THE POWER OF TRAVEL

Travel can provide some of the most profound experiences for personal growth by blasting apart stereotypes and narrow thinking, nurturing and expanding empathy, testing and strengthening patience, grit, and perseverance… all in the shadow of the Great Pyramid, the Hagia Sophia, or Machu Picchu. In addition to building knowledge about history, geography, or art, travel can impact more deeply: It can heal emotional wounds, create wellbeing, clarify goals, build awe and wonderment, and spark creativity. And the laughter, faux pas, and challenges found on the cobblestone streets, teal seas, and winding trails of the world that can bond groups of travelers.

SO WHAT IS WORLDSCHOOLING?

Most worldschoolers travel for extended periods of time — for weeks, months, or years. To manifest a long-term journey, they must alter many aspects of their lives at home: find remote work, re-home their pets, sell material items, rent their home, convince relatives that they’re not mad, and more.

Because of all the work that goes into worldschooling, the term transcends the idea of merely educating their children. Worldschooling, which demands massive life changes, is, in fact, a lifestyle.

At its core, worldschooling is a lifestyle in which parents educate their children through intentional interaction with the world outside of their borders. But it involves more than education in the traditional sense. Worldschooling incorporates the best of travel: Families weave together bucket-list sites, knowledge acquisition, personal growth, bonding, and memory-making filled with awe and wonder, emerging with life-changing results.

WHO ARE WORLDSCHOOLERS?

Worldschooling families come in all shapes and sizes: They travel by RV through one country for six months, or they visit 16 countries in one year. They bike across continents, or stay in one town. They enroll their children in local schools in foreign languages, in online schools back home, or in no school at all. They purchase curriculum; they eschew formal learning; they process what they experience in the world; they create personal quests. 

Worldschoolers jump feet first into this messy world of uncomfortable bus rides on windy roads and dubious foods because they understand that travel, even the most challenging elements of it, has the power to transform.

Learn More

• Some parents are choosing to ‘worldschool’ their kids, traveling from country to country in the process. Insider, August 2022.
• ‘Worldschooling’ is ‘like homeschooling, without the home.’ Meet some families who are educating their kids through travel. Yahoo!Life, September 2022. 
• The Rise of Travelling Families and World-Schooling. The Guardian, January 2016.

Read More

• Worldschooling: Innovative Parents Turning Countries into Cultures. Multi-author book, Nomad Publishing, December 2022
• BOOK THE FLIGHT ALREADY! : Travelers Share Their Life-Changing Stories from Off-the-Beaten-Track Bucket List Trips.  Multi-author book through Nomad Publishing, September 2022
• Born to Travel: Wanderlust Families that Collect Passport Stamps Instead of Toys. Multi-author book through Nomad Publishing, December 2022
• Changing Gears: A Distant Teen, a Desperate Mother, and 4,329 Miles Across the Transamerica Bicycle Trail. Leah Day, published May 2022
• The World Is Our Classroom: Extreme Parenting and the Rise of Worldschooling (Critical Perspectives on Youth). Jennie Germann Molz, February 2021
• We Came, We Saw, We Left: A Family Gap Year. Charles Wheelan, January 2021.