Wonder Year: A Guide to Long-Term Family Travel and Worldschooling
Currently, anyone who asks me how to get started living this full time travel family life, I immediately refer them to this book. It’s the best Worldschooling guide out there right now.
saltyvagabonds
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About us
Saltyvagabonds
We are a worldschooling family and have been worldschooling our kids since 2018. It’s been a crazy rewarding life with plenty of ups and downs. When we started this Journey there were so very little resources out there. We struggled to figure things out, but now you don’t have to go through that.
A group of awesome ladies put a book together that walks you through the entire process! This book’s your ultimate guide to making family travel a long-term reality! The three authors have totally rocked their own Wonder Years, and they spill the beans on how to turn that dream into your family’s reality. They’ve got your back from planning your very first trip to readjusting to life back home.
In the book Wonder Year they dive deep into the nitty-gritty—think finances, budget hacks, navigating family travel logistics, and keeping the education game strong. They tackle those big questions, like how to handle schooling for the kids to bagging a high school diploma while globetrotting, plus renting out your place and tackling health issues on the road.
This book’s like a roadmap sprinkled with quick questions, cool pics, and real-life stories. Man, I wish we had this gem before kicking off our journey in 2018—it’s a goldmine for answering so many questions.
Trust me, it’s beyond helpful for anyone starting out.
Our Part in the Wonder Year Book
A couple of years ago we got this email from Angela that seemed like a cool gig to help her and others understand our wild life living on a sailboat full time. Our liveaboard boat life journey fully started in 2020, and Angela had tons of questions about that lifestyle. Sharing our maritime wisdom and schooling with her about our Wonder Year(s) on water was a blast. We travel through many modes of transportation but love that we were able to help explain the boatlife side of worldschooling.
We’re even featured on a few pages and at any point if you ever have more in depth questions about living on a boat with kids feel free to hit us up! Everyone’s worldschooling journey will look different and ours is shared now between our boat life and jetsetting! We’re currently jumping around Asia on Military Space A Flights and sharing about that now.
Eventually, we hope to give more personal experiences of our personal journey on our blog. We’re crazy behind on getting specific topics out but for now… I really feel the book is an amazing resource to find all the information you need to decide if worldschooling is something that could be in your future.
What’s in the Book?
Currently, anyone who asks me how to get started living this full time travel family life, I immediately refer to this book. It’s the best Worldschooling guide out there right now. Here’s the topics that are covered inside the book so you can decide if this worldschooling resource is right for you to snag.
The Case for a Wonder Year
A deep dive into what wanderlust is, how it’s possible to withdraw your kids from school, and questions that will help guide you through the decision-making on if world schooling is right for you. The guidance in helping you decide if worldschooling is right for you then leads you to decide how to structure your worldschooling year.
The Money Questions
A look into how to budget and fund your wonder year. Topics are discussed such as savings, and how to creatively get your hands on more money by simplifying and downsizing your home. There’s also a heavy write-up on Investments and different ways to leverage them to help fund your adventure.
You may not know this but there are ways to also get free lodging and cut huge travel costs. You can Volunteer, Housesit, Couchsurf, and use Credit Card points to cut costs. In this section they go into depth on how you can explore these options too. We really love supplementing our lifestyle with housesitting and often use Trusted House Sitters!
Closing Up Life at Home
Topics in the section cover how to get mail, voting and pets. What to do about your residence, belongings, work, school and extra curricular activities. A lot of people are planners so this stuff might come naturally but if you have deeper questions on what to expect or how to set up certain things, you’ll want to read this chapter.
Charting Your Course
This is the fun part! Deciding where you’ll go and what you want to see. This though can be stressful and this section of the book covers all those details. There are so many aspects to travel where you’ll be thankful you had the wisdom from seasoned travelers that make planning so much easier.
More Worldschooling Topics Covered in the Guide
Family Travel Logistics, Health and Personal Safety, Worldschool education ( unschool, homeschool, world school ), Life on the go, and how to come back to a normal life when you’re ready to.
Honestly, this book is super intensive covering just about everything you can think to ask about life as a travel family. I love that throughout the book there are quotes that just make sense. I also love that we’re in a few pages! Again, the ladies did such an awesome job with it that this is currently the guide we are recommending to those who ask us. Many worldschooling families are included in the book so you’ll get many different perspectives on the lifestyle. They did a great job curating all the information out there into an easy to read guide.
The Final Word
This Wonder Year book will be your lifeline if you’re wanting to live a year abroad or go full time. As we’re still rocking our Wonder Year(s) even after 5 years there’s info in there that’s still relevant. Seriously, it’s a treasure trove for learning the latest. Travel tricks, sorting out logistics, and leveling up your education game. Can’t recommend it enough! They have a website Wonder Year Travel if you’d like to check that out!