The year-long trip I am currently taking with my husband and children (2 boys, 10 and 14) was a childhood dream of mine. It was a dream shared when I met my husband and extended to a family world trip once we had children. We chose to take the trip in the year when our older son would have started high school, fearing that if we didn’t go now his high school years would fly by with little opportunity to take a year away from school. We started in South America, visiting Ecuador, Peru, Chile and Argentina. As we pass the half-way point in our trip, we’re in South-East Asia. We plan to visit China, Central Asia and the Middle East before returning to Seattle via Iceland.

Motor Scooter Freight in Vietnam

We have friends in Seattle who homeschool their children. Our local school district has a support office from homeschooling families and there are plenty of classes and study groups for homeschooled children of all ages in our locality. That said, before our trip I never considered homeschooling as a viable option for our family. I am not patient enough and my children have very different educational needs. Being familiar with my friends choice to homeschool helped me know where to find educational materials to bring with us on our trip. Registering my children as homeschooled simply meant submitting a form to the school district office.

Inca Trail, Peru

In preparing for our trip I spoke to friends who are teachers and to my children’s teachers. I researched materials to use on the road. We opted against online courses because we did not want a reliable internet connection to be required for schoolwork –and this has proven to be a good choice. (In rural parts of many of the countries we’ve visited internet connectivity is painfully slow or non-existent). Our educational goals for our children on this year of travel are simple: to follow a grade-appropriate math program; to read plenty of books in a variety of genres; to write regularly. We take it as given that our children will learn about the history, geography, language and culture of the places we visit because we endeavor to learn about those things ourselves and in doing so share or learn with our boys.

Thai freeway toilet sign

Before the trip I thought all of the above could easily be accomplished with an hour or so of school a day – and indeed, that is how we started out. Then my boys rebelled. They hated having “school” each day on a trip. They lobbied for one long school day per week so that’s what we agreed to do. Unfortunately when you’re backpacking as we are, your travel schedule can change from week to week and while we certainly had some good school days, there were many others where we were in a canyon, in a tree or on a river and schoolwork wasn’t an option. My older son’s ADHD has also been an issue making many school-days into battle-days.

I am a pretty stern taskmaster. For example, a museum visit could not be counted as schoolwork unless there was a good write-up of what was seen and learned during the visit. My husband has an entirely different approach valuing discussions as much, if not more than written reports. You could say that I value production more highly, whereas he values evidence of information retained independent of the format. I’ve been learning to scale back my expected written productivity standards and enjoy the conversations that world-schooling brings. We’ve talked about leprosy on a bike tour, Pol Pot over breakfast and Communism while scrambling through caves in remote North-Eastern Laos.

Bomb shells, Phonsavan

Six month into our trip, on my third iterations of our schooling plan, it is apparent that a mixed approach is required. As Theodora from TravelsWithANineYearOld wrote, “There are things that school delivers that un-schooling does not”. For me and for my peace-of-mind about my children’s easy re-entry into regular school, I intend to keep aspects of a formal school day – such as math drills – on the table for the duration of our trip. The practical, daily challenge for us is having two children with radically different learning styles and study skills. We have different school times, different school styles and differed work expectations. It’s a glorious juggle.
Road-schooling is not for everyone just as home-schooling is not for everyone. That said, I am learning as much, or more, than my children during this year of travel. I have learned more about their individual strengths and weaknesses, their learning styles and challenges. All of this will, I believe be a huge benefit for me and them when they return to regular school next September.

equator, Ecuador

Michelle Duffy writes Wandermom, a fantastic resource for Family Travel.