Suzy

Welcome to the Wander Worldschool 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 Christy Broker. Welcome to the show. Tell me where you're calling in from today and a little bit more about you and your family.

Christy

Cool. Thanks, Suzy. I'm calling in from Boulder, Colorado. I have two kids, age eight, soon to be nine, and an eleven-year-old, and my husband and myself. We like to travel as much as we can, but we can get into that more later and what I've started around that business too.

Suzy

Yes, because you created Wanderworks. That is a website that brings together carefully curated lists of international summer camps, which is one of my favorite things to talk about because I think summer camps abroad are very accessible to people who are even on a traditional school schedule in the US or wherever their home base is. So we're gonna get more into what Wanderworks and you offer. But before we talk about that, let's start back to where your love for travel started.

Christy

I was born in Saudi Arabia. So my parents really kind of started this. It's probably their fault. And they traveled around a lot when they were younger, and when my older brother and I were little, they worked in Saudi Arabia and so traveled kind of around that area. And I think we kind of just grew up with it when I was really young. And now that I have my own kids, we prioritize travel as much as we can with the kids. So, we lived in London for five years and throughout that we were traveling as much as possible. COVID hit, it's just been a fabric of what we do and kind of who we are, and I think it's really where the best, like, memories are made, honestly. If we think back about, "do you remember this, do you remember this?" A lot of times it's during travel. And so I think it builds the character of who our family is, and I hope that continues for my kids.

Suzy

You shared ahead of time that you were not just born in Saudi Arabia, but in the airport in Saudi Arabia, and I have to ask more about that story.

Christy

It was. My parents were working at an eye hospital in Saudi Arabia where they ran the recreation department. And so they would take people camping, they would go diving in the Red Sea, they would do all this fun stuff. The second time they were there, I was born, and the only really English-speaking hospital that was in Riyadh at the time was at the airport. The funny thing is that the doctor was late, and so actually my dad delivered me 'cause I was early. And so we were at the airport, but it was a planned airport hospital.

Suzy

Sometimes you hear about those babies born on planes and they get a lifetime of free flights. So I was wondering if maybe you get VIP status every time you're at the Saudi Arabia airport.

Christy

Right. I wish! No. I will say I've never been. I mean, you couldn't visit Saudi Arabia up until recently, so I would love to go visit where I was born, but maybe one day.

Suzy

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. Fill me in a little bit more on what travel and especially the summer camps have looked like for your family.

Christy

I'm sure many of you that are listening or that are watching have the thing where your kids are in school and summer hits and you're working, you're like, okay, great, put them in camp all summer. So I was sort of doing the puzzle piece of trying to put them in camps. And I looked back after one summer and I was just like, "Wow, we've just spent, I think it was nearly thirteen thousand dollars on camps for the summer for two kids." And I was like, this is insane. Like, why? And so I was thinking, why don't we just go live in Portugal or something for like a month, or a month and a half, or two months? And so we just started doing that. And I just started experimenting. I found some really cool camps, and I would come back and people were like, "How did you find these? Like, how did you know that your kids, who only really speak English, can go to a Portuguese camp? Like, how do you know they're gonna be comfortable?" And so I was like, I would love to help other families figure this out. And so I started Wanderworks from that idea.

Suzy

And you mentioned that having those English-speaking camps is important to you. Tell me a little more about why that is an important piece of it.

Christy

Inevitably when you're in another country, you're not always gonna be speaking English. You'll—and this is one of my favorite parts—like, you'll hear other languages, you'll communicate with people with, you know, hand motions if you don't speak the language. And with kids that's so natural, as you know with your own kids. But what I want to do is help families that are here; maybe the kids learn a bit of Spanish in school or something like that, but they don't necessarily speak Portuguese, or they don't speak Japanese or Italian. And they would be really comfortable and happy going to a camp in those countries. So part of the criteria of what I look at is: is it an English-speaking friendly camp? Not to say, again, like they speak English all the time, only English, but our kids that only speak that, are they gonna be comfortable? 'Cause the one thing that you do wanna make sure your kids are is comfortable and happy, right? And so I wanna make sure that kids that mostly speak English will be comfortable and thrive in a camp.

Suzy

And then you also shared that when you lived in London for five years... I was actually just in London last week for the podcast show, and it reminded me of how much I love London, especially when you get sunny days. And I know that's not always the case year-round. But I'm curious what took you there, and also what your favorite things about living in the UK were.

Christy

Yeah, so my husband got a job opportunity, and at that point the kids were two and a half and twelve weeks old. And so we wanted to explore, and so we were like, "Yeah, let's do it. Let's go." And we were there and we were kind of just, you know, living, and at one point I was sort of like, "Are we staying here forever? Or are we going back to the States? What are we doing?" And we decided for us, the draw of family was enough to bring us back a little bit. The kids hadn't really met many of their cousins or didn't really know kind of who they were, I guess, you know, from a kind of a heritage and people level. So I felt strongly that giving them that base of understanding where they came from, where their heritage, what kind of their character is made up in terms of a family sense... Giving them that base when they're kind of young will really allow them to explore later. So, like one of my favorite quotes is something about the best thing you can give your children is roots and wings. And I really wanted to kind of give them those roots so they could understand, and really go explore later, and feel confident about themselves and who they are. So we moved back after five years, but we still love it. London's a fantastic city.

Suzy

I really like that quote. I think a lot about the wings and showing them new opportunities and all these cool things about the world. But roots can be really important and that might be different for different families, how they manifest that word in their living choices or where they travel. We do keep roots of family in Colorado. We'll be there for two months this summer.

Christy

Totally.

Suzy

So I think that is important to find that balance between both of those. And I know that's something that traveling families are thinking a lot about: let's go adventure, let's go see the world, but also what do the roots, what does our home base situation look like as well? So thanks for sharing that. And then tell me a little more about your approach to education and languages, whether that was your experience in the UK system or also more recently. I'm just curious what languages also look like for your family.

Christy

I have a degree, which I don't use as much as I should, but in Spanish language and literature. I did a lot of language stuff growing up and in college. The kids are learning some of it. My daughter's in a Spanish immersion track in middle school right now. And so it is, in any of these camps that they go to, they come back knowing words in Portuguese, or in Spanish, or in Italian, or wherever they are, just by being there. And so to me, especially for kids, a lot of the language learning comes from just being around other people and hearing it and seeing it and being immersed in it, not necessarily sitting down, you know, for a language class. That's kind of been my philosophy around language learning is like, let's go somewhere, let's be somewhere, let's try to learn these. Yeah, the education piece is interesting. But I do—it is part of like the way I look at camps. And it's not like a formal education piece, but what are they learning? How are they being enriched as humans? And that can be language, that can be experiences, that can be, you know, a lot of things.

Suzy

With summer camps you have more latitude to explore different things, different activities, maybe some more outdoor time than kids get during the school year. What are some things that you look for, particularly in a camp experience, either for your kids or for the ones on Wanderworks?

Christy

I'm creating a collection. I hand-select these camps from around the world just through my own research and experiences that we have. And then I also work with families like one-on-one to match them with the best camps for their kids and for their family. So, you know, for their kid. Like, I have a thirteen-year-old, for example. He likes archery and music and, you know, name whatever it is. And so I work with them to find kind of the best camps depending on where they want to travel. Or if they don't know, then I can kind of direct them to some of the cool places. And so what I look for in these camps, like I said, there's an enrichment piece. These camps all have some sort of learning something. So it could be skateboarding, it could be robotics, it could be marine biology, it could be learning the food culture of the area, it could be learning language, it could be, you know, learning something where they'll come back as a better human, basically, as a better global citizen, as I like to say. A lot of them tend to be, especially in the summer, like you said, focused on the outdoors. I think especially in other countries, it's so interesting to see how people treat the outdoors and how it may be different for how the kid grew up. And so that's an interesting piece. And also the scenery is just so beautiful. And in, like, every country, I mean, a lot of these camps are just in these stunning settings. That's important too for me, especially for my own kids personally, being outside in the summer. And you know, there are a lot of other criteria. There's a lot of, like, make sure they clearly have their safety standards in place. There is no global camp accreditation body like there is in the US. There's the ACA, the American Camp Association. There's nothing like that on a global scale. So I make sure the safety stuff is there. Like how are they training their—they call them monitors in many countries abroad rather than counselors. What does it look like if the kid gets hurt? How do they get in touch with the parents? Like all those things as a parent sending your kids to another camp in another country, you would want to know. Do they have different food choices? Like my kid's a vegetarian, which she is, so like, is she gonna be able to eat, or what does the food look like? So like, even things like that, I look at. So it's quite a long list before they go into my collection on the website.

Suzy

The more you mention those aspects, I'm thinking, okay, so you know the language is an important piece, what are they doing to make sure my kid is safe during these new and novel activities? So, what are some of the questions that you might ask as you're vetting, and I know you've been to some of them too, but tell me a little more about that process.

Christy

It's the questions you'd want to know as a parent. I am a parent. So anything I would wanna know, I ask and I make sure. So it is, depending on the activity, right? So like you said, surfing. My kids love this surf camp they go to in Portugal, and so what does that look like? Do they carry the boards themselves? How deep is the water? How many surf instructors do they have out in the water? What if they don't know how to surf? Do they just throw them in the water and, you know, expect them to surf? Or what does that process look like in a detailed way, just so I can get a picture in my head? But I try to visit as many as possible so I can have a visual and get photos or videos and like really portray that to other parents because I think it really helps to see. So like, when I went to go watch surf, I just sat there watching for a little while and I was like, so this is how it works. And then I asked the kids later after I had talked to the woman that runs the camp, but they were explaining to me how the system works, how they'd have an instructor out here and an instructor out here. So they like, had a line of instructors and you'd go out and paddle out, and the one instructor would help push you back and help you up on the board, and then you go back and you paddle out to the next instructor that's out here. So, like understanding how things work, especially if it's something specialized, like surfing or skiing or something like that, really helps parents feel comfortable. And then the other piece that's really important is like, how close is the nearest hospital, or what do you do in an emergency situation, which let's hope never happens, but also let's face it, does happen sometimes. And so, a lot of camps will even put on their website, or I will ask them, like, what's your protocol if there's an emergency? And I mean, their protocols are amazing. I'm never worried about safety, to be honest, in any of the camps that I've found, even the ones that are very adventure-focused. Yeah.

Suzy

Love it. Yeah, though that seems like some really important things to look out for. And it helps that you're coming at it from a perspective of the parent who may be sending your own children there. You have a lot of questions. And I think also the more you are in the camp world and the more you're signing up for these, you have a sense of what is important too, and also what matters to your kids. And that's great that you got to observe it as well. Earlier you mentioned that camps in the US can run thousands of dollars. And often they are a little less expensive in other countries. If you can expand on that a little bit more about maybe locations that have really fit the bill for that, what some of those typical costs may be.

Christy

Yeah. Yes.

Suzy

And what is often included also in those costs?

Christy

Yeah, totally. I mean that's a big piece of it, right? You know, travel can be very expensive. There's always gonna be the cost of flying. Like that's just something that's there. We get creative, and other people can get creative, with using points. You know, we basically use our credit card points that we've had throughout the year to then go travel in the summer. There are ways to bring costs down. I'll start with on the camp front. I was shocked the first year my kids went to this surf camp again in Portugal. It was 890 euros, I think it was at the time. And at that exchange rate, that was like $800 for a week of overnight surf camp in Portugal. And then I was looking at camps here in the US or in Colorado for a week of overnight camp, it's, you know, $1,500 or $1,600, so this camp is half the price. It does depend on the country. Switzerland camps can be very expensive. Switzerland in general is a very expensive country. I mean, amazingly beautiful and if you ever get the chance to go or send your kid to camp there, like fantastic, but not cheaper than the US. But many other countries, especially Spain, Portugal, Italy, like Greece, the Mediterranean area, can be very inexpensive and still really high-quality camps. Also, we're starting to look at more Eastern Europe, so like Hungary and Slovenia, and the camps there are also much cheaper. I'm starting to do more research also into different locations in Asia. So I found some really great camps in Thailand and Japan that are also much cheaper. So I will say that the cheapest maybe I've found—and not that you should go by cheap—but day camp, so you drop them off in the morning, you pick them up, and I can explain how that's gone for us as well... is like 190 euros for a week. So depending on the exchange rate, I don't even know what it is right now, but maybe two hundred... okay, like you know, it's like over there. Maybe two hundred and fifty dollars, maybe, but that's for a whole week and you would never find a camp in the US here. And I will talk for lodging...

Suzy

It's not great, I'll tell you.

Christy

What we've done, and I know you've talked to other people that do this, is we try to do as many home exchanges as possible, which is a really cool program. HomeExchange.com is kind of the big website, and I will say that website has the most international sort of homes and places to choose from. But there's also Kindred and I think secondhome.com or something like that. Anyway, places where you can go find houses and you can do a direct swap. You can also use points on those platforms. Some locations we just can't find and we'll just do an Airbnb, but we kind of mix and match. But that does also bring the costs down in terms of lodging. And I know some people also camp; there are some really cool, they're not fancy campgrounds, but they're like nicer campgrounds especially in Europe. It's quite a big thing with families. And the cost of food is so much cheaper, at least from here in Colorado. I'm always amazed at how cheap and high-quality the food is abroad.

Suzy

I'm a little nervous to shop in the US so...

Christy

I was shocked when we came back from London. I was like, wait, how is milk like six dollars for a gallon?

Suzy

Yeah, it shifted up. We talked a little bit about this one-month spending snapshot. Numbeo is the great website that can really compare two different locations. And you had pulled up Boulder versus Cascais, am I saying it correctly? Okay.

Christy

It has. Cascais, yeah, we spent a while in Cascais. Yeah, which is—Cascais is not a cheap place in Portugal. It's actually a pretty expensive town, yeah.

Suzy

Yes, but it's a gorgeous place on the coast, somewhat near Lisbon. And I know Boulder is also like a little higher cost of living than some areas, you know. Everything's relative. New York City and LA have us beat, but what are some of those comparisons that you notice between those locations?

Christy

Yeah. Yep. Yeah, yeah. Yep. Yep. Right. The thing that always gets me again is the food. Even going out to eat. So we do a lot of shopping at local grocery stores, which also gives you a really good look into the culture. Transportation, it depends on where you're going, but a lot of places there are trains, which we're not used to in the US, and that can be a very cheap and easy way to get around, or buses. The other cost is medical cost. Like, hopefully nothing happens, like I said, but sometimes you do have to go to a hospital or to, you know, a doctor. This last summer I sprained my ankle really badly in Barcelona right before we were leaving to go to Portugal. And I ended up in the hospital. I think it was three hundred euros maybe. Whereas if you go to the hospital in the US with a sprained ankle and they do all the tests and like you come out, you're not paying three hundred dollars. You're paying a lot more than that out of pocket.

Suzy

I can add to the medical. We were in a small town this weekend, Segovia, and my son woke up with ear pain at two in the morning screaming. So I said, I think he has an ear infection. Later that day we did take him in, and it was a hundred and fifty euros in and out in half an hour to get him antibiotics at the pharmacy. But just to be able to walk into an urgent care, get care, pay out of pocket now, worry about it with my travel insurance or medical insurance later. I feel really good about being able to be in a place that you know that if there is something that happens medical-wise, you can get attention in a timely manner.

Christy

Right.

Suzy

Even at...

Christy

I also notice it stands out to me that the pharmacies in Europe are more like a doctor, right? Like we went in, my daughter needed eardrops because she had water in her ear, and like I was explaining this to a Portuguese pharmacist and they're more like, "This is what you need." Not that they prescribe things, but they can give you what you need versus in the US you have to go to a doctor first to like get what you need and then the pharmacy gives it to you.

Suzy

So that is great to have, and there are pharmacies on every street corner. So you always have someone to talk to. And then with Wanderworks, I was looking at the list because this is where it's really fun to dream about like, where can we go for a summer? And you shared some of the locations, a lot in... I thought Costa Rica looked amazing, a cloud forest school summer camp. There are opportunities in France, a lot of bilinguals. So that could be a really cool opportunity for families that want to incorporate it. And then I saw you have Germany, which also, things in Italy Fashion Art and Design Summer Camp. I'm curious if from the list that you've put forth, are there any that are your favorites? Either ones that you've done before or ones that you're really intrigued by after doing the curating of the list?

Christy

Yeah, I mean every time I find a camp I'm like, this looks so amazing. Like, okay kids, we're going to, you know, Andorra next summer. They're like, "Where's Andorra?" Like, what do you know what? I do go by, like when I have a client that I work with that's interested in a certain place, I tend to do more research in that place because I'm already doing research for that person. So I tend to kind of go by where I'm interested in and also where my clients have been interested in. But then in my other time I try to go explore other places. So the one that I'm really excited about that I just found, and it's not the cheapest, but it looks so amazing: my husband loves to cook and his whole family cooks a lot. They're from Italian heritage. So I found, if you've seen the website, in France in Paris, the Ducasse Paris Cooking Camp. And so if anyone knows about food, Alain Ducasse is like a—I mean, he has many Michelin stars. I think he was the first person to have Michelin stars in multiple countries or something. I don't know, like, but a very famous chef. And you can go do a cooking camp with your family or just the kids at like one of his schools. Like what a cool experience to be able to go cook, if you like cooking, with one of the best chefs in the world. It looks really cool. So I would love to go to that. The foodie capital of the world. Like if that's something you're interested in, like, my gosh. But that one was really exciting to me when I found that. And some of the ones in... I think the one in...

Suzy

It is in the foodie capital of the world too.

Christy

Thailand. There's one called Able Summer Camp in Thailand. It's such a project-based learning camp. Their curriculum they kind of co-create with National Geographic. They have like projects around fire, air, water, and land, and like cultivating kind of a love for learning and science in different ways. And it's in Thailand, so how cool would that be? I have not been, but I would love to go. So yes, every camp I'm just like, I wanna go there! And I keep building this up. I will continue, this will be like a continuous project of building up the collection itself. 'Cause camps do not, I'd like to be clear about this, camps do not pay to be part of this collection or for me to recommend them to families. I recommend to families whichever ones I think are going to fit them. So I don't get any commission. I just find the best ones and you know, try to spread the word.

Suzy

And you said if someone is overwhelmed, trying to find that right camp all the way around the world, you mentioned some advisory services that can help them. Tell me more about how that bit works.

Christy

So the website's free. Like you can go check out the website and that's where my collection is. And then I do advisory services. So you can, you know, choose a lower tier and like I can give you a quick, like, "Here's a quick recommendation based on what I know about your family." If you fill out a quick questionnaire, then I can help recommend a few camps and this is why, and this is why I think this would be great. And then you can move up and like I can do more of like a personal interview and really get to know kind of who you are. And I also recommend lodging and maybe some activities in the area because a lot of parents are like, "Okay, well, my kid's at camp, like, where do I stay? Or what do I do? Or, you know, like do I get a hotel, like I'm not sure how this works." So that's a little more like hand-holding, but I think really helpful to people that can't really imagine how to do it. And so I help them with that. And then like the third package is kind of just like a much more concierge; I can help register for the camps and stuff as well, or set up meetings with the camp founders and directors. So yeah, different tiers depending on what you want, depending on if you want to do your own research or not, or need extra help.

Suzy

It's always great to have someone who's been there help with things that are overwhelming when you're starting to plan it. Let's summarize with one of your most memorable moments from a past camp.

Christy

Yeah. The first time we did this we were in Portugal, my kids did two different camps that summer. And the first one was an international school. A very comfortable way to get into doing this is to find international schools. 'Cause most of them will run camps in the summer, it's comfortable for parents. A lot of these schools are very much English-speaking schools, and you get families and kids from around the world. So it's an easy way to get in and feel comfortable as a parent dropping your kid off at a school. They went to an international school camp, that was their first camp abroad. My son came back with a friend that he met from Latvia, and then my daughter came back with her friend that she made who was Russian and spoke no English. And they ended up having this sign language, hand signal language that they taught each other. And I was just like, "Wow, you guys are so incredible. Like how many adults would come back and do that?" At the end of the week, her friend gave her this like really cool coin from Russia. This is exactly what I was hoping for, because I didn't really know what to expect. And then the next camp, they ended up going to the surf camp in Portugal, and that was the first overnight camp. But I was very much like, I don't know how this is gonna go. She's done maybe a sleepover or two at a friend's house, but never done anything like this. I was pretty nervous about dropping her off there because who knows, you're sleeping away for a whole week in another country. She was I think nine maybe at the time, maybe eight actually. And the woman that runs this camp, she was the first female professional surfer in Portugal back in the day when she was surfing as a job, as a profession. And so now she's running this camp and she works right now with schools and different programs to help build kids' confidence and talk about self-esteem and stuff like that. So this camp was a mix of surfing, learning how to surf, but also emotional intelligence and confidence building stuff that she works with other kids in schools. So I was like, what an amazing mix of skills that you learn that week. My daughter came back after the camp, just so excited and just so like ready to do anything and learned how to surf. I was like, I don't know how to surf. So this was awesome. Now you know how to surf and just so full of confidence and you know, met kids from around the world. It was a pretty small camp. I think there were fifteen kids there maybe total for that week. That was the second one, and that's when I was like, "Okay, overnight, not so scary, actually really awesome." They learned how to love the food. I think like she came back being like, "There was this soup I had to eat and I really didn't like it," and she was like, "But I ate it, it was fine." So I was like, "Great, like see, you figured it out." So just the resilience and confidence that she learned from that. I was very much like, "Okay, how amazing." So I'm doing video interviews with as many founders of camps that I can because Joanna, this woman that runs this, is just such an incredible person and her story is so cool. I wanted to also get their stories out. So I'm trying to also do like video interviews with founders and build up that library too. So those are the first two, like those have seared in my memory because it was such an unexplored area. We had no idea what to expect.

Suzy

Cool. What a wonderful couple of memories. And I can see why that's motivated you to continue with this. And I'll make sure to link Wanderworks in the show notes so people can check out the list of all the camps and the services. But before we wrap up, I always like to ask a couple of questions in a lightning round. I'm curious, you can only ever live or visit in three countries. What are they?

Christy

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, sure. I mean I talk about Portugal a lot. I do love that country. I would definitely live there. I think just the people and the environment is so awesome. I'd love to go to Argentina. I have not been. It seems like a very cool place. And I think just the geography of that area, the mountains and the beaches and the people and the culture that is like so old and so deep would be really cool to explore.

Suzy

What is your favorite travel-related movie, book or story?

Christy

Yeah, Secret Life of Walter Mitty. And I had seen it when it came out and then I was like watching a clip of it and I was like, right. This movie is so cool. So that's one of my recent favorites that's come back up to rewatch parts of. Yeah, yeah, definitely parts of it.

Suzy

They filmed it in Iceland, is that correct? Yes.

Christy

It's such a cool kind of out-there experimental but really neat story, that I just forgot how immersive it was and how cool. So I'm gonna say that as one of my recent favorites again. Yeah.

Suzy

What is the most ridiculous souvenir that you've ever bought?

Christy

I was in London for a work trip actually, and we'd lived there—this is after we'd moved back to the States from London, so I've been in London for years. Like I didn't need any London souvenirs. But Queen Elizabeth had just died when I was there on that trip. And so of course it was a huge thing, and people were in the streets and stuff like that. And so when I was leaving the airport I was like, my gosh, I really need something to remember Queen Elizabeth by. I'm not a giant royal family fan or anything like that. 'Cause I think I was just feeling the emotions of the country as I was leaving. So I ran to the souvenir shop in the airport and got a—like one of those little souvenir spoons with her face. The kids always want to use it to eat yogurt or whatever. I'm like, "Well it's a souvenir spoon. Can you eat with this? I guess so." I don't know, sure, I put it on it. And a spoon. Yes. Yeah.

Suzy

The Queen lives on as the yogurt spoon. That's great. Well, this has been so lovely to hear more about you, your family. I'll make sure to share things about Wanderworks in the show notes, but thank you so much for joining me.

Christy

Yeah. Thank you, this was so fun. I really enjoyed it.