I mean, not to wax too poetic, but I think even those early travel experiences as a seven or eight-year-old—it just opened—it opened my heart, it opened my mind to there being a bigger world out there and allowed me to experience different ways of life. So I think that's where the travel bug bit me. And then in adulthood, before I became a mom and before I started this chapter of my life, I was able to do some other slow travel experiences, like a month in Paris as a college student, a semester in Shanghai in graduate school, and actually a few months in Italy, even before I started graduate school. Again, those experiences of not necessarily having an agenda, not trying to see a specific thing, but more so just trying to absorb the diversity of the human experience, which is something that I think shows up in our Field School of Hvar program as well, which is really about soaking up the Mediterranean culture and lifestyle more so than seeing specific historical sites or checking certain items off of a list.

Suzy: Absolutely. And what brought you to this tiny island in Croatia originally six years ago?

Carolyn: You know, I feel like some of your listeners will relate to this. It really started during COVID. So I graduated from business school into the height of the pandemic. I had a job offer, but it was rescinded due to that kind of global economic situation. But they gave me a little severance check, enough that I could do something. I had some other friends who were in a similar position, like, "Let's go somewhere." I mean, truly, there's so much serendipity in my life at this point. Croatia was the only country admitting Americans. I had never considered Croatia before. I mean, I had heard of it. I don't know if I could even really say where it was on a map—don't tell anybody. And we came here and immediately I fell in love. I immediately fell in love with the landscape, and then very soon thereafter fell in love with a specific Croatian human, who is now my partner and the father of my son. But I first fell in love with this landscape and this culture because I think some of the things that came to the forefront for me during the pandemic—this longing for authenticity, this longing for connection with culture, with nature—those things are so organic here. They're so normal. They're not luxury products. They're not aspirational. They're not hobbies. They're like a way of life. And I had never, again, I consider myself reasonably well-traveled, but I had never really experienced that before. And I just didn't know it was possible. And so I was just hooked immediately. I was fascinated. When I first arrived here, of course, I didn't imagine that I could actually make a life here, but step by step, it's starting to come together after five and a half years.

Suzy: It sounds like you're still getting to know a little bit about the culture, the people, the language. But tell me a little more about what it's been like to settle into Croatia.

Carolyn: I can highly recommend, at least our part of Croatia, for families who are considering a home base, and that is part of what the Field School of Hvar is. It's a home base for traveling families. It might be a landing point for families who are considering emigrating from the US or the UK or Northern Europe. And that's for a reason—like this country really embraces families first of all. So it's a great place to be a mom. I had a lot of support. I mean, compared to the United States where I'm from, it's night and day; it's so much more humane. You are so seen as a parent. And then everyone here speaks English and there's a culture of hospitality. There's honestly a culture of tourism. So the quality of the amenities, the infrastructure here... people play it down like, "We're Balkan, we're Balkan, we're so backwards," but it's like, "No, no, no." It's a very high standard, particularly compared to the cost of living here. I would say my process of cultural adjustment has not been without its bumps and stumbles. My Croatian is still mediocre. I can get by, but I would say it has been a very welcoming culture and community to be part of. So as an immigrant—and I really consider myself that—I'm very grateful for this community for helping me start a business, helping me start a family, and letting me be part of it.

Suzy: It is great to know when you're traveling that there is a country that is welcoming to English speakers because even though it is important to learn words and if we're there longer, we do try to make an effort, there's something comfortable about being somewhere where we know we can get around with English and that they are welcoming to that. I've certainly been places where I feel like I should know the language, even though I'm only here for a weekend. And I'm sorry I didn't practice ahead of time too much. It's one reason we have prioritized Spanish-speaking countries because I feel like I can get around here. Whereas in Italy, I was like, "My God, I'm so lost." So Japan—we're going to be so lost this fall. It's great to hear that there's, of course, a pride in the culture and the language, but also a welcoming attitude towards people that are learning and are arriving and visiting and maybe not going to learn Croatian during their stay. So that's great to hear that there is that welcoming spirit. You had your child in Croatia. He goes to a preschool now. What has education looked like for you all there? And maybe even in Croatia in general, what is the education system like? I know you're just starting out in some ways on that adventure with your four-year-old. I'm curious about that. And then of course later we'll chat about the education philosophy when it comes to the Field School.

Carolyn: Yeah. Well, the context of our local learning options is, of course, part of where the Field School comes from and what we're responding to at the Field School. I will say the early years education here is solid. Here preschool starts on paper at 12 months; in reality, it's more like two years. But it's safe. It's loving. My son goes to school in a converted palazzo that's been painted pink. It's like from Madeline, you know? It's like from a children's book. The preschool is like this beautiful old building that's right on the sea and it's $90 a month, and he gets a healthy lunch every day. They play all day. They go for a daily walk. He's learning the local language. He's learning the local dialect. He's making friends for his whole life, which in small communities like this, there's an emphasis on your generation, your generacija. And it matters, you know, to really be integrated from an early age into a community for a family like ours, who plan to be here for quite some time. I'm super grateful for that aspect of our public educational landscape. I will say, with all respect to our partners in public education here on the island, I think anyone would acknowledge that Croatian public education is pretty traditional. This is kind of the story throughout most of Europe, particularly the Mediterranean. The schools aren't bad, it's not scary—you don't have the kinds of issues that we have in the United States with like violence and so on—but it's traditional, you know? It's like you bet you're sitting in that desk for six hours a day. Also somewhat under-resourced; our local schools don't have art studios, they don't have science labs. Everything is from books and everything is from textbooks, even not from real authentic works of culture. So that is the backdrop that we're kind of responding to a little bit with the Field School and trying to offer island kids as well as our international families an encounter with learning that is much more grounded in wonder and curiosity and meaning, versus just achievement and getting by.

Suzy: That's really insightful to see how this traditional education system, for lots of reasons I'm sure, just does what it does. And then you can bring in some different aspects and new ways to think and ways to be curious and increase that love for learning with the Field School. What does language learning look like for your son specifically? You mentioned that he's learning the local language. I'm curious what your plans are for language for you, for your son, as you continue to spend time in Croatia.

Carolyn: I know you're thinking about this too, Suzy, and a lot of our families are thinking, "Okay, which is the second language going to be?" And probably not that many people are thinking, "Oh, it's Serbo-Croatian. If only my children knew Serbo-Croatian, the doors would just fly open for them." But yes, Mate, my son—English is really his first language. I think the standard advice for multilingual homes is that each parent should speak their native language. He does speak English really well. And then I would say he's more like conversant—like he has native Croatian, but like, let's say his grammar and his spelling... he's only four now, so we're not there yet, but I expect those to be probably a little bit behind his English, to be honest. But yeah, we will see how that evolves.

Suzy: Do you ever have plans for any other languages in the mix?

Carolyn: If he goes to Croatian public schools, he'll have to learn French or German or something like this. I've already started thinking about that. I had a classical education. I studied French, Greek, Latin, and Russian as a kid. I've toyed with some of those languages, whether to introduce that. But I feel like he's only four. So I think he's doing great now and his little brain is being well-fed. So for now, I think Croatian, English, and dialect are enough.

Suzy: Yeah, a great foundation to build upon later based on maybe his interests or where things go for you and your family. I also like to touch on the financial and logistical side. You are working in Croatia. You started a business. Tell me a bit more about how you were able to financially and logistically make this work, the move to Croatia.

Carolyn: I love this conversation because I think it's a hard conversation and people hold a lot of stress and fear and insecurity and all kinds of tough emotions around money. I'll just say in our case, total transparency: like, I have an MBA. I left all of that when I came here. And when I did that, when I moved to Croatia in 2020, I did not fully appreciate the financial consequences and the consequences for my earning potential. And so I do see these conversations on message boards of people saying, "How do you make this work?" Finding remote work these days is really, really challenging, which again, I thought I was in... it was in the pandemic, everyone's going hybrid, everyone's going remote, I have a good CV, like, you know, I can find something. Life—the cost of living is so low here, and we really had kind of some... I wouldn't say scary moments, but it was like, you know, we just had no money. It's important to recognize that moving to Europe or having an international lifestyle may come with some major trade-offs and sacrifices. For me, my personality, my interests... my cup is completely full between my family and the Field School of Hvar. I feel like I've been called to a vocation, honestly. This little world that I now live in is very interesting to me and I feel like I'm still learning a lot about it. So I don't feel the longing to experience new things in new places in a way that is like really urgent right now. We've made sacrifices that travel is not really on the table for our family, probably for the next few years. I do go home every winter to visit my mom and dad, that's with miles, and then I stay with them. In the future, I think once we've kind of got our feet a little bit more in this new, still new setting... I love what our worldschooling families are doing. I love how they're doing place-based education all over the world. And again, as my son gets older, we're reading like "A Street Through Time" and "A Child Through Time"—they're kind of classic kids' history books. They are fantastic and I can't wait to see like, "Okay, let's visit Florence for a week," you know, "and let's do it in the off-season because we have so much flexibility in our lives, and let's talk about the Renaissance that way," or "Let's go to Venice and talk about the Silk Road." Being here in Europe, it makes it very easy and relatively inexpensive to visit other destinations; there's a lot for us to explore within this region.

Suzy: Absolutely. You bring up two really great points. The one is: if you live somewhere that is fascinating to you, you maybe have less of this need to go out and explore beyond your local area. And I feel that often; in Seville, there's a lot to do in this area that I don't always need to jump all around Europe to really be having an amazing, cool experience because we've opted to settle down in one location that really fascinates us. And the second: there's a time and a place for possibly more travel, and a four-year-old... it wasn't the most fun age to travel. They still have a lot of needs. They're not really like, "Thanks mom for taking me to this amazing location," they're more like, "I just want a snack and I'm happy with a playground." You bring up a really good point that it's great to be in a location that you are really fascinated by and you're happy to be there too. And you're building something really cool with the Field School. So I'd love to hear about how you have built this program. You mentioned worldschooling families are participating as well as local families. Tell me a little more about how the Field School started and then also a little more about what people can participate in if they were to come and attend.

Carolyn: My career before Croatia was in impact and placemaking. I started a festival of culture and technology in my hometown, Charlottesville, Virginia, right after I graduated from college—20,000 people. From there, I went to work at a think tank called the Aspen Institute, where I ran an urban innovation lab, Future of Work initiative, some other programs. And then from there, I worked in climate finance. And so when I came to Croatia, I was looking for roles in that field. And so I started working in sustainability here. When you come to places like Hvar, or these other beautiful places around the world, you have this urge to protect them and to nurture them and steward them. And I certainly felt that, and I feel that, especially for my son and his generation. I was working for the sustainability firm locally, and I started to understand more about how EU funding works, which is the real driver of sustainability initiatives here in Europe. It's a puzzle, you know? So the EU funding is valuable, but there's not as much ongoing support for grassroots programs. So there are organic farmers on the island, people who are doing these wonderful heritage crafts, people who are doing folk dancing, and they're all kind of in their own little silos. And they don't always even know that they exist; they're not drawing strength from each other or sharing resources. So part of where the Field School came from was wanting to create a hub that would provide consistent energy around these things that we need to do as a community if we want to keep this place, which... I mean, it's been a paradise for 10,000 years of human habitation probably. Let's not let this be the generation where it all goes to hell. So if we want to preserve that legacy and that heritage, then we need to work together and we need probably an institution that will harness that enthusiasm. At the same time, I was becoming a mother thinking about childcare, development, balance, and meaning; it all kind of came together in this program, which was like: okay, what bond is stronger than the bond of love between a parent and a child? I mean, there is nothing on this earth. And what if we could use that bond to actually draw people into kind of maybe their best and their most community-oriented selves? That is really the core concept behind the Field School of Hvar. That's where it came from. And in terms of how people can participate in our program: so we have three seasons. There's the summer, the fall, and the spring. The summer—these are shorter sessions, two weeks long. They're oriented to be maybe a workation for families who have more conventional lifestyles and commitments. Our hours are unusual; they run from 2 p.m. to 9 p.m., which is really just to get people to sink into the Mediterranean cadence, but it has the benefit of also lining up with East Coast work hours, so it can work well for people who are coming from the Americas. So that's one way for folks to engage, and in that program, we have full-time child enrichment that's very hands-on and project-based. And we have a family co-living village, which is basically based in a resort which has a bunch of apartments, and families can stay there or stay in the town, which is nearby. But that proximity really lends itself to walkability, connection, spontaneous interactions, and playdates, and just a really beautiful sense of connection, even in a pretty short period of time in the summer. In the academic year, we still have those same three pillars—child enrichment, family co-living, and robust community facilitation—but our sessions are much longer. So they are each 12 weeks: 12 weeks in the fall (September, October, November) and 12 weeks in the spring (March, April, May to the very beginning of June). And our academic year program is really much more oriented towards people who are doing a gap year, who are homeschooling, who are worldschooling, and who have really dived into this more flexible, kind of maybe heart-led lifestyle. And for those families, I don't think there's any other program quite like ours out there. There are other drop-off enrichment programs; some of them have an accommodation option that's nearby. But what we offer, which I think is unique, is a genuine home base. So you can have consistent accommodations. You can leave some of your stuff here over the winter and summer breaks. You have a cumulative, intellectually demanding but hands-on, nature-based academic journey that kids can be on. And you have a consistent peer group. There are always fresh faces, but there are also relationships that kids and parents can return to, and just familiar touchstones: our favorite gelato spot, that beach that we love to go to, that hiking trail that we didn't get to last time and we can't wait to go back to. And a consistent faculty as well. Miss Sarah helped my child so much with handwriting or something like this. So that's our Fall and Spring program. It's a different vibe; it's more settled and it's more intellectually demanding, but hands-on, in a different way than the summer is. Nice compliments to each other.

Suzy: The academic year programs, do those run on the later schedule or are they more your traditional school hours?

Carolyn: More traditional. And again, that has to do with actually the local rhythms of life. In the summertime, people sleep in the middle of the day and the kids stay out. I mean, even little ones are out until 11 or 12 on the Riva and the Piazza. We have a huge park in Jelsa. There are a couple of gelato parlors. It's a great atmosphere after sundown, which, again, you're living in Spain, so you know all about it. But in the wintertime or in the fall and the spring, the days are getting shorter, so we have a more conventional schedule during that time of year.

Suzy: I love that you were able to fit it to the local schedule so that people can be out late when all the city is out exploring in the evening, or those slow mornings at the beach or whatnot when the weather is perfect. For people coming from outside the EU, Croatia is within the Schengen.

Carolyn: Yeah, and the way that it is set up, the fall and the spring, each of them is just less than 90 days. You don't need residency in order to do them. And then there is a 90-plus day interlude between those sessions. They can just kind of come in on a tourist visa and live their lives. And usually our families are either going home during the holidays or maybe going to another worldschool hub in the Southern Hemisphere, going skiing—it lines up with Bansko Traveling Village hubs in Tanzania. And then in the summertime as well, maybe going up somewhere cooler in the UK, back home to a favorite summer spot or whatever the case might be.

Suzy: Absolutely. And so the fall program runs early September to the end of November, and the spring program then kicks back off mid-March to early June. So it allows that time in the winter to be somewhere else outside the Schengen zone and then come back. So that's a great way to set that up. And then I presume you're taking advantage of some of the best weather on the island. Obviously summer is special in its own way, but there's a lot of outdoor time during the spring and the fall, I presume.

Carolyn: Oh my gosh, yeah, the weather here is incredible in the fall and the spring. So our winters in the Mediterranean are a little chilly, you know, a little rainy, never truly cold. So those coming from like New York or Oslo will be comforted. But it's not the very best time of the year to be here. And then likewise, the summer—it's gorgeous, it's so fun, but it is hot and it is more expensive. Really the best times of year, I mean, this is true for many parts of the world, are the shoulder seasons. And we have these long, slow, golden autumns. It's when the grape harvest happens, the olive harvest. We make a big deal out of those events. We organize community volunteering with older people in our locality who have orchards and vineyards. We honor the main holiday of the fall, which is All Saints or, you know, Halloween in a secular way. And then in the spring, likewise, I mean, you just have the island really exploding with life, with flowers, with herbs; it's Eastertide, which is a long, ongoing celebration here in the Mediterranean. So we really enjoy that and we highlight that in a way that is non-denominational and welcoming to all of our families.

Suzy: That's great. And so the schedule is really conducive to taking advantage of some of the best seasons and the best festivals and opportunities there. But for families taking that gap year or they are slow worldschool traveling over a period of time, they can take advantage of being in one location longer. And I find that really important because it can be very tiring to move fast. So to be able to have a home base from like September until June—like you said, people can sometimes store stuff there, go off on other adventures—that's a great way to think about the traveling families that are participating as you set up your program. That's really innovative. Are there any challenges that you can speak of before we talk a little more about the wins?

Carolyn: Yeah, definitely. So, on the family side, I think one of the challenges is how to establish peer relationships and a sense of routine and connectedness while also enjoying the benefits of frequent travel and mobility. And we have an approach to doing that: the whole concept behind our program is a "pedagogy of belonging." So we're constantly inviting kids to see ways in which they matter in this community and to really get to know this community and feel like they're part of this community even if it's only for a season. And then personally for me, anyone who's been to the Mediterranean knows about the bureaucracy. So we've had our fair share of that—establishing a business that would be unconventional probably in any country. No one's quite doing what we're doing, and so finding the right designation, the accounting, the contracts... all of this has been something that we've spent a lot of time getting right. So I would say that's been a challenge, and that's a win because I think we've come to that place now where everything is just as it should be, and we're really in a good position now to have a lot of different options for how we choose to grow as a school and as a community. In terms of the wins: my wins are our families' wins in most cases. And I think it's really seeing kids and families thrive; it's seeing parents tan and happy and just... I do see a transformation in a lot of families from coming in with this kind of tightness, whether they're coming from stressful jobs wherever they're coming from in the summertime or just the swirl of travel for our worldschooling families, and seeing that ebb away from them. And people taking—I think, again, not to be too heady about this—but drawing a lot of energy and peace from the sea and from the mountains, which is where we're located, and just the kind of quiet that descends on the island even in the summertime. It's just a very peaceful place, and kids, I think, too—they just experience maybe a kind of regulation when they're here with us. And then the pedagogy works. We're always improving it and making it better, but I've seen so many kids... we sometimes do student-directed plays, kids memorizing huge paragraphs of lines and lines of Shakespeare, kids who are not native English speakers, kids getting fascinated about the history of the Mediterranean and the Silk Road, excited to discover different plants, to make teas, to learn about the ethnobotanical heritage of the islands. I've really seen that kids have come to life and absorbed quite a bit from our kind of hands-on, nature-based way of bringing kids into learning. So yeah, that has all been really gratifying. The wall behind me—some of this is my son's art, but some of it is also thank you notes and things that our kids have made for me. So 100%, you know, that is why anybody is doing the kind of work that I do.

Suzy: And I'll add another one, I think, is that your program serves ages 3 to 15, which is a wide range which allows a lot of families that have kids of diverse ages or families with teens that are traveling, or there's certainly people that are taking off with younger kids and they want to be in one location because, like I said, fast travel with little kids can be tiring. And I know it's not always easy to serve a large age range, but I think it's a great way to serve as many families as possible to be able to bring in kids from all different ages.

Carolyn: Absolutely, and I love our faculty and I love our team. One of the things that I think is unique and really special about our program is we have these strong learning themes—like this fall we'll be focused on prehistory and the ancient world and on biology—and that's carried through all of our age ranges and for grownups. So it sparks this intergenerational conversation where a little kid is talking about the carbon cycle and decomposition, and then a big brother or a mentor is developing compost solutions from waste from the olive harvest. And then parents are sitting in a circle reading poetry about death and renewal. And then the conversations at the dinner table or down at the beach or on a walk... there's this richness. We're not all living our separate lives in parallel tracks; we really are a community of families.

Suzy: That's beautiful. And is there still availability for the summer programs?

Carolyn: If people are going to join, I would say please do get on that because we do a lot of pre-planning. There's excursions, school meals, chaperoning, parent-hosted sessions... like, there's quite a bit of planning that needs to take place. But for fall, yes, please get in touch, and in spring as well. We'll be opening enrollment officially for 2027 in June.

Suzy: That's awesome. Let's wrap up with a lightning round. Let's see: you can only ever visit or live in three countries. What are they?

Carolyn: Croatia, Croatia, Croatia. No—I must! I love Japan and Italy.

Suzy: And what is one piece of advice for a family that's just starting out on a worldschooling journey? You've worked with families on various stages of their journeys; I'm curious if there's any advice that you would have for someone that is curious about starting out on a gap year or a worldschooling year or full-time travel and might be curious in your program or the other programs. What would you have to say to them?

Carolyn: Well, this is my life advice in general: don't let other people's plans become your plans. Whatever is right for your family is great. Again, we have our financial constraints, we have the age that my son is now... there are seasons to life, there's so many different ways to travel. And even if it's a family road trip, you can really do a lot for your kids and for yourself as a family in that way. It also doesn't have to be all or nothing. You can start with a two-week program or a family adventure without kind of cutting all your ties and commitments. Yeah, just get out there, do a small test, don't overplan, and enjoy it.

Suzy: That's very well said. How can people learn more about you and the Field School, especially if they're interested in your upcoming programs?

Carolyn: We are on Instagram and Facebook and you can Google us, but our website is fieldschoolhvar.org.

Suzy: Perfect. I'll make sure to link all that in the show notes. And thank you so much for sharing your time and more about you and your journey and your Field School.

Carolyn: Okay, thank you so much, Suzy.

Suzy: Thank you.