8. Seven Years Full Time Travel with The 5 World Explorers!

🎉 I welcome Sarah and Mass, an Italian-US couple who sold everything (twice!) to travel the world full-time with their three children. They share their incredible evolution from a fast-paced tour of 14 countries in one year to a much slower, experience-based lifestyle.

🌎 This episode is packed with practical advice on funding, world and un-schooling and growing together as a family on the road. 

✨ IN THIS EPISODE:

• How the family built a sustainable travel fund through rentals, a YouTube channel and travel planning services
• The evolution of replicating traditional school in a campervan to embracing unschooling and now a flexible online academy for the teens
• A look at their one-month, $2,300 budget in Hoi An, Vietnam and their top tips for cutting costs on long term travel 
• How they navigate respecting individual needs and the stress of consistent change 

Mentioned in the show:

• Worldschool Summit
• Worldschoolers Facebook group
• Worldschool Pop Up Hubs

Connect with The 5 World Explorers:

• Website
• YouTube channel
• Facebook
• Instagram
• Tik Tok
• Limitless Travel Life travel planning services

Host Info: I'm Suzy and my family lives between Spain and Colorado. 🌞

🌎 We feature traveling families and worldschool creators taking learning global. 🚀

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Chapters

• 1:06 Mass and Sarah's Travel Journeys
• 5:34 7 years of Family Travel!
• 10:15 Evolution of learning on the road
• 22:07 Funding long term travel
• 28:06 Challenges and Joys

Transcript

Suzy: Welcome to the Wander Worldschool and Slow Family Travel Podcast. Today I'm joined by Sarah and Moss. Welcome to the show. Please tell me about you and your family.

Sarah: We've been traveling full-time for seven years. We have three kids, now nine, 15, and 16; they were two, eight, and nine when we left. I was born in the US but grew up in Italy, so I'm not the "real" Italian—he is! Moss and our older children were born in Italy.

Suzy: I'd love to hear more about each of your own personal travel origin stories, such as traveling when you were growing up, or how that shaped you as an adult.

Moss: For me, it was about trying to discover more about what I like to do. I've been a physical therapist for most of my life. I started by rehabilitating kids in the pool with any kind of physical or psychological problem. Since then, I was researching this technique and how to be more natural. I've traveled by myself four times to China to learn Qigong, acupuncture, and herbal medicine. I traveled by myself twice to Thailand to learn different modalities of healing. Since I met Sarah, we've been traveling all over the place, revisiting some of the places we had been to alone. We want to show our kids the possibilities you can have by traveling instead of just staying in one country. The more we do it, we realize it's not just about traveling; it's about the experience and opening your mind to the opportunities that are everywhere. Sometimes when you stay in one routine, you miss it.

Suzy: So you're focused on Eastern healing modalities?

Moss: I started with Western training because I first did physical therapy, and after that, I was a personal trainer and did osteopathic medicine. I realized there is more than muscle, bone, and skin; if you don't address the psychological part, you don't get 100% recovery. So I started to go deeper into Eastern methodologies like acupuncture, Tui Na, cupping, moxibustion, realignment, fascia release, Qigong, Tai Chi, and breathwork. I even ended up doing three years of shamanic practices in Bali, Indonesia.

Suzy: In high school, I shadowed a Chinese medicine doctor who showed me cupping. She did that to my back, but then the next day I had a swim meet and had big, circular bruises. People were like, "What happened to you?" And what about you, Sarah?

Sarah: My father passed away when my mother was pregnant, so I grew up between two countries. I was born in the US, but my mom was Italian, so we would go back and forth. For most of my life, traveling was going between Italy and the US, which I liked because I was really close to my grandmother. For me, being on the plane felt closer to my dad. When I grew up, I started seeing other places, and we continued this process together.

Suzy: Let's talk about your family travels. You're on your seventh year, which is amazing. How did you kick off this long-term traveling?

Moss: When we met in Italy, we didn't have kids yet. We started dating and decided to give it a try. Boom, Cosmo arrived. Then when Emma, our second one, arrived 13 months later, they were super close in age.

Sarah: We decided to leave Florence, the town where we used to live, because we wanted to try to do something different for our kids. We sold everything, we left our jobs, and everybody thought we were crazy. We had good jobs, we had our own house, and they said, "Now you have two young kids and you're leaving? Why? This is insane."

Moss: The push in the beginning was to expand our understanding and try to go to the US. We spent from 2010 to 2018 in the US, living in Phoenix, Arizona. In those eight years, we had our third child, Luca, who is nine right now. We decided it's not the right place for us. We went crazy the second time and sold everything again—the house, the business. We were supposed to do a one-year, 12-month experience, just to show them that there is something more than just the US or Italy. And now it's seven years and counting.

Suzy: It always starts as one year, right? People get the bug and it keeps going.

Sarah: I meet families and they're like, "Yeah, it's a gap year." Unless they have work situations where they clearly can't, but when they don't, I'm like, "Eh, it's not gonna be one year."

Suzy: That door's open unless they don't like it.

Sarah: Yeah, true. Which is okay, to choose a different lifestyle than traveling, to take a break or something. I get the pull for that.

Moss: It's an ongoing process. We're looking for a place to move to, but we can't find it, so that's our excuse right now. We found a few that we could really live in longer.

Suzy: Where are those places?

Sarah: A few years ago when we went to Costa Rica, we were like, "We need to move here." It's a bit expensive, but it's inspiring in many ways.

Moss: People there were so kind.

Sarah: Yeah. Vietnam is the next one. Vietnam kind of stole our heart, so that would be an option.

Moss: Everything started with a trip to Thailand.

Sarah: Yes. He went to do this workshop in Virginia, he comes back and says, "We're going to Thailand in January." I said, "The kids are in school, we can't go." So he goes to school, talks to all the teachers, and they're all like, "Yeah, they will definitely learn more by going to Thailand than by staying in our class." So he convinced me. I was still very worried that they were losing all their education by going away for two weeks.

We did this trip, and it was amazing. It was the first country that we went to which wasn't Italy or the US, where we had lived. He would do his workshop, and every two days he had a free day, so we would do stuff together. During one of these trips, the five of us almost had an accident. We almost went down a hill on a tuk-tuk that Moss was driving because he convinced the guy to rent it to us. We were all scared, but after that night, we all started thinking that it was a big adventure. In that moment, it was so unique. So we said, "What if we sell everything and explore?" We went back home and gave ourselves a year. We did everything we had to do, and after a year, we said "ciao" and left. We had a bucket list and we all added places we wanted to go, so we followed everybody's desires.

Suzy: That's great to get the children's buy-in that way. Was the first year a fast travel style, and how has that evolved for your family?

Sarah: The first year we did 14 countries. It was fast, but everybody was excited, so you have that energy. Even if there were some negative things, we didn't care because we thought, "Oh, it's one year." And then we got tired. I think COVID happened at the right time to give us a break and slow down. After COVID, it just shifted.

Moss: Right now we just get a one-way ticket. We don't buy the return one, and we don't know how long we'll stay.

Sarah: I mean, clearly there is a visa to consider, but we at least stay the time of the visa, or at least a month. We have a few things planned, but mainly connected to our kids. We know we're going to Peru now because they're doing a teen retreat, and we've known this for a year. We do not like to plan far ahead. Now we need more time to just be. We do adventures and see things, but we don't need to see everything. We go to a place and do things. Sometimes not even all of us go, because not everybody wants to come, but we don't run around the whole country.

Moss: We like to do the cooking class or other experiences. I put a friend in charge of our visit in Mexico, and he brought us to hug and pet the whales. Our kids will never forget that.

Sarah: When we went to the Ramen Museum in Japan, that was really cool. We made instant ramen. We’ve also done chocolate museums. There's one in Belgium, but it was cool because we had done a coffee experience in Costa Rica where they also showed how they made cacao. It was like connecting the dots on the other side of the world, where chocolate is a big deal.

Suzy: Chocolate and coffee are so ingrained in our culture. To understand where those come from is really important. How do you approach learning and education now, but also over the past few years?

Sarah: We left with the school books because we thought we were just going to do the same thing. The principal was going to do some tutoring and check on them every few weeks, and we thought that was so smart. Then, after a few weeks, it was terrible. It wasn't working out. Moss was driving the camper van, and I was trying to do the schooling thing, and my kids were both crying. The other one was like, "Let's play!" I don't know what we were thinking. Desperately, one night I wrote in the Worldschoolers group asking, "How do you educate your kids if you're traveling?"

I got profound responses. Nobody was judging; they just gave me their answers. Then we went to the World School Family Summit and met families that had the same dilemma. Other families were explaining the different types of education they did, and you could find where you fit in. We couldn't let go of school, but we didn't want to do it the same way. Through the years, we went from letting go, to doing some online learning, to unschooling completely.

Moss: You have to unschool yourself first. If you don't change your mindset, it's going to be a problem. It took us three and a half years to understand this and decide, "Oh, we are the problem." So we started changing something in the way we think and how we process information. At that moment, there was the big shift. And now, without pressing anybody and without thinking about the judgment of other people, the kids found their own way, and they love it. They're thriving with this new system. All three of them, every morning, they do it without us saying anything. They talk to us all the time, saying "Oh, I learned this. This is cool. Let's do this together."

Sarah: They choose to learn, not be forced to learn, because that's when you lose interest. Some things are hard, but they push through because they chose it. They're attending Acellus Academy, an online school. It gives them credits for college, so that kind of gives peace of mind to all our friends and families who are very worried about the future of our children. We weren't that concerned, but this gives them that benefit too.

Moss: It's understandable. We hear things like, "Oh, you are ruining your kids, destroying your family. Why are you doing this? You are wasting all this money just going around. You're on vacation all the time; it's not a good thing to teach them." But from our perspective, seeing how we change and how we grow together as a family and as individuals is what matters. Each time we go somewhere or meet somebody, they tell us, "What did you do with your kids? They come and tell us things. They want to talk before doing things." The other day, Cosmo, who is 16, came to me and said, "Why do all these kids my age have all these problems because of the emotional baggage that they carry with them?" There's a stigma connected to teens, that teens are terrible, but it's not true.

Sarah: They're just finding their balance between who they were as a child and who they're becoming as an adult. It's such a big struggle. We just judge it in such a wrong way. If you just listen and support them, they'll be just as they were when they were younger. When you just judge them and give them a label, that's when they'll rebel and not talk to you anymore because you're not interested in listening.

Suzy: Meeting them on their level is really important. I've worked with high schoolers, and when you're one-on-one and showing real interest in who they are, it's amazing how they open up. How old were they when you took off to Thailand for the first time?

Sarah: Emma was seven and Cosmo was eight. The year after that, we left for good.

Suzy: And how have their perspectives about traveling evolved over your years of traveling?

Sarah: Luca is probably the one that has really grown up in it. He has been more around the world than in one place. Emma had a hard time leaving the home that we sold. As we went on, I feel she was more into this new reality. Cosmo was always excited.

Moss: Cosmo is happier to slow down. He found what he really likes, and he wants to have time to explore that kind of stuff. When you're moving fast like we were before, he doesn't have time to explore it.

Sarah: At one point in our unschooling journey, I said, "Every month you have to write a list of things you would like to learn more about, and every month you have to experience one." This project lasted one month because they picked one subject and got so into it that we just lost the whole project idea. But that started a new thing. He got into crochet; it became his passion and a way of relaxing. He went from crochet to doing stop-motion animations about his crochet animals. He's learned so many topics along the way, and he always says, "If I was in school, I would've never learned all this because I would never have had the time."

Luca: And there’s Luca!

Suzy: I'd love to hear your thoughts on traveling and what your favorite place has been.

Luca: I don't really know my favorite place.

Sarah: Every now and then you say Bhutan. That's because it snows. It was Bulgaria where you went skiing, but one of his birthdays was in Bhutan. He always loved it.

Suzy: It's nice to hear directly from the children.

Sarah: Emma is different; she's a baker. In every country, you're always curious to see what she's going to explore there. She's always trying different things. When I was growing up, if you tried more things, it was seen as not being consistent. I'm always telling her, "No, you experiment because this is when you experiment. Then maybe there's that one thing that you can't be without." And right now, it's been cooking for a while.

Suzy: How do you think that self-directed curiosity developed? Was it something that you were encouraging early on?

Sarah: In our case, we would do experiences oriented towards, "Oh, in this country, they do this. Let's see it." When we were in lockdown, we had started a YouTube channel, and it went really well because my videos were all about Nepal, and everybody was home. So while we were there, we decided to do an interview with a painter and make it educational. Let's ask these people to teach something to our kids, not because they have to become painters, but just because you learn when you try stuff. From then on, we started doing videos that we called "People We Meet," where we would interview people and they would teach or show our kids something. That was a way for us to show that most of these people did not go to school for that. I’m not against school, but it's not the only way you can build your career.

Suzy: School can be a launching point, but it's often not the only way to develop a lifelong passion or career.

Sarah: People say, "Oh, you're millionaires because you travel." I'm like, "No, you can get a job online and you can travel too." You can do house-sitting, so you don't have to pay for accommodation. There are so many ways. If you have a bit of flexibility, there is so much you can do. If they start something and then they're not into it, I'm not going to force them to continue that route because that's when it doesn't become something they enjoy anymore.

Moss: You just support whatever they're curious about. This is the phase when they can try sports, they can try whatever they're curious about.

Sarah: They’re learning crochet because they met these two kids in a campsite who gifted us these little crochet things for Christmas. They thought it was so cool that you could make something and gift it, so they both went on YouTube and looked up a video to start doing it. Emma still knits a little bit, but she does a bunch of other things. In Tanzania, our car broke down in front of lions. A bunch of men stopped and helped our guide, who was fixing it right there, to get the car started again. She made all these friendship bracelets to thank them, and they were so touched by that.

Suzy: How have hubs played a role in your travels?

Sarah: When we started, there were no hubs. There were these meetups, like the Project World School. The founder started by doing these teen retreats because she was seeking community for her son, and then she decided to make this big gathering because families wanted to come together. For us, it was eye-opening. I think it was really what made us decide to continue, just seeing that there were so many other families. It was good for our kids too; they realized they had many friends around the world. We went to four of them through the years and we spoke at the last three. You could share something that was related to worldschooling, so it was a good exchange and a moment of community.

We did a few paid hubs, mainly for creating connections for our kids and us, because when you're traveling, you might be alone. Before COVID, there weren't as many people traveling, so it was an excuse to connect with more families. I respect the people that create the hubs because it's a great way to start, and a lot of families need that security. My kids had fun, but with the first one we did, there was a bunch of little issues that led to a lot of complaining, so I don't love that anymore. We did a few free meetups in Asia, and they were okay. They had scheduled events, and you could pass through Kuala Lumpur and find community. Then there are the pop-ups, which we hosted too. They're good, but sometimes there is a big program of stuff to do, so it's like, "Are we doing a tour or are we connecting?"

The ones that are smaller, you connect more. That was our goal when we made our pop-up in Florence this time. It was eight families, and it was great. Kids played all together. The teens were not just being cool and going their own way; they were actually engaged with the younger kids and would always include them.

Suzy: Every family's coming at it with different expectations or needs, whether it's needing a drop-off to work or just wanting to meet other families. Everyone has different budgets, so it can be a lot to meld perfectly together. I'd like to jump into the financial and logistical side. How do you fund your travels?

Moss: We didn't plan the way things worked out, but they worked out really well for us. We had our homes in Italy and we sold them. When we moved to the US, the dollar was doing really badly.

Sarah: So we decided to buy homes again. It was 2010, and it was still so cheap in Arizona. We just bought houses, thinking we'll just put the money there so it's not in a bank, and then we'll rent them. And we did. The rent kept improving and it was consistent. Our biggest income is our rental properties. We also sold our bigger home and invested the money. We started a YouTube channel, and I wrote a few children's books. I guess you get creative and start getting inspired to do more things. The YouTube channel is a video journal for us.

Moss: It was also a way to get experiences. Now we go places, we want to do an experience and we say we have a YouTube channel, so we get a bit of a discount or it’s free. So that works.

Suzy: That is great. You have somewhere that helps you remember your experiences, and kids change all the time. What are some tips for cutting costs?

Sarah: House-sitting. Traveling during the low season—which now is not really a thing because it doesn't seem like anybody's staying home. Eating at home as much as you can, especially if you're traveling in expensive countries.

Moss: Change the way you get around. Lately, we've gotten buses or trains or even went cross-country instead of taking a plane because now it's really expensive, especially for five people. We did a long journey in Thailand by bus, and it was $20 per person.

Sarah: Wow.

Moss: And grocery shopping all the time, maybe at local markets. If you really go to a place and spend time seeing how the other people live, you save a lot of money.

Suzy: Very true.

Moss: A practical example: right now in Turkey, you have to bargain for everything. So I finally got a motorbike. This is the fifth day, and I haven't refilled it because it's so cheap and doesn't consume anything. I got it for 10 days for a hundred dollars.

Sarah: If you rent a place for longer, you save. We did a house-sit for 15 days in France for Christmas. It didn't cost anything, and we had fresh eggs because they had chickens.

Moss: But he let them out for Christmas because he felt bad they didn't get to go on the other side of the gate! We made a video; she was laughing because the five of us couldn't get them back inside.

Sarah: There are so many ways. When people say you have to be a millionaire, it's just like, come on. Seriously. That's such an old story.

Suzy: To get a better idea of your past spending, you provided a one-month snapshot when you spent a month in Hoi An, Vietnam. You put your spending at about $2,300 for the month. What did that include?

Sarah: The rent was a thousand dollars. We were lucky because Hoi An is getting more expensive, but this house had just been finished, and they gave us a good deal.

Moss: We found it when we were bicycling around. We saw it, went in, and knocked on the door. They opened it and said, "Oh yeah, you want to rent it? Come and see it."

Sarah: Now, when we go to a new place, we tend to book a hotel for the first few nights. Sometimes we've picked the wrong area. Once we get there, we ask around or just explore so we can figure out which area makes sense. That budget had groceries, mostly at the market. The experiences we did were pretty cheap. The rent for the bikes was like a hundred dollars for four bikes, which makes it easy to get around.

Moss: Food wasn't too bad. We enjoy cooking, so we don't really need to go out all the time. We like to go out for coffee there because the coffee's nice.

Sarah: They have particular coffee, like coconut coffee, stuff you don't find anywhere else. And the places serving coffee were much nicer because most were on the rice fields. You were sitting with the view of the rice fields. It was really worth it.

Suzy: People often talk about food as a way to experience culture, but it doesn't have to be a big meal out. It can be getting a coffee somewhere. Here in Spain, the cafe culture is very strong; it's two euros to get a coffee and experience the sunshine.

Sarah: And you can do some of the cooking at home. When we were in Southeast Asia, we did a bunch of cooking classes. I can't wait to go back with the kids and do a cooking class, then take those skills back home. Since being in Japan, I'm always making ramen soup. I found a recipe, and it started from being there.

Suzy: Part of keeping it real with long-term travel is acknowledging there are challenges. What are some struggles you've experienced?

Sarah: We had this light bulb moment where we were struggling because some of us wanted to do more than others. At one point, we were like, "We don't have to do everything together all the time." We struggled for a while because half of us were not very happy about it. But then when the half that didn't want to go said, "I'm not coming," it was sad, but maybe it isn't sad. It's worse if you do something you don't feel like doing.

Moss: I say yes because we finally made peace with it. That is the other thing: you have to learn to accept that we are five different people. Most of the time, people think kids just do things because you tell them to. No, if you want a healthy relationship, talk to them and ask what they really want to do.

Another thing we learned is to stay together and enjoy the time. People think you see new places and don't have any worries. It is not true. We have the same worries, and it's more challenging because you are in an uncomfortable situation all the time. You have the moment of the fun experience, but after that, you have all the other emotional ups and downs, and you have to deal with them 24/7. There is no break. In a normal life, people drop their kids off at school, pick them up, bring them to activities, and maybe just see them for an hour or two for lunch or dinner. It is the opposite for us, but that's what we've learned, and that's our strength as a family.

Sarah: Then there are all the challenges of going to a new place because you just got used to the one before. It seems simple, but it isn't always because you can't figure out how something works in a different language. Sometimes it's tiring. And your safety—you have to figure out, "Do I feel safe here?" Just because people tell you a place is not safe doesn't mean it's true for you. It's how you feel. If you feel it's not safe, you should follow that. They told us Cape Town, South Africa wasn't safe, but we don't go out at night. We can cook at home, and the areas we would see were all the touristy areas during the day. So, okay, maybe it's not the safest place, but I'm not going to put myself in a situation where I feel unsafe. But then you have to carry all the baggage from other people who are worried.

Suzy: That's a skill—to block out noise, feel confident in your family's decisions, and work as a team. But also to highlight some of the positive parts, what are some recent highlights?

Moss: Oh, we get to be together all the time, which is cool.

Sarah: I love the change too. It's annoying, but it keeps you alive because you're like, "Okay, now we're changing." We have a flow to it. It's exciting. Now we're going to Peru, so everybody's getting excited. "How is the food going to be? Oh, the weather is cooler." That's the most exciting part. There are all these things we don't know, so it's exciting. We don't have that feeling of, "Oh my gosh, we're going to Peru," but more like, "Okay, what's Peru going to have in store for us?"

Suzy: I love that.

Moss: What are we going to eat in Peru? That's his worry. Food changes around the world, and you have to adapt. Younger kids sometimes don't adapt. For us, it's really trying the local food. We don't want it otherwise. Every time we go to a new place, I ask, "What is the original food from here? What do you like to eat?" But we found out—I was surprised—that in Japan, they don't eat sushi.

Sarah: Not as much as we thought. I was shocked.

Moss: I said, "How is it possible?" They said for them, sushi is a very expensive meal, and they eat it maybe once a month. From our perspective, we think they eat sushi every day. No, they don't.

Suzy: That's true. It's been a long time since my husband and I were in Cusco. I know they eat guinea pig.

Sarah: Yesterday, Emma was talking to her friends, and they said, "Oh, it tastes like chicken." So yeah, that might be on the menu.

Moss: But again, they help you change your perspective toward food too. We went to Australia, and for us, the kangaroo and koala were so nice. But they told us they actually go hunting them to eat them; for them, it's normal. They said, "Come on, you're eating kangaroo," and we said, "You eat horses, so what is the difference?" And that is true.

Sarah: In Nuuk, Greenland, we saw something happening in this space. Moss is like, "Oh, guys, come and see, there's a fish market." We go inside, and there were seals and dolphins. My kids are like, "No!" But that's what they eat there.

Suzy: Yeah, that's right outside their front door. Different perspective, different cultures. Very eye-opening. Sharing resources can be helpful to families. What resources have been helpful for you?

Sarah: For finding community, we are on the "Worldschoolers" and "We Are Worldschoolers" Facebook groups. It's been helpful; a lot of people have great insights on things you might be stuck on. For learning, we did Time4Learning for a few years. Then my kids moved on to unschooling for a while, and now they're doing Acellus Academy, so they get credits for college, and it doesn't cost a fortune. Luca does Reading Eggs and some workbooks for his learning.

Suzy: What is your household language?

Sarah: We speak Italian and English. Emma is really good; she will start Duolingo in every place she goes. She did Turkish, Japanese, Spanish, and Vietnamese for two seconds. She's really good with accents.

Suzy: If people want to connect with you more, you mentioned you do trip planning.

Sarah: So we have a website where there is a blog and a page of resources we've been using. Then we have our YouTube channel, and we're on social media. I wrote two children's books; it's the same story evolving. And I'm a travel agent, so I can plan people's trips if they want.

Suzy: Thank you for sharing all that. When people seek out travel planning services, what are they mainly looking for?

Sarah: I try to focus more on family travel just because I have more that I can share about it. I guess people that are traveling for two weeks during the year are going to spend more, so it could be luxury too. But like us who travel full-time, maybe they're just looking for a cheaper flight or experiences. There's a little bit of everything.

Suzy: That's really exciting. This has been awesome to hear about your experiences. Is there anything else that you would like to share?

Moss: The only thing that I have in mind is, if somebody has some kind of doubt in their mind, I would say try. Don't go crazy like we did and sell everything, because that could be scary, jumping into the nothingness. But try with an open mind. Don't go into an experience with the same mindset that you have at home; otherwise, you're going to be in trouble because it's not going to be the same thing. You're going to have some kind of shock. But if you keep an open mind and try it with your family, I think you're going to be surprised by what amazing things can come out and surprise you. You didn't expect that reaction or emotion from your kids or your wife or your husband. That could be something that helps you decide if you want to travel or not.

Suzy: That's a beautiful point to end on, and thank you so much for sharing your journey.

Moss: Thank you.