Extended World Travel

“I want to take my girl of 10 on a gap year”: Emma Thompson puts travel before school.

Extended World Traveler to be, Emma Thompson, in one of our (especially our daughters) favourite movies “Sense and Sensibility”

This is the headline of an article someone just sent me. I was really thrilled to see that Ms Thompson obviously follows our blog and has read our recent post “Why do kids need school when they can travel” and quickly taken some action on that (you can always dream) :)

I’m sure the family will have a great time together during their traveling year. And I’m convinced that Gaia, the daughter, will learn loads of things (well, the parents too of course) that’ll benefit her for the rest of her life.

As we have mentioned over and over again, first hand experiences of the world give kids knowledge they can never acquire in a class room. When you see different places with your own eyes, hear sounds with your own ears, experience wonderful (and less wonderful) smells with your own nose, things become a part of you in ways that you never come close to, reading about them in books.

Not to mention all the meetings with different people that take place when you’re out there, traveling the world. People from other cultures, religions, colours, with other political views and who live under totally different circumstances than your own.

Obviously, and sadly, the “National Association of Head Teachers spokesman” who’s quoted in the article, doesn’t have much experience from traveling with kids. Nor does he/she seem to be very informed about how children really learn. It’s good to be aware of, that as a potential long term traveling parent, you can be met with remarkable ignorance from school officials. I assure you though, that when you’re away on your trip, and see how your child is developing and learning and thriving, you’ll know you’ve done the right thing!

Way to go Emma! Have a great trip!

You can find the article HERE

“Do not let school get in the way of a good education”
– Loesje

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We’ve mentioned it before, the idea of creataing a trip around something you’re really passionate about. A few years ago, the younger members of our family had a passion for the Lord of The Rings. So big they managed to persuade us to take a trip to New Zealand and visit the different locations where they made the films (and much more).

We just wrote an article about our adventures there for the Travel Mamas Blog; “New Zealand in the footsteps of the Lord of the Rings” and you can read it here: www.travelmamas.com

Our precious guide book

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“To be able to be brave,

you first have to be afraid”

A remark from one of the younger participants of our unconventional gathering last week, Lukas, 10. Many more wise and inspirational things came up when we gathered together, 30 adults with about 40 children, to discuss and brainstorm around the issue of how to create our financial futures.

Since we were quite a lot of homeschoolers, many of us had already “seen the light”. When you’re not part of a school system and not bound to be in one specific place at certain times for the kid’s education, it’s easy to start fantasizing around how it would be if you could apply this to your work life as well.

• What if I didn’t have to “go to work” every day?
• What if I could work from anywhere?
• If I could work part time and have loads of time free?
• If I could have a seasonal job?
• Create a passive income?
• Really focus on the one thing I love and create a business out of that?
• Have several, smaller projects and devote myself to all the things I’m passionate about?
• How could I create a lifestyle that would allow me to travel the world with my family?
• How could I take a break for a year to contemplate about what I’d want to do with my life?
• What would my dream life look like?

Many questions arose during the 3 days (out of the week) when we were focusing on “Money, Job and Life”. And many answers and ideas were provided! Ideas and solutions which probably wouldn’t have come up if we had been sitting on our own trying to figure these things out. It’s so true what they say, that when you get together and use all your combined capacity to focus on solutions, 2 and 2 actually doesn’t make 4 – but 5!

Yes, it’s extremely powerful to do something like this with a group of people who all have an interest in finding solutions outside of the 9 to 5 box and I really encourage you all to do it. Find people around you, close by or more far away (you can always create a Skype group or similar) and start looking into what you want to do with your life and how it would be possible to do it. Create a network, or join ours, which we’ll soon have ready.

Take some kind of step to start living the life you’re dreaming about and that you are entitled to. What will be your one first step towards this, today, now? And you are welcome to share your first step here in the comments. The more you go public with it, the more real it gets.

If you want to stay updated to what will happen with our networking project in the future you can leave your email at www.asko2010.info

Here are some pictures from the week:

Meeting in the "conference centre" = our barn

Internet Cafe in the barn

Tug of war with the "kids" (ages 2-22)

Frode, 3, using Skype for the first time

Late meeting by the fire

Relaxing by the fire

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We got this question a while back. We do get many questions and we love them so do keep them coming. Send them to Info@extendedworldtravel.com or post them in the comments below. It sure helps us to know what’s on your mind and in what way we might be able to assist you.

Anyway, the whole question was:

“I was just curious as to how possible and realistic it would be to travel for 10 years or more with little initial savings, no education past high school, and no other source of income?”

The answer to that is very simple: it is absolutely possible! But, and this is important to remember, it all depends on any specific desires you may have regarding your travels and what you want them to be like.

It’s a very common misconception that long term traveling has to be expensive. Maybe it’s because a lot of people see it as an extended one week holiday in high season, when you stay in hotels, eat in restaurants, hang out in bars every night and spend money on tourist attractions. Multiply that by 52 and you will of course get an astronomical figure for a one year journey. And if this is the way you want to travel you will need lots of money in the bank or a big steady income. For most long term travelers , this is not the way they do it though, usually because that are not their circumstances.

A lot of people who want to travel long term don’t have the money for an extravagant journey. So they have to plan accordingly and find solutions that match their situation and their desires. Even without any money saved up it is still possible to go on a long journey.

The truth is, traveling long term can often be much cheaper than staying at home! We have met many and talked to many travelers who confirm this. For instance, when you’re on the road, you don’t have all the fixed costs that come with keeping a home and staying in one place. No rent, no home insurance, no car (if you are not traveling by car that is), no electric bills, no expenses for commuting , no day care costs…

All you got is basically the expenses for food, lodging and transportation. And there are also many things you can do to keep even these at a minimum. It just takes some creativity and a willingness to find solutions.

One idea is network travel which we have written about earlier here. If you choose this way you can basically eat and sleep for free. That would mean that the only expense that remains is the actual transport. Furthermore, you can always choose to ride a bike or walk. Maybe it won’t take you around the world, although that is possible too, but will definitely keep the expenses close to zero :-).

And this is possible to do for a year or longer. To have plenty of time absolutely makes it easier to be able to travel inexpensively. We have some friends who did just that. They used WWOOF for their network travel, and spent 5 years traveling around Europe (and this is not the cheapest part of the world). They just kept going and even became parents along the way, and then continued to be “WWOOFers” with their child.

Of course this may not be everyone’s choice. But neither are first class tickets and 5 star hotels. You just have to find whatever suites you and your circumstances.

And yes, just to be clear: Education has nothing to do with this being possible or not…

Don’t forget to write your own question in the comments :-)

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Well, maybe we don’t have to take it to the extreme here:), but our own experience from traveling with our kids for extended periods during many years has shown us how awfully much kids learn during travels. And most of the learning takes place in ways which a normal school situation never would be able to provide to them.

Of course traveling isn’t, for many reasons, something that suites everybody, and also in view of how our society is constructed, schools still fills a function. Nevertheless, what I really want to point out is the huge amount of learning that takes place in a child (and adult as well of course) when you’re out there traveling the world.

We have run across many parents who are concerned about what would happen to their kid’s education if they’d follow their desire to go on a longer journey. Would they fall behind? Would they not be educated “enough”?

Well, what’s the meaning of education in the first place? Is it not to learn about the world we live in and to prepare children for life? To educate them about how to function and how to survive – and thrive? How to socialize and cooperate and how to make this world a better place?

Anyway, the other day this was a subject for discussion in our family. It began with someone reminding us that they, the kids, learnt their basic English – in Spain! The discussion continued about other experiences they’d had while being on the road that provided them with lots of learning and the list got rather impressive.

Aurora with a bread fruit in Kerala, India

Helping friends with the olive harvest in the mountains north of Marbella, Spain

Aron in the ”French” part of New Zealand – the cute little town Akaroa

Here are a few of the things they mentioned:

• Being invited to a family in India who had he most amazing herb garden you could ever imagine with all the medicinal herbs in the world
• Going on the train from Tanger to Marrakesh for eight hours and discussing life with all the Moroccans who shared our compartment
• Assisting friends with the olive harvest in Spain and then taking the olives to the mill to be cold pressed and bringing our own super tasty oil back home to Sweden
• Chatting with a local in Akaroa, New Zealand, who was a descendant from the French colonizing ships, and hearing all about the history.
• Participating in a Bar Mitzwah in the old town Augsburg, Germany, in the only synagogue that survived World War 2.
• Volunteering at a children’s book festival in Nanaimo, Vancover Island BC, Canada, with friends
• Traversing the USA by train and interacting with a whole carriage full of Amish
• Being stopped by a police in New Zealand for speeding and listening to him telling us all the local Maori legends
• Gossiping with the locals on a small island in Fiji while making baskets out of palm leaves
• Visiting a SOS children’s village in Kerala, India, which we are sponsoring and meeting the mothers and the children who live there
• Entering Australia with a phobia for snakes and being cured by hearing Crikey – Steve Irwin –  himself telling you all about these “beautiful” animals
• Going on a whale safari in Vancouver, Canada, and experiencing the Grey Whales just a few meters away from our little boat

The girls with friends participating as volunteers at the Children’s Book Festival, Nanaimo, Canada

I was happy to hear the kids talk about these memories with such joy and passion and I’m convinced these experiences will be with them for the rest of their lives.

By the way, what would you like your kids to experience and learn when you’ll go traveling the world?

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In our last blog post, we talked about the why. Why you would want to travel and the fact that being clear about this can help you to get over roadblocks that stand in your way.

Anyway, we have a friend, Litsong from Taiwan. She’s a real globetrotter and travels several months every year, all over the world, most of the time together with her son.

When we asked her why she travels, she said this, which we really think sums it up in a great way:

“I travel so I can have a change of pace and path in my life. Traveling helps me to still my curiosity about people, to create new possibilities for my livelihood and to discover new places. It gives me the opportunity to be with friends, both new and old and the opportunity to live in the present, being in the here and now and having fun!”

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They say that if you have a really strong why, the how will very much sort itself out.

Of course you can apply this for traveling as well. If you’re very clear about why you want to do that 6 (or 3 or 12) months trip, you can be sure to start finding solutions to obstacles that stand in the way between you and your journey. Some questions you can ask yourself to strengthen your why are:

• What specifically motivates you to do some long term traveling? When you think about traveling, what is it that makes your heart beat a little faster?

• What do you want to experience?

• What do you see your trip to lead to?

• Who do you want to be when you get back?

• What is your biggest motivation to travel?

Contemplate this for a while and get yourself a really strong why!

We dreamt about Fiji, and made a reality of that dream – how about you?

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When you’re considering taking some time off and go traveling the world for longer periods, months or even years, here are 10 advices we’d like to give you.

1. Have everything taken care of at home

Have everything taken care of before you leave, your home, car, pets, bills….Don’t drag your everyday stuff and concerns with you on your trip.

2. Leave home at home

Having things taken care of at home makes it easier to let go of all that and be present in your journey. So you can just immerse yourself with all the new along the way. You’re supposed to be here now, not there!

Since you've got the time now, make sure all the travelers in your group can have their needs met. Maybe playing in the sand for a couple of days (weeks?) is important for some...

3. Take your time

Chances are you are living a pretty hectic life normally, at home. Don’t bring that stressful pace on the trip! It may take a while before you can get rid of it (usually a few weeks) but when you start to relax, stay in that state and experience the world from there.

4. Plan according to the traveler’s ages

Are you traveling with babies, teenagers or both? Take your time to figure out how you can make your journey so that every body’s needs are met, and don’t forget your own!

5. Don’t cram too much “doing” into your trip

There’s this belief that you always have to “do” things for things to happen. Rest assure, when you’re traveling for months, or more, things will undoubtedly turn up and give you opportunities to experience interesting things and adventure. So, try to give the “being” a bit focus too.

6. Be open to changing plans along the way

Even if you have your plans, maybe you actually didn’t know what you really wanted to do or where you wanted to go when you were at home. Or maybe something totally unexpected turned up along the way, a different situation or a new idea. Don’t be afraid to change your plans and follow new roads. That’s what traveling is all about.

7. Stay in the present

Experience what’s here and now. Look around. Listen. See. Try to be HERE and not there, at your next destination, tomorrow, next week, or back home again. Remember, the more you’re here, the more you’ll experience (and it doesn’t have to be “big” things).

8. Respect and try to have a true interest in the people and the customs of the places you are passing along your journey

Also remember, most people are usually more interested in being genuinely listened to than to listen to you (although sharing about your country and your customs of course is part of it).

9. Forget the “my country is the best in the world” mentality.

Even if that’s what you’re thinking, at least before you set of on your long trip, strive for seeing positive and interesting things with every place you’re visiting. What can you learn from people and places that you can bring home and make your own place even better? And what can you share with them that can make their place even better as well?

10. Embrace challenges and see them as part of your trip (or maybe even as the purpose of it).

When you’re traveling long term, challenges turn up. You can choose not to see them as difficulties though, but as opportunities to grow. And surely, these situations will be some of the things you and your family/co-travelers will remember the best and that will help create that strong bond between you. So embrace your learning opportunities!

Happy Travels!

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How does one get the money top travel long term? Or like a recent question that we got from a German lady who wrote:

“I love the idea of getting out of the rat race and spend my whole life travelling. But there will be food and gas that I have to buy. Where do I take the money from, when I’m not working?”

It is a very easy question to ask but much more complex to answer. It really depends on a lot of factors and your personal situation.

We are all unique with unique talents living our own unique lives. Therefore there is not one answer available that suites all. And as long as you are hoping for someone to give you the one and only answer you run a big risk of being disappointed. What works for us may be impossible for you or the other way round.

A very sad thing we have noticed through the years when we’ve been asked these question, is that our answers may even be more discouraging than encouraging. We can literally see the light and hope vanish from people’s eyes as they hear our answer and they often say something like: “Well we can’t do that”. They take our answer as the only way and then they use it as a reason to why it is not possible for them to do it.

And this happens no matter what our answers have been. Through the years our circumstances have been varying and accordingly so have our solutions been different to how we have made it possible to travel.

It is very important to us to do our best to support anyone who has a desire to go on a long journey. All our long journeys have been extremely rewarding to us and we wish that more could have a similar experience. That is basically why we started writing a book and also this website in the first place.

So nowadays we are very careful to offer quick solutions that have worked for us. We believe it is much more helpful if we can support, encourage and inspire you to find the quick solution that is tailor made for you.

To do that you will basically have to take a look at your own situation and also what you want your extended journey to look at.

We have met so many long term travelers through the years. From the wealthy ones, who stays in hotels and eats in restaurants every night to those traveling on a very limited budget and gets away with spending less money than at home. Yet others even make money traveling and can literally return home to a bigger bank account than they had when they left. Actually, money doesn’t have to be a problem after all… Even if you doubt this we are convinced that it is definitely a possibility for you to.

Someone said:

” You don’t need money to make money – you need creativity”.

We would change that to:

“You don’t need money to travel around the world – you need creativity”.

Our book: Extended World Travel is our attempt to, in the best way possible, support you to create the dream trip of your life, the perfect journey that suites your personal circumstances.

For you who are really determined to make your trip happen and are interested in getting some extra support, Maria will soon start to offer travel coaching. This will of course for natural reasons be a very limited offer and only on a first comes first serve basis. If you want to you can express your interest in an email to Maria at maria@extendedworldtravel.com .

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A while back we made an interview with Nancy Sathre-Vogel, mother in the “family on bikes” which also consists of John, dad and the 11 year old twins Davy and Daryl.

The family started off on an amazing journey in June 2008, and now just celebrated 2 years on the road! The start was far up in northern America, in Alaska, and from there they are pedaling themselves on their bikes all the way down to the most southern end of South America. This trip will end when they arrived where they can’t go any further south and the plan is to be there some time next year.

By the way, here we’re not talking days or weeks or even months of travel, but years. That’s what we call traveling!

At the time of our interview, they were in Ecuador and have now come even further on their long journey along the Pan American Highway. Their journey has been filled with the most diverse challenges and adventures, and of course, rewards.

We we’re so excited to talk to them and we think that there were so many important issues that came up in the interview. Like for example:

• The advantages with being a traveler

• Why traveling really can be peace promoting

• How to overcome buts, or obstacles, that keep you at home instead out there traveling the world

• Why traveling is so educational for kids (and for adults)

• What you can expect a trip like this to cost and examples of ways to finance it

• Why you shouldn’t postpone your long journey until the kids have grown up or until you’re retired

• The one most important thing to do to be able to go traveling the world

They really have a lot to share, about traveling, about their own trip and about many important aspects of life.  And one of the things Nancy brings up and which really strikes my heart is when she talks about them as “ a family working  together toward a common goal – something all too rare in today’s society”.

That’s so much our experience as well, and we totally agree with Nancy. When you’re traveling the world as a family, you are a team, and you have a common goal, and this really makes you grow not only individually but as a family as well and  that’s not very common in today’s society.

So, be sure to get more inspired and motivated to go on your own trip by listening to our 40 min interview with these experienced family travelers here:

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To learn more about them and their fantastic journey, as well as to get lots of tips for your own trip visit them at www.familyonbikes.org

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