A bit about the “why” of our decision to take a year long trip around the world now and answers to some frequently asked questions

It was under this tree, looking at this gorgeous castle in Nantes, France in July 2024 that we made a big decision as a family: to spend the 2025-2026 school year traveling the world and then relocate to the United States. A very exciting decision!

Why do we want to do long-term, slow travel? Why go all the way around the world? Why now? Our 2020-2021 road trip through Europe was such a special experience, and we know time is ticking as far as how much longer the girls will live at home, so we felt like this school year would be our last opportunity to slow travel together for an entire year. I am happiest when on the road, discovering new places, learning about different ways to do things and overcoming obstacles. And I’m lucky that the kids and Steffen are willing to put up with my need to explore! For this trip, we wanted to explore beyond Europe and the USA, to places unknown, to open our minds and hearts and to expose ourselves to new ways of thinking. We want the girls to see that while the world is big and diverse, there are so many things that are universal and that connect us. By spending travelling slowly and taking the time to get to know the food, customs, language, meaningful sights and some of the history, we will all get a better feeling for the places we visit. So rather than trying to check off as many countries as possible, we will try to really get to know a select list of places.

Naturally, once we made the decision there has been a lot to organize and even more questions from everyone we tell about our plans. So I thought I’d answer a few here.

What about school? This is the number one question and is a bit more complicated than the last time we did homeschooling/worldschooling. First off, when you are registered as a resident of Germany, the children are legally required to go to a state-approved in-person school. For the 2020-2021 school year, we quickly received approval from our school to take the girls out of school for the year, but this time around we did not. So we have to de-register from Germany which brought on a whole new set of logistical problems but we have it all worked out now. The other part that is more complicated this time around is the curriculum for the girls because they are five years older. After many, many, many hours of research, I think I found a good variety of online resources, created a schedule to ensure that each child gets enough support and access to the technology that we will have (3 MacBook laptops and 4 kindles e-readers), and tried to integrate the real-world experiences we will have with the state-mandated curriculum. After we have been travelling for a couple of months, I will try to write a post about what is working and what is not.

How much does it cost? How can you afford it? After doing some research, we created a budget of $10k/month for the six of us (including flights, other transportation, accommodation, food, activities and any other costs on the road). We have a pretty good amount saved up, and Steffen will continue to work, though hopefully fewer hours. He has always been able to work while we travelled throughout Europe and our many visits to the US, so hopefully that will continue. It would be nice of course, if he could spend less time working so he can fully experience the places we visit, support the children during their homeschooling and share these bonding experiences, but we are realistic enough to know that he won’t be able to participate in every activity.

What about your pets? Your house? All your belongings? We sold our house and are currently in the process of cleaning it out. We will put our belongings in a 40 foot shipping container which will be stored while we travel. Once we know exactly where we are moving to, we will ship the container. Our dog will spend the year with a family member, and we will pick him up before moving to the United States. We made the very difficult decision to re-home our cats and found a lovely family to take them.

How can you survive 24 hours/day together? It’s not all rainbows and sunshine! But it is beautiful. Anyone who has lived with other people knows that conflict and little annoyances are inevitable, especially when living together in small spaces. But spending so much time together gives us the opportunity get to know each other in a more intimate way, to live life together rather than side by side (everyone rushing off to various individual activities, meetings, events), and, with adding in homeschooling, to get to know different facets of each other’s personalities. It is a blessing that the four girls are close in age and all have strong relationships with one another. They can be each other’s friend, classmate, confidant, adventure partner and sister, depending on the time of day. And we know that in a few short years, they will likely be heading off in different directions so see this as a special opportunity to bottle up time together!

Are you really only taking carry-ons for a whole year? How?? Yes, we will each have a carry-on sized suitcase and a small backpack for the year. We made the decision to only take carry-ons for a variety of reasons and continue to remind the children “less is more” as they try to stuff things in every corner of their luggage! 🙂 By doing carry-ons we avoid a lot of stress: added-on baggage fees for multiple flights for multiple people can get quite expensive, inevitably one (or more) checked bag will get lost (temporarily or permanently), smaller bags (ie. less stuff) is quicker to pack/repack and it is less likely that something will get left in a hotel/taxi/bus/airplane (even though we know that some things will get lost along the way). Basically, we have packed for a 7-10 day trip in a mild to warm climate and are hoping that we have everything we need! We also understand that we are not going deep into the wilderness for 12 months but rather will (almost) always have access to shops and pharmacies to buy the things we might need along the way. Here’s a look at what I’m planning on bringing in my suitcase. I plan on writing a separate post about everything that we packed once we are on the road and know what we are glad we brought and what we could have left at home. I will say, packing cubes are your friend!

I think that’s all! If you have any other questions, let me know. Happy to answer anything!