When we left to travel the world in June 2018, we knew we wanted our kids to learn from the world around them, but we were still figuring out exactly what that would look like. Only a few months into our journey, we found ourselves in Chiang Mai, Thailand, surrounded by families who were asking many of the same questions we were.
Our five days at the Project World School Family Summit 2018 became much more than attending an event. It was the first time since starting our travels that we found ourselves surrounded by a community of families living and learning differently. We shared ideas, talked about our struggles, watched our kids form friendships almost instantly and came away questioning, and understanding our own approach to worldschooling in a completely new way.
Looking back, this was an important moment in the early days of our journey. We arrived still trying to figure out how worldschooling would work for our family, and left realizing that we didn’t have to figure it all out alone.
How We Discovered Worldschooling
When we started traveling the world in June 2018, we thought we had a pretty good idea of how we were going to educate our kids while traveling. We quickly discovered that we didn’t!
Let’s go back a little.
About a year before we left, while I was searching online for inspiration and help planning our trip around the world, I somehow came across a Facebook group called Worldschoolers. At the time, even words like worldschooling and unschooling weren’t obvious to us.
I started reading the discussions. Families were talking about traveling with their kids, education, homeschooling on the road, meeting other traveling families and using the world around them as part of their children’s learning. Soon, I started asking questions too.
That group quickly became my go-to place whenever I wasn’t sure about something.
I’d tell Mass: “I’ll ask in the group!”
Or I’d suddenly announce: “Guess what? Someone asked the exact same question!”
I’d read through everyone’s answers, ask follow-up questions and save information that might help us later.
Eventually, even Mass started telling me: “Ask in the group!”
Then, in June 2018, we finally left.
Our adventure around the world had begun.
When Our Original Schooling Plan Didn’t Work
Once we were actually traveling, new questions started appearing.
Some were about travel. But most were about school.
We quickly realized that the approach we’d planned before leaving wasn’t fitting very well with our new lifestyle.
One night, I couldn’t sleep. My mind was going crazy with questions about what we were doing, what we should be doing and whether we were doing any of this right. So, once again, I went to the group. I asked other traveling families how they were homeschooling or worldschooling their kids while traveling and what was actually working for them.
By the next day, I had more than 20 responses. People I’d never met were sharing ideas, experiences and suggestions. And those responses changed so much for us.
At a moment when we felt a little lost and alone, an entire community of strangers was willing to help. That was priceless.
Finding the Project World School Family Summit
For months, I’d also been seeing posts about the Project World School Family Summit.
Then I realized something. We were going to be in Thailand at exactly the same time as the 2018 summit in Chiang Mai.
Mass and I started talking about it. This online community had already helped us so much. Maybe it was time to actually meet some of these people! So we decided to trust our gut and go.
We were looking for something we hadn’t realized we’d need so badly when we started traveling: A community.
People who had also decided to live differently from what was considered conventional.
If talking to them online had helped this much, imagine what could happen when we were all actually in the same place!
Off we went to Chiang Mai.
Five Days With Other Worldschooling Families
The summit lasted five days. And those five days went by incredibly fast.
There were around 150 people, many of whom had never met each other before. Yet somehow, we felt incredibly comfortable sharing our fears, questions, doubts, successes and joys.
For once, we didn’t have to explain why we’d chosen this lifestyle. We were surrounded by people who understood.
Our families weren’t identical. We came from different backgrounds and had different beliefs and different ways of educating our children.
But we had some very important things in common: Our children’s well-being, a desire to experience the world with them and a willingness to rethink what education could look like.
And the kids? They didn’t need five days to figure any of this out. They just played.
Watching Our Kids Find Their People
This might have been one of my favorite parts.
The kids had never met each other before, yet they played as though they’d been friends forever.
After the first night, our kids were already talking about their new “friends” as if they’d known them for years. Every day became one giant adventure for them.
Meanwhile, the adults were doing essentially the same thing in our own way.
We were talking. Sharing. Asking questions. Learning from each other’s experiences.
And at the end of each day, Mass and I came away with new ideas about our family, our travels and the direction we wanted to take with our kids’ education.
What Is Worldschooling?
Back then, I needed someone to explain this word to me too!
There isn’t one single way to worldschool.
For our family, it gradually became about looking at the world as part of our children’s classroom. Instead of separating learning completely from everyday life, travel gave us opportunities to learn through the places we visited, the people we met, the cultures we experienced and the questions that naturally came up along the way.
History wasn’t only something in a textbook when we could stand in the places where history happened. Geography wasn’t simply memorizing countries on a map when we were moving between them. Food, languages, currencies, transportation, wildlife, religion and culture all became opportunities to ask questions and learn.
And, as we would discover over the years, our approach would continue to change as our children changed too.
That’s probably one of the most important things we’ve learned about worldschooling: It doesn’t have to look exactly the same for every family, or even for the same family from one year to the next.
What Was the Project World School Family Summit?
The Project World School Family Summit we attended in Chiang Mai in 2018 brought together worldschooling, homeschooling and unschooling families, as well as families who were simply curious about these different approaches.
But it didn’t feel like sitting in a conference room while experts told us: “This is how you need to educate your children.”
That wasn’t what we needed anyway.
Instead, it felt like families walking along similar paths and sharing what they’d learned. People contributed their own skills and experiences. There were discussions about worldschooling and unschooling, traveling as a family and building community. There were even practical sessions.
For us bloggers, for example, there was a little SEO session! Everyone had something different they could bring to the group.
What Did We Take Away From Those Five Days?
Looking back at what I originally wrote immediately after the summit, I love seeing where our heads were at that moment.
We realized that we needed to rethink the direction of our children’s education.
We realized that our adventure was going to evolve as we lived it.
We learned that asking for help wasn’t a weakness.
We realized that telling our story could potentially help another family, just as other families’ stories had helped us.
Most importantly, perhaps, we realized:
We weren’t alone.
Other families had made unconventional choices too. They were traveling. They were educating their children differently. They had doubts. They made mistakes. They figured things out as they went.
Just like us.
And suddenly our crazy new life didn’t feel quite so crazy anymore.
We Were Finally Getting to Know Each Other
There was something else I wrote after the summit that feels even more meaningful looking back now.
“We are happy that we are finally really learning to know each other. We finally have time to see each other; we are finally a family 100%.”
We had only been traveling full-time for a few months. We still had so much to learn about this lifestyle, and about each other.
Before leaving, we’d all had our schedules, responsibilities and routines. Suddenly, we were together.
A LOT.
And yes, that came with challenges! But it also gave us something we’d wanted when we decided to travel: Time together.
The summit helped remind us why we’d made this choice in the first place.
The Community Didn’t End When the Summit Did
One of the nicest surprises came when the five days were over.
Nobody seemed particularly ready to say goodbye! Some activities had already been planned, while others came together spontaneously.
We continued spending time together, including a day at Bua Tong Waterfall, also known as Chiang Mai’s Sticky Waterfall.
The conference might have officially ended. The friendships hadn’t. And some of those connections continued even further.
Through families we met at the summit, we later had the opportunity to visit Second Wind Ranch and Rescue in Chiang Mai and experience mindful rock climbing with Pierre Echaubard in Krabi. Those experiences became separate stories on our blog, but they all began with connections made during these five days.
Looking Back at Our First Worldschooling Summit
This post was originally written in October 2018, only a few months after we’d started traveling the world.
Reading it now is almost like opening a little time capsule.
We were still figuring everything out. We were questioning how to educate our kids. We were trying to understand what worldschooling and unschooling meant for our family, rather than simply following somebody else’s definition. And we were looking for people who understood why we’d chosen this unusual life.
That summit didn’t give us a perfect formula. It gave us something much more useful: community, ideas and the confidence to keep figuring it out ourselves.
Our approach to education would continue evolving over the years, just as our children and our travels would evolve.
But those five days in Chiang Mai were an important turning point.
We walked in wondering whether there were other families out there like us. We walked out knowing: We weren’t alone.
We love that we are giving our kids the world as their classroom. Every country we visit is a new color on their palette of the adventurous life they are living.
Happy Travels!!!
Check out the lovely hotel we stayed at Feel Nimman Boutique!!
Continue the journey with:
If you are planning a trip to Asia, these unique destinations should definitely be on your radar:
- Brunei: The Family Trip That Became a Girls’ Adventure
- 5 Days in Hong Kong: What We Did, What We Missed, and Why That’s Perfectly Okay
- A Family Journey Through India
- Discovering Cambodia: From Phnom Penh to the Magic of Siem Reap with Kids
- Visiting Bhutan with Kids: Inside the Magical Kingdom of Bhutan
I hope our experience helps you plan an unforgettable Asia adventure of your own!
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