More American Familes Taking Year-Long Global Trips
Travel Blog • Joanna Kakissis • 11.08.07 | 5:07 PM ET
Photo by babasteve via Flickr, (Creative Commons).
Well-traveled children often turn out to be more empathetic, open-minded and creative adults. We’ve written about how parents are increasingly taking their infants and toddlers on trips abroad and how parents are lighting a spark of wanderlust through imaginative travel books. Now more families are taking a year off work, school and soccer practice to travel the globe and learn about new cultures firsthand, writes Caren Osten Gerszberg in The New York Times.
For a family that traveled around the world, passing through India, China and Zimbabwe, among other places, “The result is that all these places matter to us now,” parent Peter Feuerstein told Gerszberg. “The trip was a watershed experience for all of us.”
Parents interviewed for the story said they rented out their homes, took out travel insurance, used guidebooks for food and hotel offerings, and either home-schooled their kids or let the experience itself educate the children.
Many of the children taking family trips around the world are between the ages of 9 and 12—an age where they’re old enough to appreciate the experience and young enough to still be attached to their families.
And the experience can bring them even closer together. Said Claire Tuttle of Winston-Salem, N.C., whose family is traveling the world together: “My kids are kinder to each other. Without the distraction of sports and school, we’ve become more of a team.”
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Marilyn Terrell 11.12.07 | 12:21 AM ET
Intelligent Travel discovered a few of these traveling families last year who were keeping blogs of their adventures:
http://intelligenttravel.typepad.com/it/2006/12/wired_wanderlus.html
Soultravelers3 04.15.08 | 2:15 AM ET
We are almost 2 years into our open ended trip around the world & enjoying it so much that we look forward to doing this for many years.
Yes, I do think there is a great interest in this and more families than ever are doing it, partly because it is easier to do today than ever before.
If one travels slow and lives like a native, it is also very cheap. We travel the world for much, much less than staying at home. We live large on very little, even in Europe ( 25K a year total costs for a family of three).
Education on the road is also amazing and we use a combination of homeschool, local schools and innovative online learning like piano lessons via skype! Today my 7yo child in Spain was interviewed about her travel from a class in Boston via skype webcam!
I was recently interviewed by Steve Hargadon, creator of Classroom 2.0 about the endless possibilities with travel and education today.
I think we will see more and more families taking to the freedom. family bonding and global learning that is unsurpassed when one travels the world as a family!