When we first told people we were going to worldschool our kids, the reactions were… mixed.
Some nodded slowly with a polite, âWow, that sounds amazingâŚâ Others squinted like weâd just made up a word.
And honestly? A year ago, we werenât totally sure what it meant either.
We just knew we wanted something different â something more connected, less chaotic, and far more aligned with how kids actually learn best.
So letâs break it down.
đ§ What Is Worldschooling?
At its heart, worldschooling is simply using the world as your classroom.
That doesnât mean itâs chaotic. It doesnât mean itâs unstructured. It doesnât even mean you have to travel full-time (though we do).
Worldschooling is about:
Following curiosity instead of rigid curriculum
Learning history by standing in it
Understanding geography through train maps and road trips
Exploring science through tide pools, nature trails, and baking experiments
Living culture â not just reading about it
It’s flexible, family-led, and focused on connection over completion.
â What Worldschooling Isnât
Letâs clear up a few common myths:
Itâs not just homeschooling abroad. While some worldschoolers do use curriculum, others unschool, eclectic school, or roadschool. Itâs not about what you use â itâs about how you live.
Itâs not anti-education. We deeply value learning â we just believe kids donât need to sit at a desk 7 hours a day to do it.
Itâs not just for wealthy families. Weâre proof that itâs possible to travel smart, work remotely, and build a life of learning on a budget.
Itâs not always glamorous. There are laundry days, lost passports, meltdowns, and mosquito bites. But the hard moments are part of the education, too.
đ¨âđŠâđ§âđ§ Why We Chose Worldschooling
Weâre a real family â two parents, six kids (four grown, two still home), and a deep desire for something more.
We didnât want our daughters to grow up learning about the world through textbooks alone. We wanted them to taste it, feel it, walk through it.
We wanted them to:
Learn Spanish by ordering their own tamales
Understand history by visiting ancient cities
Study ecosystems by swimming in cenotes
Build empathy by living in communities different from their own
We also wanted to heal, as a family. From the stress. The busyness. The noise. We wanted to slow down, eat better, be together, and live a life that felt like ours.
đ What Worldschooling Has Taught Us
Itâs not just our kids who are learning. We are too.
Worldschooling has taught us:
To let go of perfection and embrace curiosity
That kids will learn if we give them space to explore
That flexibility is more valuable than any fixed plan
That presence is the most powerful teacher of all
And perhaps most beautifully â itâs taught us that learning is everywhere, when your eyes are open.
⨠Could Worldschooling Work for You?
You donât have to sell everything or leave the country. You donât need a Pinterest-perfect setup or a van with solar panels.
You just need:
A willingness to see your childâs education differently
A desire to learn alongside them
The courage to start where you are
Whether thatâs taking more field trips, planning a long sabbatical, or jumping into full-time travel like we did â you get to define what worldschooling looks like for your family.
đą Our Worldschooling Journey (So Far)
We started in Canada, caring for animals and baking bread with our girls. Weâre now in Mexico, learning through food, language, and culture. Next up? Europe â with a flexible plan, a ton of excitement, and a deep trust that this path is exactly right for us.
Itâs not always easy. But itâs always worth it.
Curious where to begin? And stick around â we share honest updates, resources, and real-life tips every week.
Deciding to worldschool your kids is a huge leap â but choosing where to go first? Thatâs where most families get stuck.
Should you stay close to home? Chase the sunshine? Follow the cheapest flights? Go where everyone else is going â or find your own path?
In this post, Iâll walk you through the exact questions we asked (and the mistakes we nearly made) when choosing our first worldschool destination â so you can skip the overwhelm and start with clarity.
Thereâs something magical that happens when you trade routines for roadmaps and classrooms for culture. Slow travel isnât just a different pace â itâs a different way of seeing, learning, and growing.
While traditional education often compartmentalizes subjects, slow travel weaves learning into everyday life. The world becomes the curriculum. And without even realizing it, kids absorb powerful, lifelong lessons.
Here are 5 things children learn naturally through slow, intentional travel â no worksheets required.
One week youâre exploring ancient ruins in Mexico, the next youâre navigating a rainy day in a small town in France. Through slow travel, kids learn to expect the unexpected and adapt with flexibility and resilience.
They begin to understand:
Plans can change â and thatâs okay.
Delays, detours, and discomfort are part of the adventure.
New foods, new beds, new rhythms are nothing to fear.
This emotional agility is something no textbook can teach â but travel can.
2. đ§ Curiosity Becomes a Superpower
When every place brings new language, landscapes, and lifestyles, kids start to ask better questions â not because they have to, but because theyâre genuinely curious.
They wonder:
Why do people here eat dinner so late?
What does that sign say?
How did this building get built so long ago?
Curiosity becomes a muscle they use daily. And instead of memorizing facts, they connect the dots between history, language, culture, and their own lived experience.
3. đŹ Cultural Respect and Emotional Intelligence
In slow travel, kids donât just observe different cultures â they live in them. They greet new neighbors, navigate different social norms, and learn to be guests in someone elseâs home country.
This fosters:
Empathy â realizing not everyone lives the way they do
Humility â making mistakes in a new language and trying again
Respect â for traditions, rituals, and ways of being that are different from their own
These arenât just travel skills â theyâre human skills.
Slow travel erases the line between âschool timeâ and âreal life.â A hike becomes science class. A market becomes math. A museum becomes a history book they can walk through.
Children begin to:
See learning as a lifestyle, not just a task
Discover their interests and strengths outside of traditional assessments
Experience education as empowering, not obligatory
This is where worldschooling shines â creating a flow where life and learning dance together.
5. đ§ââď¸ Presence Over Productivity
Perhaps the most important lesson: slow travel teaches presence.
Kids learn to:
Sit still and listen to the waves
Linger at a meal without rushing
Notice tiny details in their surroundings
They donât need to be busy to be worthy. They donât need constant stimulation to be engaged. Slow travel gives them permission to breathe â and from that space, their creativity, intuition, and confidence bloom.
Final Thoughts
Slow travel isnât just about seeing the world â itâs about becoming more fully human. For kids, itâs a chance to grow up rooted in wonder, resilience, and respect. For us as parents, itâs a reminder that the most important lessons are often the ones learned outside of school walls â with muddy shoes, open hearts, and the world as our guide.
Interested in learning more about slow travel and world schooling… GRAB OUR FREE GUIDE
When we made the decision to leave behind our traditional life and travel full-time as a family, it wasnât just about seeing the world. It was about becoming part of it.
We aren’t just visiting new countries to snap a few photos and check sights off a list. Weâre intentionally raising our daughters to be global citizens â individuals who understand, respect, and contribute to the world in a meaningful way. Here’s what that means to us, and how you can start fostering global citizenship in your own family travels.
What It Means to Be a Global Citizen
A tourist often skims the surface of a destination â enjoying the beaches, museums, and restaurants without engaging much beyond the obvious. A global citizen dives deeper.
Global citizens:
Learn the local language (even if it’s just the basics)
Respect cultural differences without judgment
Support local businesses and artisans
Understand history from multiple perspectives
Build genuine relationships with locals
We’re not aiming to “collect” countries. We’re aiming to build a tapestry of understanding, empathy, and curiosity that will shape our daughters into compassionate adults.
How We Foster Global Citizenship While Traveling
1. Slow Travel Over Fast Travel
Instead of rushing through ten countries in a month, we choose to spend weeks or months in each place. This gives us time to:
Connect with the community
Find local farmers’ markets and family-owned shops
Attend cultural festivals and community events
When planning our stays, we love using Booking.com for family-friendly apartments. We have been using Booking as an alternative to Airbnb. Ideally we like to housesit in locations or book apartments with small local landlords, rather than large management companies. This helps us be more sustainable while traveling and helps us not contribute to gentrification as much.
2. Learning Languages Together
Even learning a few phrases can open doors to richer experiences. Before each move, we make it a family mission to learn key phrases using free apps and local classes. We use Rosetta Stone as a family, but I also love Jumpspeak.
3. Choosing Experiences That Matter
Rather than tourist traps, we seek out:
Cooking classes
Local art workshops
Guided history tours led by residents (not huge companies)
4. Supporting Local Economies
We prioritize buying from local markets, artisans, and independent businesses over international chains.
5. Building Financial and Lifestyle Flexibility
Global citizenship isn’t just about travel â it’s also about how you live and work.
We support our travels through remote work, and we’ve created resources like our Remote Work Resource Guide to help other families do the same. Learning how to earn a living online has given us the ultimate freedom to explore deeply, not just vacation briefly.
Why It Matters
In a world that often feels divided, raising children who are curious, adaptable, and empathetic is one of the greatest contributions we can make. Global citizens aren’t just better travelers â they’re better neighbors, better leaders, and better human beings.
We don’t want our girls to grow up thinking the world is “foreign.” We want them to see it as home.
Want to Start Your Own Family Adventure?
Check out our Remote Work Resource Guide to start building the location-independent lifestyle that lets you raise global citizens, too.
Your journey to global citizenship starts with a single step â where will you go first?
When we set out to travel full-time and worldschool our kids, we expected to learn about history, geography, and maybe how to pack better. Here are 10 lessons we learned since we started worldschooling full time.
We didnât expect the real lessons â the ones that change you, stretch you, humble you, and heal you â would come from the in-between moments: missed buses, quiet breakfasts in new cities, and watching our kids unlearn everything we thought they needed to succeed.
These are the 10 biggest lessons weâve learned so far as a worldschooling family â and they might just help you on your journey, too.
1. Lesson 1: Slowing Down is the Real Curriculum
We thought we had to go fast â see it all, do it all. But slowing down is where the learning lives. The days with nothing scheduled often turn out to be the most meaningful. We learned this majorly in Mexico, staying in a small village, often times we were without activities. This caused us to get creative. We learned how to play chess, dressed up and did photo shoots and learned about the variety of bugs and creatures of Mexico. These are normally things we would have overlooked if we were overstimulated.
2. Kids Learn More When You Trust Them
Weâve seen our daughters blossom when theyâre free to follow their curiosity. Learning doesnât need to be forced â it just needs space. We are learning Spanish as a family and sometimes it feels like they aren’t catching on… until we go to the market and there they are communicating with the vendors. They are learning so many unintentional lessons.
3. Your Family Culture Becomes the Anchor
When you’re no longer tied to one place, your values, routines, and rituals become the home you carry. Worldschooling gives you the chance to design that culture with intention. n a worldschooling lifestyle, your roots are internal â not geographic. You begin to build your sense of “home” not around walls or addresses, but around what you honor, repeat, and hold sacred.
Every country becomes a classroom. Every meal, a cultural exchange. Every morning, a chance to choose who you’re becoming â not based on what society tells you, but based on what your soul needs.
Worldschooling isnât just about taking your kids abroad â itâs about reimagining family life entirely. Itâs the freedom to ask: ⨠What do we actually value? ⨠What rhythms help us thrive? ⨠What kind of family culture do we want to design?
When you live with this kind of mobility, your legacy becomes less about where you live â and more about how intentionally you live while moving.
4. You Donât Need as Much as You Think
Physically and mentally. The more we let go -of stuff, expectations, timelines – the freer we felt.
Every stop, every move, every pause in a new place became a shedding. We released furniture, clothes, old habits, outdated identities⌠things we didnât even realize were weighing us down. What started as âdownsizingâ became a kind of soul-clearing.
Yes, sometimes we add things. But now, our stuff is more of a toolbox -not an identity. Itâs practical. Intentional. Supportive of how we want to live, not proof of how far weâve come.
Weâve learned to carry only what feeds us. To trust that space – in our backpacks, in our calendars, in our minds – is where the magic actually lives. And thatâs where clarity, creativity, and calm have finally started to bloom
5. Not Everyone Will Get It (And Thatâs Okay)
From family members to strangers, not everyone will understand your choices. And thatâs okay. Youâre not here to live a life that makes sense to others. Youâre here to live a life that feels right to you.
Choosing a different path -one with more freedom, less structure, deeper intention -will rattle some people. It will mirror back their own limitations, unspoken dreams, and unresolved fears. That doesnât mean youâre wrong. It means youâre brave.
It means youâre willing to listen to the voice inside that whispers, âThereâs more.â It means youâre choosing alignment over approval -and that is no small thing.
So if you ever feel the weight of someone elseâs disapproval⌠Remember: they donât have to get it. You do.
6. Thereâs No Perfect System
Every worldschooling family we meet does it differently. And thatâs the beauty of it.
Some travel fast. Some stay put for months. Some unschool entirely. Others follow a curriculum. Some work remotely full-time. Others take sabbaticals or build businesses on the go.
Thereâs no âright wayâ to worldschool -only your way. The one that honors your familyâs energy, values, learning style, and dreams.
This lifestyle invites you to trust yourself. To design a rhythm that fits who you are â not what the system says you should be. To release the pressure of comparison and lean into what actually works for your kids, your sanity, your connection, your flow.
Itâs not about perfection. Itâs about presence. And the courage to write your own story â together, in real time, across countries and cultures.
7. The World Is Mostly Good
Kindness can be found in every country. Help from unexpected strangers. Locals who didnât speak our language but spoke to us with warmth, generosity, and open hearts. Communities that welcomed us like family â not because they had to, but because thatâs just who they are.
Travel has a way of softening your edges. Of reminding you that, despite what the headlines say, the world is still full of good people. People who offer directions when you’re lost. Who help carry your bags. Who share their food, their stories, their time â simply because you’re human.
Travel restores your faith in humanity. It reminds you that connection doesnât always need shared words â only shared presence. And that far from home, you can still feel deeply held.
8. Flexibility is a Superpower
Plans will change. Weather will turn. Buses will be missed. And just when you think youâve figured out the rhythm – something shifts.
This is travel. And this is life.
The gift isnât in everything going perfectly⌠Itâs in learning how to pivot with grace. To laugh instead of panic. To pause instead of push. To adapt, flow, and recalibrate without crumbling.
Our kids are better for it. Theyâre learning flexibility, resilience, patience, and trust -not from a textbook, but from real life. Theyâre watching us navigate uncertainty with calm. Theyâre experiencing firsthand that thereâs always another bus, another path, another way forward.
In the worldschooling life, adaptability isnât just a skill – itâs a superpower. And honestly, it might be the most valuable lesson of all.
9. Your Kids Will Remember How It Felt
Not what they learned in a workbook⌠but how it felt to walk the cobblestone streets of a centuries-old town, to hike that volcano with dust on their shoes and awe in their eyes, to play tag with local kids on a sun-drenched beach â no shared language, just laughter.
These are the lessons that stick. The kind that donât come with grades or gold stars, but shape who they are â and who theyâre becoming.
Theyâre learning confidence not from tests, but from trying new foods. Curiosity, from asking questions in places where they donât know the rules. Empathy, from sharing space with people who live completely differently â and finding connection anyway.
This isnât just education. Itâs expansion. And it lives in their bodies, not just their minds.
10. You Donât Have to Have it All Figured Out to Begin
We started before we felt ready. We didnât have it all figured out. The timing wasnât perfect. The plan had holes. There were doubts. Fears. Loose ends.
But we trusted something deeper – A knowing that staying stuck was costing us more than taking the leap ever would.
You can start before you feel ready, too. Because clarity doesnât come before the leap. It comes because of it.
It meets you in motion. In the messy middle. In the quiet confidence that builds each time you do the brave thing â even when your hands are shaking.
Start messy. Start uncertain. Just⌠start.
đŤ Final Thoughts
Worldschooling isnât just about teaching our kids differently -itâs about becoming different ourselves.
Itâs not always easy, but itâs always worth it.
If you’re standing on the edge of this idea, wondering if it could work for your family – consider this your invitation.
đ Want to Begin Your Own Worldschooling Journey?
Grab our free guide: How to Move Abroad in 6 Monthsâ your ultimate 6 month checklist that will give you everything you need to take the leap (no matter your budget or passport status).
