Planning a Worldwide Adventure

We’ve had many people ask about planning our worldwide adventure. It’s a great question because there are so many moving parts and it feels so overwhelming to consider. The truth is that we started talking about taking our family on a worldwide adventure many years ago. If you know Jay, you know he dreams big! And if you know me, you know that I’m more of a planner and a realist. I like doing fun things but I also like to have it all figured out before I do them. Needless to say, after 17 years of marriage we’ve come to find a good middle ground that suits both of our personalities.

What Held Us Back at First

Before the pandemic, I’d say the biggest concern other than our children’s ages (the oldest was in 3rd grade, youngest was 3) was the idea of homeschooling. Even with close friends that have been schooling their children for years, I felt like there was so much information to navigate that it held me back from starting research. Besides the paperwork with the state, I knew I’d have to figure out curriculum as well as whatever other unknown obstacles were sure to be in our path. It just felt really big.

Another hesitation I had with Jay’s Big Plan was what we’d do with our home. Would we rent it out furnished for strangers to live in or sell it and be essentially homeless for the year? Where would all of our stuff go? Prior to the pandemic I just wasn’t into the idea of willy-nilly picking up and moving away. We loved our community, our school, and our home. Leaving didn’t make sense.

The Turning Point

Though 5 years before our decision to move forward, 2020 was the year that all of those hesitations we had started to fade away.

Homeschooling didn’t feel so impossible. We had chosen to skip a year with the public school in order to keep the kids off screens. We knew the challenge that Zoom education would be with our kids and felt like books were the best way to go. We ordered math and language arts curriculums online, set up a “school” in the mother-in-law apartment above our garage, and had the best time. We slept in, took fieldtrips, and enjoyed the forced slowdown of time. The key was having a framework for our curriculum. It was a good-enough place to start as we were committed to moving forward. If you are not self-motivated, you could hire someone or enroll your child(ren) in an online program. There are so many options and what matters most is that you do what suits you and your family the best.

While navigating the new journey of homeschooling, Jay returned to work overseas. The majority of our homeschooling year I was running solo. It’s one of those things you look back on and think “how the heck did I do that?!”. The truth was connecting with friends and family over video calls and decluttering our home. I had done The Magic of Tidying Up back in 2017/2018, but there is always room for more. I did every challenge I could sign up for. I counted items I tossed or donated, and took pride in my van load of donations every week or so. It was so freeing to let go of the clutter in our home. Suddenly what didn’t feel possible started to feel like something we could aim for.

Finally, we started discussing the idea of a move. Jay’s work is based in the DC area and the commute has been difficult for him. It was most eye-opening for me when I joined him on a trip to Sao Paulo last March. It was a late redeye flight but we had to leave Vermont early in the day (there are only so many flights out of BTV) in order to get to Dulles in time. There was a day layover (which was great!) and then a redeye return. We arrived back to Dulles early in the morning, but again had to wait several hours in order to get on a flight home to see our family. He had been doing this for years with very little complaining – but let’s be honest, we aren’t getting any younger! This is a lot not only on your body but on your soul. Sitting at an airport for hours on end day after day is soul-sucking!! A move would give him more rest and more family time. It just felt right.

BUT – if we were going to move, why not do a big trip first? We already had to pack up all our things. We already knew that we could homeschool. There was nothing standing in our way. We started talking more seriously about next steps.

Start Booking Lodging for Your Worldwide Adventure

For us, we started by booking lodging. With our family already planning on being in Aruba in September, we figured that would be a great starting point. We were just there in January and had a wonderful time. Same location, same grandparents, same delicious pina coladas. So much familiarity feels like a great way to start.

Next, we decided we wanted to plan around the seasons. We didn’t want to have to pack bulky sweaters and winter coats. This meant we’d start in the northern hemisphere and move our way south over the winter.

After Aruba, we are visiting Europe with 2 weeks in 4 different cities. We would have loved to stay at each place longer, but Europe is not known to be affordable. Two weeks will give us enough time to hopefully see some sights but also have a few days of downtime when a recharge is needed. AirBnb has been a great resource to find places with the convenience of location, but also fully functional kitchens and laundry! This is hugely important to us because it means we save the hassle of packing a ton of clothes and we save a lot of money being able to make our own meals.

We will be going back to the US for a few weeks in November for Thanksgiving, some appointments, and most importantly to visit friends and family. Then back out, this time to South America where the sun will be shining. We plan to stay for a month in Buenos Aires and then a month in Mexico – much more affordable locations than those in (most of) Europe. We do want to fit in a ski trip in February (still working on those details) and then head over to northern Africa for a month. We chose this destination based on the celebration of Ramadan. Learning alongside our children about another culture’s customs, traditions and beliefs will be central to our visit to Tunisia.

We are still planning our worldwide adventure. We figure that as things get going we will have a better sense of the timeframe we prefer in each destination and adjust accordingly. That being said, all of our accommodations are booked with very flexible cancellation policies so we can pivot if/when needed.

But What about Planning Flights?

As an airline family, we try to fly standby as much as possible. As a born planner, I have had to adjust to be able to accept that this requires an extreme amount of flexibility and patience. Especially with children. Four children. The benefit is very low cost travel. To us it’s worth it.

Speaking of flexibility, our lodging in Aruba starts on the 6th of September, but the best chance of us getting down to the island as of now is on the 3rd. What that means is we lose a few paid nights in our AirBnb and we have to book something in Aruba instead. It is still cheaper than buying tickets for 6 of us. This is how we plan most of our travel, requiring time and research as we are leading up to the desired departure date. A flexible mindset will follow us from destination to destination and will be likely one of the biggest frustrations we will deal with (exhaustion being a direct result of the frustration). We have done it so many times before that we are all used to knowing that nothing is guaranteed until the door of the plane closes – and even sometimes not even then.

Prepare as Much as You Can Ahead of Time

Even having about a year to prepare for this worldwide adventure, I feel like we could definitely have done more. There were many things we focused on in the few months leading up to our departure, but “next time” I would have started at least a year ahead. I would have started a staging area for packed boxes. I would have gotten rid of more than we already did. I would have encouraged Jay to dive into his decluttering much, much sooner. That’s the thing with downsizing. You can only downsize your own things. The other people in your life have to be ready to do it and make the decisions on their own time. Jay’s job means he’s out of the house a lot of the time, so when he was home, emptying out the shed wasn’t in his top 3. I think we can both agree now that it probably should have been! Hindsight!!

Just Do It

Long story short, we just dove in. Once we convinced ourselves that we could do it, we decided we wanted to! And then every time it has felt hard or scary I have reminded myself that just because it’s hard, or just because it’s scary doesn’t mean it’s bad. We will never learn or grow if we always take the safe route. That Robert Frost guy sure knew what he was talking about.

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