On November 11, 2017 our family will leave Atlanta, GA and head to La Paz, Bolivia for 3 months. We’re super excited for this opportunity to spend a few months “worldschooling” our children, and we plan for this to be the first of many long-term international trips. Now that we’ve started discussing our plans with more people, there are some questions that have come up again and again, and I’ve attempted to answer them here:

Q1: Do you think your kids will remember this trip?

A1: No, I know they won’t all remember the trip, but that’s not the goal. We are trying to build a family culture around loving and giving to others while absorbing the good from other cultures. We want to raise globally-minded adults who will look beyond where they’re planted. The only way we know to do that is to give them a childhood where they’ve never known anything different. For me, it’s kind of like breastfeeding. It’s pre-dawn right now. I’m typing this on my phone while nursing my youngest. Will he remember this moment? Will he remember the thousands of times that I held him and fed him? Will he recall the moments when we stared at each other while he caressed my skin and I rubbed his chubby cheeks? Certainly not. But I believe that being held close and nursed by his mama is changing him and that he’ll be different because of it, even if he’ll never be able to pinpoint exactly why.

Q2: What do you and your husband do for a living?

A2: I own a small business and hubby is in project management. If I’m being honest, this is the FIRST question I ask whenever I read about families taking long trips, living abroad, or rolling around the U.S in an RV. Most of the time, they simply state that one or both parents have jobs that are “location-independent.” That’s a frustratingly vague answer, so I’ll try to be more specific.

I own a small business, Cafe Physique, that I run from home. I send fitness & nutrition professionals to private homes, hotels, and businesses. Most of my work involves matching clients and instructors, and it’s primarily done via email with occasional phone calls. I started this business a decade ago, so I’m able to anticipate needs and plan ahead pretty well. I left town for 3 months once before, and it worked out so I feel confident that I can do it again – especially because Bolivia is in the same time zone as Atlanta. So yes, my source of income is “location independent,” however the business does suffer when I’m not physically here. In other words, I make less money when I’m away than I do when I’m home because when I’m here, I occasionally do some of the corporate and nutrition services myself (therefore keeping 100% of what the client pays).

My husband works in project management at an insurance company. His job requires him to be in the office every day, and my business cannot support our family if we want to live outside of our van, so he must be here to work. He will use vacation days to escort us down and will return to pick us up 3 months later. Yes, that stinks.

Q3: How did you pick your dates?

A3: The dates are primarily arbitrary. We just kind of picked them. November 2017 was far away when we first started talking about the trip, and that was good because we needed a long time to get things together. Going down in one year and coming back in another allows my husband’s vacation time to start over so he isn’t using all of his vacation on this trip in the same year. Our winter is their summer. I don’t like being cold so that seemed like an easy win. Also, it seemed ideal to be somewhere where there would be kids readily available for my kids to hang out and speak the language with, so showing up in the middle of their school year wasn’t ideal.

Q4: Since you’ll already be in South America and Bolivia is right in the middle, why aren’t you traveling to more countries?

A4: Because I would die. I have to admit that this question cracks me up. Most moms balk at going to the zoo with 4 kids, but they’re all asking me why I’m not flying to Brazil, Argentina, Chile, and Paraguay while I’m “already down there.” Going to the zoo with 4 kids is hard. Traveling with 4 kids is harder. Traveling alone with 4 kids on a different continent is even harder. Traveling alone with 4 little kids flying in and out of a very expensive airport is impossible…for me. I’m pushing myself in every way to make this trip happen. I’ve had to mourn the fact that we’ll be RIGHT THERE but won’t be able to see so many beautiful things. The truth is that I have limits – physically, mentally, and financially. Therefore, we’ll spend a week in Peru on each end of the trip while hubby is with us, but aside from that we’ll remain in Bolivia and fully experience all that the country has to offer – which is a lot!

Q5: Don’t your kids have to go to school?

Q5: Yes and no. My boys are 2 & 4 so they don’t go to school. My girls are 6 & 8, and they’re homeschooled. Our home state of Georgia requires 180 days of instruction per year, and we easily achieve that because we “school” year-round (with copious breaks). Also, despite my strong preference for hard copies, I purposefully purchased electronic copies of many of our books as we will continue to “do school” while on the ultimate field trip.

Q6: Why Bolivia?

A6: My cousin lives and works in Bolivia, and she has graciously and amazingly invited us to stay in her home while we’re there. Add to that the fact that Bolivia is a Spanish-speaking country, and we were sold because we want to children to learn to speak Spanish fluently.

Q7: Do you speak Spanish?

A7: Not really. I took Spanish in high school, and I’ve been really cozy with my Duo Lingo app in recent months, but I don’t begin to approach being even slightly bilingual. At all. My children have had a native speaker Spanish tutor in our home weekly for a couple of years, and we study Spanish in school (the kitchen table) daily. But still. None of us truly speak Spanish. I had envisioned our language skills being much further along before the trip, but that didn’t happen. What is my plan for working around the language barrier? I don’t have one. I’m assuming that we will all return to the U.S. speaking a lot more Spanish.

Q8: You make this all sound so easy. Aren’t you scared?

A8: No, I’m not scared. I’m terrified. But we’re doing it anyway. And it’s not easy. It’s very difficult. If I make it sound anything other than super hard, please forgive me. It may be my attempt at brevity or the fact that, selfishly, it’s more fun for me to write about the parts that I’m enthusiastic about vs. spilling out my biggest fears all over the screen.

Q9: What are you guys going to do all day?

A9: I don’t know. I ask myself this question a lot because I’m just not sure what life will be like there. Obviously, we’ll get up and eat breakfast {laughing}. We’ll probably do something at home in the morning, eat lunch, and head out on an adventure – go serve somewhere or visit someone. Some days, we’ll leave early in the morning and be gone all day to places that highlight the history, culture, beliefs, and traditions of the Bolivian people. Beyond those general ideas, I really don’t know. I won’t be able to figure out the rhythm of our lives until I get there, but it’s safe to say that we’ll be spending a lot of time building relationships with local people. I’m trusting that it will be awesome.

Q10: How are you affording this? How much does it cost?

A10: This is what most people ask me first, but I put it last because my mom taught me that it wasn’t polite to talk about money. I’m working on a post about how much our worldschooling adventure costs, and I promise to be specific and detailed. {Update: Here it is!}

Have more questions? Feel free to leave them in the comments below!