Suzy

Today we're talking about big families, hard-learned lessons on community, and the blissful feelings that come with trading in the rat race for island life in Thailand.

Meet Nadeem Arshad, who shares the raw truth of full-time worldschooling. We're breaking down real monthly budgets in Thailand, including dining out four nights a week at half the cost of living back home, and how a devastating travel setback inspired the creation of the parent-led Bliss Hubs in Koh Lanta. Plus, don't miss the end of the episode where Nadeem drops the five foundational rules every aspiring travel family needs to hear before packing their bags. Let's jump in.

Suzy

Welcome to the Wander Worldschool Podcast. I'm Suzy, a travel-loving money nerd, mom of two, and our family lives between Spain and Colorado. On this show, we discuss the stories, logistics, and finances of traveling families and the many ways to learn along the way.

Today we have Nadeem Arshad from the UK. Tell me a little more about you and your family, and then we'll jump in.

Nadeem

My name is Nadeem Arshad. I'm part of the Arshad family, with my wife Dionne Arshad. We are from the UK. We have five children: our oldest son, Jayden, who's now eighteen, and our younger four children are aged twelve, twelve, ten, and nine.

Suzy

Before we talk more about your family travels and Bliss Hubs in Thailand, which I know is a big part of your family travel journey—if we can take it back, can you tell me a little bit more about where your love for travel started?

Nadeem

Before we met, we weren't the type of children that did much in the way of travel. We just didn't come from travel families. Like most British families, we'd have the occasional holiday, but international travel and doing that extensively was not part of our childhoods. So our real passion for travel came later in life.

Before I met Dionne, she was travelling as an adult, and I was also. We both were picking up a lot of air miles, but not together. When we did meet and then eventually start a family, we realized that travel for us wasn't just about seeing places; it was about gaining perspective. Every country challenged assumptions, it introduced us to new people, and it showed us different ways of living—the sort of stuff that really made us want to travel again and again and not just take short holidays.

So here we are. We're now, I guess, what's called a travel family because we've done it extensively. We know quite a bit about long-term travel, particularly as a big family, which is different from the average-sized family. We're very happy to be able to create awareness of what we've been through: the ups and downs, the highs and lows, what we would consider to be our key learning points, and the important bits that go with making long-term family travel an enjoyable experience.

Suzy

Tell me a little more about what family travel has looked like. You shared that over the last couple of years you've been able to do more travel. Is there a certain speed, tempo, or locations that have really worked well for you and your family?

Nadeem

Long-term family travel for us—and look, there's no textbook for this, right? It's really about you, your own family, energy levels, appetite to take risks, do new things, and yeah, that varies from one month to the next. So even when you think you've got a winning formula, it could change. You're always on your toes; you're always having to adapt as you move around.

What we found when we did start to find what we call our own routine, our own structure, was in the first six months: one month in Bali, one month in Lombok, then one month in Borneo. We noticed that although we were enjoying the discovery side of travel and being tourists, we were actually frustrating the kids a little bit because they would make a couple of friends in the area we were staying in and then have to say goodbye. To a degree, it was the same for the adults. We'd make some connections, maybe swap travel details, but move on.

So that for us was nice, but not ideal. We then learned that we needed to slow down and do things at a slower pace.

Now, whilst this was all going on, just so you know, our now eighteen-year-old, who was fourteen at the time, was starting to express some discontent at missing his friends and missing home a little bit. That was coming out quite regularly. We'd have a day of him feeling a bit sad, then another day we'd go and do something amazing that he'd never done before, and all of a sudden, he was rejuvenated. We were conscious of that, and we said to him a few times, "We'll find some friends for you, you'll get some independence, or we'll stay somewhere longer and it'll work out. Bear with us."

That was what was going on in the background. By the time we got to Thailand for the first time and chose to fly from Borneo to Phuket, if we'd known then what we know now, he'd still have been with us. The sad thing about that—probably our lowest point as we traveled—was that he did go back home to stay with his grandparents after six months. We saw him because we flew him out a few times, but he wasn't with us for the next two or two and a half years of travel.

Coming back to the question of what worked for us: we pumped the brakes, we started to source community ahead of arriving somewhere, and we began to get into a rhythm that was suiting the children—making friends, seeing them regularly, organizing activities, etc. Phuket was where we actually spent time with Dionne's mother. She came to visit, and that was the moment where Jayden effectively went home with her after a very difficult conversation.

After Phuket, that's when it all changed for us, not just because we were down to a family of six from seven, but there was a catalyst there. Driven by a lot of sadness and emotion, we realized that we'd not done enough for Jayden quickly enough. We still had our four other children saying they needed connections, they needed to feel stability, and they needed more of a routine.

The next place we went to changed everything because that was where the roots of the concept of Bliss Hubs started to form, even though its birthplace was on a Thai island called Koh Lanta. What worked for us was slowing down—three months minimum in each place—establishing routines very quickly with the kids, and making sure that we were joining or forming communities in every place we went to. We didn't pay for hubs at the time; it wasn't in our budget. Those friendships were organic and very much just where you could spread the word through social media.

Suzy

You bring up some fascinating points that all families are considering, especially when they have multiple kids of various ages. How do you meet every kid's needs, and then also that need for community, especially as kids get into their teen years? You adapted to that change for your son, and giving him the best thing that he needed at that time was time with family in the UK. You were able to travel and still spend time together. You shared that if you had had more of that community, it could have been different for him. Has it been different for the younger kids in terms of slowing down and having more of this stable community in the parts of Thailand that work really well for you?

Nadeem

Absolutely. It was a game-changer for us. We actively sought out community, and we made connections that started conversations about: "Are you guys going there at the same time, or do you already live there? What goes on for families in terms of socializing children together?"

Not a day goes by that we don't wonder how different things could have been if we were a family of seven for the whole three years, but we cannot cry over spilled milk. What's done is done, and we just adapted.

Those were the adjustments we made. When we landed in Pai, combined with the fact that Pai as a place was just off-the-charts amazing—a community-friendly place, safe, secure, good weather, even cool weather in the evenings—it was more like real Thailand as well, because some of the islands can be a bit more saturated with tourism. We were pinching ourselves because we'd landed in a place where it ticked all the boxes, and that was just by sheer luck that we happened to also have like-minded families around us. Some came there because we'd said we were going there; others were already there. We just all came together, and it all started to feel magical and right.

Suzy

Pai was a big hub where you found your love for Thailand and community. What other parts of Thailand were big in those early parts of travel for you and your family?

Nadeem

We traveled a lot all over Thailand: Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, Bangkok, and Krabi. We spent about three months in Krabi. But the place that we've spent the most time in overall, cumulatively over three visits, is Koh Lanta, which is a small island just off the Krabi mainland. That was where we went after Pai.

Now, if you can imagine, we were full of confidence when it came to bringing people with us, meeting people there, and establishing connections with families already there. Before we left Pai, we started to do this again. Koh Lanta never had any sort of worldschooling family communities there.

When that started to happen in Koh Lanta, we were like, "Wow, now we've got the ocean by our side as well." It just felt so—well, the actual word we used is where the name came from. Another family came down to Koh Lanta with us. We were watching the sun set from a beach bar with a cold drink, and there were loads of other families around us. The children were playing on the beach, and we were like, "This moment is pure bliss. You could not write this better. This is bliss."

The name "Bliss" stuck with us. We realized we hadn't just stumbled across something; there was intention there. But we hadn't given it a name. We hadn't formalized it in a way where people knew that if you go to Koh Lanta, you go there for the worldschooling community that is Bliss. So we started to talk about how we could give it an identity, have families talking about it, referring to it, and writing testimonials about it so that it slowly but surely became its own entity. Now, across most of the big worldschooling groups on Facebook, people know about this hub. It's here to stay.

Every high season in Koh Lanta, from December to May, is now very popular. Lots of families go back year after year, and lots of new families hear about it through word of mouth or search for it. It's their easy introduction to Thai culture. The kids straight away make friends from day one, and that relaxes the parents.

In case that's not clear, Bliss is not an organized, structured hub where you drop your children off. What we wanted to do was replicate what worked as it was discovered, which was the ethos of being parent-led. That means that whilst I might be doing something for my children that I know meets their needs, such as organizing a game of football on the beach or at the local pitch, I invite other families who want their kids to play football, too.

We encourage other families to contribute to the community and make it thrive. Another parent might step up and say, "Well, I'm a former teacher and I taught art, so I could run some arts and crafts classes."

We'd say, "That would be a great idea. Maybe we can help you find a venue because we know the location really well."

Away you go: you can go into the WhatsApp groups, tell them that you're running the art class, and that it's going to be on Wednesdays at ten o'clock at this bar. Then another parent steps up and says, "Actually, I taught Brazilian jiu-jitsu when I was living in the States." Before you knew it, we had a full activity calendar.

Looking at all these activities, we realized we needed a calendar. So Mark and I went off and designed a calendar on the website where families could RSVP their children in case there was a limited number of spots. It became very organized and formalized. It works really well because the parents are still contributing and are part of it, but we take the administrative burden away from them and keep it organized in one central point.

I'm told by many families who have absolutely loved it, who've made lifelong friends from it, want to go back, and tell everyone else about it, that it's a unicorn. There are not many hubs out there that thrive and run the way that Bliss Hubs do.

Suzy

I love that. You shared that there are the WhatsApp groups, the community, and that a lot of it is parent-led. If someone wants to participate, how do they get started, and where would they learn more about Bliss Hubs? Also, could you share where people typically stay? It sounds like accommodation is up to every individual family, but is there an opportunity for people to stay near each other so you can foster those community activities? Share a little more about what it's like to be a participant.

Nadeem

If you take the upcoming Bliss Hub that's going to start again in December: we're not a school, we're not a structured program, and we're not a resort. Whilst I did mention a timetable of activities, it's not something that we lead and pull together; we just facilitate the building of that calendar because the parents tell us, "I'm running this," and another parent says, "I'm running that."

I think that's nice because it's like a cooperative. The parents feel invested, and they get out what they put in. That's the ethos and culture that we foster, and it works really well.

Finding Bliss is easy—we have a website. What we don't do, and we're very clear about this, is take on a lot of other things for the families that might create disagreements or issues. As soon as you say, "We'll also organize your accommodation," and you take money from them for that, they might say, "Actually, that didn't meet my needs, or it wasn't in my budget." I just think it gets too complicated.

Of course, we have that local knowledge, so we'll say, "Make sure you stay on or near these two beaches. That's where most of the meetups and activities happen." What we're learning from the previous hub is that we're going to pull together a tried-and-tested, family-friendly list of properties and accommodation that we'll pass on to families coming to the next one. They can work through those and say, "Well, this one fits my budget." They know Bliss families have stayed there and found it clean, comfortable, and in a good location. It helps them narrow things down and not go in blind looking at places they've never been to.

That's kind of what we do to help families settle in. The WhatsApp groups are also a hive of knowledge. We encourage families to join the program, subscription, or membership a month or so before they get there because there are already families in there, some of whom are long-term families who live on Koh Lanta. As soon as someone asks, "Where are the grocery stores? If I stay here, will this be close to the amenities and pharmacies I need?" the families on WhatsApp will give them all the answers they need without them having to search online. It really helps them hit the ground running.

I think that explains Bliss, Koh Lanta, and what we do to get families settled into a community that will tick a lot of their boxes from the outset, which is worth its weight in gold.

Suzy

Absolutely. You're in Koh Lanta from December until May. Do you find families participate—I'm sure it varies—for as short as a week or two, or sometimes for a couple of months? What is the average stay, and what works well to participate in the community? I'm sure the recommendation would be to come for the whole winter to really experience what it's like to be part of the community, but what has worked well for families?

Nadeem

Spot on. That's a great question. We don't always get asked that. Families might be on a whistle-stop tour of Thailand, but they want to pass through the community. We've had families over the last three seasons say, "I'm passing through and want to be part of your community, but I'm only here for four days."

We're like, "Whoa, okay. If your children start to like it and don't want to leave, you're going to have the headache of finding more accommodation, extending your visa, or whatever." And that happened so many times because your children's happiness is the priority.

Generally, what we found in the last season was that families would stay a minimum of two weeks or the whole season. We had lots of families stay the whole season. I would recommend you do at least a month so that you get into the island vibes, start to relax, and find your routine with your children. Once your children have made friends, they know they're going to see them again and again.

We don't run cohorts. It's an open community; you can pass through as quickly or as slowly as you like. The monthly subscription doesn't change—it's just there, and you cancel at any point you want. All that flexibility is within the family's gift to choose how they do it.

We've had questions like, "Can I drop my kids off so I can co-work?"

We say, "We'd love you to be part of what we're doing—not just what we are doing, but what the families are doing."

When your child is taking part in the football session, you're there kicking the ball with them. The reason that we left the UK, the rat race, and the hamster-wheel routine was because we wanted to bond with our children. We've only got a set amount of summers with them before they grow up and want to do their own thing. Being able to be part of that activity with them—sitting side by side, learning to surf with them, playing football with them, playing team frisbee where you're on the team with them—you're not on the sidelines like you always used to be in that old Western lifestyle. You're now involved with them. Every minute that you do that, your child looks up at you and says, "I love that you're here with me, Mum and Dad."

Of course, there were instances where one parent had to co-work, so the other parent stayed with them. We've also had quite a lot of single parents come to the Bliss communities, and they've been really well supported where in other places they haven't been. They bond with other parents, and other parents say, "We appreciate and recognize that you can't do everything as a single parent, so we'll look after your child for half a day while you get stuff done." It's really well received. We don't stop any of that; that's between the parents and whatever they want to do.

Suzy

From what I've heard from people who spend time in Thailand as a family, there probably are opportunities if someone needs to find a nanny service for a little while, or rely on someone in the community for a shared village. We're all looking for that village for our families. There are opportunities for that, but not having that drop-off model really encourages full family connection.

Nadeem

Yeah. Where it's absolutely needed, we also have an AI chatbot on the Bliss website that knows pretty much everything that we know. You can type into the AI chatbot, "I need a nanny" or "I've cracked a tooth; I need a dentist urgently," and it tells you. Or you just go straight into that WhatsApp group, knowing that all the long-term families or families that have been there for a while are going to have that information ready for you. Again, it's worth its weight in gold.

Suzy

I'm assuming that there's flexibility for families to approach education in whatever way they already do before they come to Koh Lanta. I'm curious if you can share more about what your family's approach to education has been, especially spending extended periods in Thailand over the six months during the winter timeframe. With the hub, how are people incorporating different types of education for their kids into their experiences as part of Bliss?

Nadeem

The beauty of the Bliss community is that it's so relaxed. Families participate in whichever activities they want to attend. If their energy levels are not right for the week, you won't see them because they might say, "Look, we've had a lot of time in the sun. We need to focus on maths, English, reading, and writing with the kids, so we're going to get our online stuff done with them. We've got some touristy stuff we want to do as a family." They withdraw a little bit, but then they come back next week refreshed and ready to go again.

For my family in particular, the routine that worked for us was starting the mornings with online subscription platforms that the kids were signed up to: Reading Eggs was one of them, IXL, and I think Khan Academy as well. They would invest that time at home with us, and we would do that together.

Literally, the reason that we're worldschooling is that the world is their classroom. Whether the afternoon entailed meeting other families for socialization, or meeting other families to go to a local temple or a historical site of interest—that was something we might do collectively, or we might do something as a family on our own to learn more about the culture of the country we were in.

Geography is the subject they're actually living because we're traveling. Science is discovered through nature and conservation projects in the locality. You know when you went on a field trip when you were at school? Worldschooling is a field trip every day. Instead of learning about plastic pollution in the oceans through a textbook, you're going to see it in 4D; you're going to learn about how it poisons or harms marine life.

In the Bliss community, someone might bring a passion project to share. For example, one of the Bliss families runs a shark charity called Shark Guardian, and they actually live in Koh Lanta. Their contribution to the Bliss community every year is that once every two weeks, they educate the children on sharks and the important role they play in the marine ecosystem. So many kids come away from that going, "I had no idea! I just thought they were scary things that tried to eat me." There is education coming directly from one of the families, helping other families.

Because they're divers, they also run boat trips to the Phi Phi Islands where the families and children get to snorkel with sharks. That reflects on the family, the charity, Bliss, and the contributions that everybody makes. It's beautiful.

That's what we do with our own family. We do things in a practical way, but we still keep some of the theory ticking over with online subscriptions, because reading a book is reading a book—you have to get a book, open it, and read it. There are some things that we dedicate time to at home, and then most of the other stuff is right outside our front door.

Suzy

It's a great way to combine the basics with using this location as your backdrop: the languages kids are exposed to, the nature, and bringing in knowledge from parents. You never know what someone might be an expert in! Usually, because it's something they're passionate about, the kids get excited too because they see that passion. I love learning from someone who is passionate about a topic much more than from someone who's forced to teach it. You can pick up on the difference.

Nadeem

An engaged child is a learning child. You have to create that engagement first and foremost.

Whilst none of them are fluent in any language other than English, the children have been picking up phrases and conversational elements from Thai and Malay in their travels. When we go to restaurants, we always encourage the children to order in the local language, so they know basic sentences such as "I would like...," "Don't make this too spicy," or "Don't put too much sugar in my drink." We'll tell them, "Unless you're speaking Thai, you're not ordering your food."

It's been great. I'm just so happy that as a family we kept a journal and updated a travel blog. It's lovely to know that we can pass on what we've seen, done, and heard to other families.

We've had so many families reach out saying, "We've been following you for the last two years. We had no idea it was possible. You've inspired us; we're selling our house next week."

We're like, "Whoa, that's a big step!"

We're touching people's lives in a way where we feel responsible. What if worldschooling doesn't work for them, and they come back after a couple of months having sold their house?

Suzy

Even if someone hits the road, has an adventure, and then a couple of months in—or at some point—decides they want to return to wherever they came from, I still think they've picked up amazing skills along the way. Making that choice to return is a more informed decision once they've had this opportunity.

Sometimes the grass is not always greener on the other side, so by trying things out, if we adjust and pivot, that's okay. What I find is that usually people want more of it once they get going. For lots of reasons, sometimes families need to adjust, and that's just part of the process.

Thailand is a great backdrop for worldschooling. I haven't been there with my kids yet, but there's quite a bit of English, and they are very welcoming to tourists. It can also be very affordable. I'd love to touch on the financial and logistical side for your family, and also a little more about Koh Lanta in general.

Nadeem

With Thailand, Dionne and I actually went on an educational visa. We were officially learning Thai while staying there, which we then passed on to the children in those restaurant conversations. For us, that helped us settle.

We quite like the challenge of knowing that you can't just rely on someone to speak English or understand you. This is their home; we should be trying to speak Thai wherever possible.

Thailand, surprisingly, is more modern than you might think in respect to infrastructure, housing, and so on. Houses are built very well to European specifications, and you've got very modern infrastructure for the roads. We got settled into Thai culture within a few months, we embraced it, and I would recommend it to anybody to try as potentially the first place they visit in Southeast Asia.

Suzy

What does a monthly expense breakdown look like in Koh Lanta? That would be helpful to understand if someone wants to spend an extended period of time with the Bliss Hubs in Koh Lanta—what might their budget need to look like?

Nadeem

I can speak specifically about Koh Lanta, absolutely. In the same way as most countries, the budget that you need will vary based on your own needs and family size, so it can vary wildly. Depending on where you are, Northern Thailand is generally cheaper than the southern parts, especially the islands.

Koh Lanta as an island is probably above average in terms of living costs because it is an island, and a lot of tourists tend to go toward the southern parts of Thailand.

Before I talk about Koh Lanta and how much it cost us, there's probably a misconception that all travel families going on long-term travel are wealthy. The reality is that we're all working with different budgets. Some of us have sold everything we have and are traveling for a limited amount of time. Other families want it to be sustainable, so they are working with remote income that they've managed to create for themselves that doesn't require them to be in a particular location to do the job.

In Koh Lanta, we were a family of six, because at that point Jayden had gone home. For a family of six, we were somewhere in the middle—moderate. For our family size, two and a half thousand pounds—I'm saying pounds because I'm British, but that's probably somewhere in the region of three thousand US dollars—would be our monthly budget.

Suzy

Yeah, thirty-three hundred US dollars, or about twenty-eight hundred euros with today's exchange rates.

Nadeem

Now, of course, we're a big family. Whilst we had the children sharing rooms, we'd normally go for a three-bedroom. In Koh Lanta, you can pick up a three-bedroom villa with a pool in a decent location for around a thousand pounds a month. That must be thirteen or fourteen hundred US dollars a month.

We sometimes had a motorbike, but we preferred a car because it's safer. We were buying groceries a lot, as you can imagine. We were also ferrying each other around to different activities, and it was just more convenient for us and safer. A car would come in at around two hundred and fifty pounds a month, and grocery bills were six hundred pounds a month. That included toiletries and also eating out around four times a week.

Let's not undervalue the luxury of eating out four times a week. Back here in the UK, going out as a family to eat is extortionate. You can't put a price on the quality of life achieved by having your whole family eat at a restaurant overlooking the ocean with the sun going down for a fraction of the price you would pay in the modern Western world.

Suzy

And delicious food! Thai is one of my favorite cuisines, so it's the perfect combination.

Nadeem

Yeah, absolutely.

Naturally, you're contributing to the costs of some of the activities you attend. Something we haven't touched upon, which families ask, is: "I pay the monthly subscription and I'm part of the community. Are there any other costs?"

There will be general living expenses, but also when you're part of a Bliss activity, if one of the dads has organized soccer or football and hired a pitch for say, four hundred baht for the hour, we encourage all families participating to contribute something so the organizer is not out of pocket, which is only fair. That's exactly what happens.

There are also activities where one of the long-term families brings a box full of frisbees and bibs, and we play Friday afternoon ultimate frisbee before the sun sets. Then we have drinks and food at the beach bar. No one charges for that; you just buy your food and drink at the bar, but taking part in frisbee is free.

For activities and tourist excursions, that generally came in for us at about five hundred pounds a month because we were always doing things. Mobile phone SIM cards and utility bills were about one hundred and fifty pounds a month.

I'm coming in at around two thousand two hundred and fifty to two thousand five hundred pounds a month total. By comparison, our life in the UK with a mortgage of around fifteen hundred pounds, plus grocery costs and everything else, came out to around five thousand pounds a month.

Living in paradise, your kids are off-the-charts happy because they're socializing with children from all over the world, you have all your meetups and everything else that makes this life beautiful, and eating out often is half the price of living back in the UK where we felt unfulfilled and wanted change. That's a typical month living in Koh Lanta for us as a family of six—a damn sight cheaper than back home.

Suzy

Well, you have me sold! However, with worldschooling, as much as I love to talk about the wins—and we'll talk more about your family and hub wins as well—I also know that struggles come up. You shared a bit about your oldest son returning to the UK earlier than you might have hoped. Tell me a little more about any other struggles that have come up, either with running Bliss, being there, or worldschooling in general.

Nadeem

We have covered quite a lot of our struggles because they've come out in the stories, ranging from loneliness—look, worldschooling can be lonely. That's definitely one struggle we had, but we overcame that through trial and error, mistakes, and some emotional trauma with our oldest going home.

Other struggles I would say include the homeschooling element for the children. Just like anything with kids, they start to get bored or resist. We're not their schoolteachers; most of us aren't trained teachers. We're facilitators. It's good to have a plan and know when you feel some conflict or resistance to ease off. The curiosity naturally builds up, and they'll tell you when they feel it's the right time for them to learn. Homeschooling can be a challenge.

Like I said, when you're part of a community and you've had a struggle with them in the morning, but in the afternoon four families are going to a cooking lesson organized by a family at a local Thai school, straight away you're ticking that box on local culture, learning to cook new food, and life skills. That takes the pressure off me as a worldschooling parent because the community has come up trumps. That's another struggle that happens for every family; it's definitely there.

By the way, on the subject of struggles: running a worldschooling hub community is not easy. I've talked about all the good stuff, but in the background, there's a lot of administration. You might have two families that don't get on with each other, and they look to us like we're mediators. We say, "Look, you two adults need to sort this out civilly, and hopefully everything will be okay." We can have some difficult conversations come our way, but generally speaking, the community thrives and is self-sustaining.

That connects neatly to the win side: it feels so good and rewarding to see the community growing and thriving, with everybody speaking so highly about how happy their children are. It's a nice pat-on-the-back moment where you say, "Yeah, we were brave enough to try and make this happen, and I'm so happy that they're happy taking part in it."

Our twelve-year-old daughter, Skyla, was very anxious at school. An overworked and underpaid teacher with thirty children in front of them just could not give her the level of attention she needed, so we had a lot of tears on the way to school. When we saw the new Skyla after a year's worth of worldschooling—particularly within communities—she became a leader. We didn't know that was in her because that competency just came out, particularly when she was around younger children. We were like, "Wow, we didn't know this about Skyla." That's a win, for sure. We've seen that in the other children in different ways.

For the Bliss Hub just gone, we had around eighty families pass through, with over one hundred and thirty children. That was a pinch-yourself moment because we didn't realize how many people wanted to come and be part of this community and make it part of their travel plans. It's actually happening: we're doing something that changes people's lives as they travel. That's really rewarding, definitely a win for us, and what motivates us to continue running this hub and enabling other families to experience it for the first time.

Suzy

That's very well said. Thank you for sharing those challenges, but also how they transform into wins, especially for your family and the other families that participate. I know we're all excited to sign up for next year, so I'll make sure to link all that in the show notes with all the information.

Nadeem

Thank you.

Suzy

Let's wrap up with a quick lightning round. We're going to start with: what is the best or worst food that you've ever tried?

Nadeem

I was thinking about this question, and I thought I'd ask my children. We had a universal consensus that the best food we tried was a Sri Lankan breakfast. We sat around the table in the morning and out came the breakfast, Sri Lankan style: a mixture of curries, coconut rice, breads, and fresh fruit. We were like, "Wow, I could get used to this."

The worst food, unfortunately—even though the place is beautiful—was Filipino food. We just struggled with Filipino food. For anyone who doesn't know, for example, sisig is a mixture of savory and sweet, and the bits of meat are from the pig's face. We just really struggled with that. Sorry, Filipinos—apologies!

Suzy

It's natural that not every food variety is going to be our favorite, of course. With Thailand, you get great food and amazing beaches, so that's a win for Thailand. What is the most ridiculous souvenir you've ever bought?

Nadeem

We're not on holiday, so we don't really buy souvenirs. But there was one thing I had on my wrist for over two years that never came off, so I can call that a souvenir because it was carried around with me everywhere: a really thin, white piece of string given to me by a Buddhist monk in Chiang Mai as part of a blessing ritual. Despite diving, snorkeling, showering, and climbing mountains, it stayed on.

Suzy

That's a beautiful memory. We'll finish with one piece of advice for a family just starting out.

Nadeem

We actually wrote this down because it's the most popular question we get asked by new families, so I'm going to rattle through them:

1. Time is your most important currency, not money.

1. Experiences are more important than possessions.

1. Children are more resilient and adaptable than you think.

1. Community is everything. Wherever you go, make connections with like-minded people.

1. Gratitude grows when you have less; you appreciate the simple things a lot more.

Suzy

That's a perfect summary for approaching a worldschooling journey: focus on time together, prioritize experiences, trust that the kids are going to be resilient and adaptable, and know that you don't need as much as you think to have a wonderful experience and a wonderful time together.

Where can people connect with you, find Bliss Hubs, and learn more about what's coming up over the next season?

Nadeem

We are quite active on social media because we continue to spread the word about worldschooling and long-term family travel. We have "Meet the Arshads" on Facebook and Instagram. We also have a blog called meetthearshads.com.

We are also now running our own independent travel agency business, which is great because Thailand is our specialty. For families who want to get to Thailand, we can help plan and book flights, resorts, and itineraries. Just contact us, and we can help you plan your travel.

For Bliss as a hub, visit blissinvestor.com. Once you get to that platform, you'll see information on the community and hubs, register your interest, and find out when the hubs start and end. Closer to the time, you use that platform to register, join, and start your subscription. There is loads of information there on worldschooling, resources, blogs, and more.

Suzy

I will link all that in the show notes so people can follow along with your adventures. I really appreciate you sharing more about Bliss and your family today. Thank you so much.

Nadeem

Thank you.