When you travel on a long term basis and world school at the same time, you are bound to get asked a lot of questions. While we do try to answer these frequently asked questions, when they arise, we have decided for ease to list some of them here.

How long have you been travelling as a family?

I guess the simple answer to that is as long as we have been a family. My husband and I travelled extensively before we met and when our daughter and son came along, we just never found a place that felt like home so travelling became the norm for us. We are currently coming up to over 10 years of travelling.

How do you afford to keep travelling?

That is a tricky one to answer. We partake in what we term slow travel – we generally spend a long period of time at each destination so we have the ability and capacity to earn money as we go. I am an online ghostwriter and e-book publisher and my husband is an experienced hotel manager and English teacher. We manage to make it work for the most part.

Do your kids go to school?

While world schooling is a big part of what we do – facilitating learning from the world around us, we dip in out of online programs such as Time4Learning, Minecraft Homeschool and Reading Eggs. History is brought to life with excursions to such interesting places as Machu Picchu and the Nazca Lines. Emilia has been to school in Australia, Canada and Peru and has participated in dancing classes, singing classes and writing groups. When in Cusco we joined up with a hiking group for regular outings – we believe that a solid education is found from all parts of life and not just in the classroom.

Where have you travelled to?

For us it is not so much the number of countries we have visited but the experience we get from each destination. We have lived in China, Canada and Australia on a long term basis and have travelled to the United States and Thailand as well. We aim to add many more destinations as we head home to Canada in our VW Kombi.

Where is home?

While Michelle is originally from Australia and Matt from Canada, at the moment we don’t have a permanent base but that may change in the future. We are hoping to settle in Canada for a while once our South America to North America journey ends to regroup however we may find another more suitable alternative along the way. For the most part we don’t tend to plan too far ahead.

Our sponsors and supporters need to understand us, know a little about us and get why we are doing what we are doing in order to want to support our cause.  And no one knows this better than Lainie and Miro from the global education website RaisingMiro.com.  Not only are they personal friends of ours, but both Lainie and Miro know and have experienced firsthand, the fact that education is not limited to the inside of a classroom.

"On their sixth year of travel, 14 countries and many personal changes later, Lainie & Miro continue to slow travel, living an inspired possession-free-lifestyle, volunteering and learning naturally from the world. They are following their interests on the road, as the planet has been transformed into their classroom. Often you will hear Lainie say “we are blessed to be accidental unschoolers” and has become and an advocate for “life learning” at any age. Lainie & Miro describe their greatest accomplishment as the ability to participate in the world without fear." - RaisingMiro.com

Currently in Ecuador, working on Project World School, they are paving the way for home schoolers, world schoolers and unschoolers by creating immersive world learning experiences designed for homeschoolers, unschoolers and democratic learners across the globe.

Thanks for your support!

Worldschooling is a relatively new term for me, one which my friend Lainie from RaisingMiro.com first made me aware of; and it was a term which I quickly embraced regarding our children’s education.  So what exactly does it mean?

For us it basically means anything we like.  Our education systems comprises of a mixture of the following:

Structured school - my 4 year old son goes to a European style daycare in Cusco, Peru from 9am until 1pm where he learns to read and write – currently in Spanish, my daughter enjoys summer school programs where she can sing and create as well as online art classes;

Homeschool - my 9 year old daughter opts for homeschool learning (usually 1-2 hours a day, 3-4 days a week) and we use websites like Time4Learning and Spelling City as a base for the core curriculum balancing it with YouTube videos and videos from BrainPop, etc;

Unschooling - we learn from situations around us and events which are naturally presented to us – my daughter does creative dance lessons twice a week, we attend a writer’s group giving her the chance to write and share her poetry, they play semi-educational games online that interest them both and we go for hikes with a local group which encourages children to play outdoors; and

Worldschooling – where the world becomes our classroom and we are presented with educational opportunities that our world travels provide us (we visit places like Cusco and Machu Picchu to give them a first-hand glance at how other cultures lived).

We like the mix – we think that our children will be better off because of the variety of opportunities which are presented to them.  All kids learn differently and the mixture of “schooling” methods ensure that they are constantly being challenged one way or another.  My daughter has always shied away from traditional learning methods yet my son seems to thrive on it – so we try to balance it so their own personal needs are met.

I want my children to be global citizens – to do away with the notion that we are from one place or another or that school is something which happens between the hours of 9.15am – 3.15pm Monday to Friday.  And so far we are succeeding.  Ask my kids where they are from and they will hesitate – I am not even sure that they know themselves.  That’s kind of neat!