It’s been a long time coming, but we’re so excited to share that we are off travelling long-term again and heading out on our third family gap year next month! This one has a bit of a twist though, so read on to find out more about what we’re up to…
Background
If you’ve been around here for a while you’ll remember we have been lucky enough to take extended travel with our kids before – our first gap year in 2016 when the kids were 3 and 5, then we took another break to travel a couple of years later in 2019 when they were 5 and 7, arriving home again in February 2020.
Of course we all know what happened next with the pandemic, which well and truly grounded us for a couple of years as New Zealand closed its borders. Then Mike started a new job, the kids were happy at school so we contented ourselves with being based in New Zealand and exploring the country, along with enjoying a couple of international holidays.
Last year was a pretty turbulent time for us. Our newly renovated house that we moved back into got hit 6 weeks later by a 1-in-100 year flood that wiped out our entire living room, dining and kitchen area, laundry and garage. Dealing with the clean-up, insurance, banks, local authorities and the re-build has been massive and mentally draining.
We also had a couple of health issues that reminded us that we aren’t getting any younger, all the while our kids are entering their teen years and growing up fast – we’re definitely on the other side of the ledger now in terms of years left with them before they fly the nest.
While 2023 swas hard, it was a good reminder that nothing in life is guaranteed and it’s important to make the most of every day. Changes were on the horizon for us also on the work front, but the biggest barrier to taking new opportunities was education and friends for the kids. At this age and stage like most teens they both really want to be with peers their own age and prefer to be in a classroom setting with teachers (not Mum and Dad!)
Online and homeschool isn’t appealing for them right now – they’re both quite social kids and had enough of that during the pandemic! Then we stumbled upon the perfect solution…
We’re joining the Trailblazer education programme with Boundless Life
Boundless Life has been on our radar for about a year or so. Borne out of the pandemic, it’s an organisation that’s targeted at digital nomad and remote working families, offering education programmes for kids and facilities for remote working parents.
They have six locations in Europe and SE Asia, offering international schooling where kids can enrol for 3-month cohorts at a time with over 1,200 kids participating so far. That would have been amazing for us a few years ago, however it caters for ages 2-12 so our kids are now too old for the programme 🙁
But timing really is everything, because they are now expanding and have an offering for 13-14 year olds (US Middle School grades) that fits perfectly into our kids’ ages.
The Trailblazer Programme is essentially a travelling school to 3 countries over 9 months – the kids, families and teachers all move to three different locations throughout the school year. The curriculum continues, it’s just the location that changes.
There are 19 kids and their families from 10 different nationalities, along with one teacher (Alexa who is joining from a highly regarded private school in California) who is going to accompany us to three different countries.
Our whole family had to undergo a detailed application process to get accepted into the programme and an extensive travel background is a pre-requisite. This included submitting online videos, interviews, providing the kids academic information, participating in online collaborative exercises with other potential students and completing math, writing and language placement tests.
We’re super proud that the kids have embraced the opportunity from the start and got offered places in the programme.
So where exactly are you going?
We’ve had a bit of this as we have told people what we’re doing, so here’s the lowdown of our upcoming adventure:
- Country number one is Indonesia – we’ll be kicking off in beautiful Bali in early September 2024 until the end of November.
- December is a semester break so we’ll be doing some independent travel for six weeks as we make our way up to Europe.
- Country two beginning in January 2025 is Greece – we will be living on the Greek Island of Syros in the Cyclades until March.
- Country three is Montenegro – a new one for us – where we will be based in Kotor (about 90km south of Dubrovnik in Croatia) for the final three months of the academic year, finishing up at the end of June 2025. After that we’ll hopefully do some further travel before heading back home to New Zealand.
What exactly will the kids study?
The academic programme is a hybrid-approach with core subjects (Maths, English, Science) utilising a programme from Arizona State University that’s taught across the US and globally.
The remaining subjects are very hands-on, with a focus on real-world challenges, tailored to the destinations we’ll be living in, and are aligned to United Nations sustainable development goals.
For example in Bali, the kids will focus on marine science, climate change and sustainability, in Greece there is a focus on democracy, peace, justice and strong institutions, and finally in Montenegro the focus is on healthcare and well-being.
They also get time to focus on individual interests through self-directed learning – 20% of their time is working on passion projects and topics of their choice that they want to deep-dive into.
In addition to all of that the school has amazing extra-curricular options specific to destinations also. In Bali they can learn to surf, join the local football team and Balinese cooking lessons, learn to sail in the Greek Islands and play water polo in Kotor.
Where will you live?
One of the great things about the Boundless programme is you can choose your own accommodation or rent one of their homes which come fully equipped with everything you need (including a weekly cleaner!)
We will be mixing it up and doing a combination of sourcing our own accommodation via local homestays, Airbnb and private rentals, plus renting a Boundless house in Greece.
What about work?
Mike is embarking on a new role doing some consulting work, so will be doing a mix of travelling in the regions where we’re based and working remotely.
I am able to work remotely and am very grateful to be taking a leave of absence from my full-time job while we’re away, but will also continue to do some work for them part-time. I’m also excited to be dusting off this travel blog and working on some new projects associated with it.
The Boundless programme is amazing for kids, but it’s also really well set up for adults too. In each location we’ll have access to a 24/7 co-working space – fully kitted out with fast internet, desks, office space to reserve for calls and coffee.
One of the tricky things we’ve found in the past when working from the road is having that dedicated workspace. The whole ‘digital nomad’ thing looks glamorous when you see pics of people working from the beach or pool, but we’ve found the reality is you can’t see the screen very well, it gets too hot, other people are annoying – we just work a lot better in a dedicated space!
Are you loaded?
Ha ha this question always gets asked whenever we say we’re travelling long-term and on cue it got asked by someone the other week!
No we aren’t loaded, haven’t won the Lotto, got a trust fund, had an inheritance you name it… the reality is that we find it to be the same cost or in many cases cheaper to slow travel than it is for us to live in New Zealand – particularly in South East Asia and some parts of Europe.
Like most other people we have to work to fund this experience and our travel – and our expenses will be higher than we’ve done in the past as we are paying for education and the cost of living has sky-rocketed in many places – it’s just not as cheap to travel as it once was sadly.
We will rent out our house while we’re away but mortgage interest rates are particularly high in New Zealand right now, so it is not as cost-neutral as it was a few years back.
If you’re interested in what it actually costs to travel on a family gap year you can download our cheat sheet where we outline some of the average costs per country that we’ve experienced – you might be surprised!
How can I follow along on your adventures?
We’re always blown away by how many people want to follow along and ‘live vicariously’ on our travels – it’s why this website was started nearly 10 years ago!
We’ll be updating this blog again as we travel but if you want to follow along a bit more in “real-time” we will post more frequently on our Instagram channel @ouroverseasadventures and on Facebook.
If you think a family gap year might be something you’d like to do one day, pop on over to join our Facebook group Family Gap Year Travel – there’s lots of tips and discussion from people who are also planning a trip or have recently travelled also!
See you on the road!
