Comments on: Budgeting for Long-Term Travel: How Our Family of Four Does It

By: Emma Healey

Emma Healey — Wed, 26 Oct 2016 07:09:29 +0000

In reply to Gracie Kay. That's great to hear Gracie. I always thought it'd be tough to get a house sit with kids but you've inspired me to look into it again.

By: Gracie Kay

Gracie Kay — Sat, 22 Oct 2016 10:21:35 +0000

Love your outlook – and suggestions! As a family of five (16, 13, and 8 year old kids) we just spend a mostly unplanned 4 months touring Europe. We had only budgeted for a month, as we thought we would have an overseas Visa and job by then. What saved our budget was petsitting through http://www.trustedhousesitters.com! We ended up with a total of 7 weeks of free accommodations in exchange for caring for someone’s pets and home while they were away. Often the last-minute sits were the best. (I can totally relate to wanting everything planned in advance, but last minute just kept on working out!) As a result, we had an amazing summer, spent time in wonderful communities, and got a real feel for some different European countries.

By: Becki Svare

Becki Svare — Fri, 30 Sep 2016 12:05:43 +0000

I really enjoyed reading this! I’ve wanted to do longer term travel, but just haven’t been able to figure it all out. This gives me some great tools to work with ~ thanks!

By: tinka

tinka — Fri, 16 Sep 2016 12:29:26 +0000

I was a wanderer for many years and my son was born in the uk. We travelled for another 9 months before returning to nz.

There I bought a campervan and we travelled a lot around nz. When he was 9 we went back to the uk for 18 months.

Ended up wooffing in a few places. (Wwoof -willing workers on organic farms. I worked for our food and accommodation). We also lived in some intentional communities

Towards the last few months I transitioned from one days paid work to 5 and moved into a community paying reasonable board.

In wales he went to a welsh speaking school for a year. Then we travelled to morocco for 6 weeks before returning home.

Wwoofing is a great way to teavel slowly and live local. There’s a budget friendly fee to join.

Also in the uk I used a site called diggersanddreamers to source intentional communities.

I had a very minimal budget.

By: Emma Healey

Emma Healey — Sat, 27 Aug 2016 02:21:35 +0000

In reply to Amelia. I was thinking the same thing with the online learning the government is talking about. I'm no fan of Hekia Parata but I was actually excited about this idea! I can see how it would work really well for our plans.

By: Amelia

Amelia — Thu, 25 Aug 2016 08:55:30 +0000

Loving these thoughts.
I desperately yearn for some slow travel, maybe with some fixed-term work for one or both husband and I. We are thinking we’ll do it when little is meant to be in Intermediate school, being back in time for high school.
We should be mortgage free (well and truly) by then, and both very well set up in our careers… Here’s hoping I can persuade husband (who has “done” the work overseas / long-term travel thing before he met me) that its a good idea. Slowly chipping away.

By: Amelia

Amelia — Thu, 25 Aug 2016 08:52:29 +0000

In reply to Emma. Hopefully the new Communities of online Learning thing the govt here has just announced might help with that - find a local school that offers some of its classes / extension work via the web and you have somewhere to go back to? Also the correspondence school sounds like it will be one of the first to really pick that up and run with it, so not-quite-homeschooling? Its what we are hoping will happen before we get around to running away with little in 4 or 5 years (having just written a plan to pay off the mortgage within 5 years, even with an allowance for travel and renovations!)

By: Emma Healey

Emma Healey — Sat, 06 Aug 2016 00:26:59 +0000

In reply to Becca. I have to disagree here. For the little kids (well, mine anyway) spending hours playing with cousins all day, versus a once a fortnight Facetime just doesn't compare. The worst thing with our locations (NZ & Ireland) is the time difference. It never suits for the kids to get on Skype/Facetime because in NZ we are 11-13 hours ahead so bedtime gets in the way. I think maintaining familiarity is much easier via technology, but establishing proper relationships from scratch is difficult.

By: Becca

Becca — Wed, 13 Jul 2016 11:52:09 +0000

In reply to Emma Healey. I'm a dual citizen, I grew up in the US and my family still lives there. There are ways to get to know family overseas without spending months and months in a different country. You'll make the choices that are best for your family; and your family is different than mine so your choices will be different too. But don't think that the only thing that matters is physical proximity.

By: Emma Healey

Emma Healey — Wed, 13 Jul 2016 09:55:12 +0000

In reply to Becca. Thankfully our eldest hasn't yet started school but the issues you've mentioned do concern me. We're planning to make the most of the time before he must start school (6 is compulsory in New Zealand, although most attend at 5). I'm researching options for liberal schools in our area, travelling for 3-4 weeks every year wouldn't suit us as we want our kids to grow up knowing their Irish family and I just can't travel that far for only 3 weeks. It'd be exhausting!