Extended family travel in tough economic times

May 31, 5:09 PMBoise International Travel ExaminerNancy Sathre-Vogel

Previous Next

Comment Print Email RSS Subscribe

Subscribe

Get alerts when there is a new article from the Boise International Travel Examiner. Read Examiner.com's terms of use.

Email Address   Include other special offers from Examiner.com Terms of Use

You can travel the world with your children - with a bit of creativity!

Dreaming of traveling the world with your family? Want to ditch it all and take off to see the globe? Considering an extended field trip for your children? It can be done – even in these tough economic times.

There are quite a few families out traveling the world right now – even though we are in the midst of one of the worst financial crisis in modern history. Each family has its own unique set of circumstances and is making it work in a variety of ways. Here are some bits of advice from families out there right now:

Family on Bikes: When we committed to our bicycle journey from Alaska to Argentina, we figured we would be able to live off the rent from our house and interest from our retirement account. However, with rental rates bottoming out, and interest rates approaching negative figures, that hasn’t panned out. In light of that, we made the decision to use some of our retirement savings – we’ll be poorer when we retire, but will have memories galore!

We figure our boys will only be 11 years old once. If we don’t take advantage of the opportunity now, we will never be able to. The boys will grow and move on to lives of their own and my husband and I will look back on it and regret not living the dream when we had the chance. This period of time is a very narrow window of opportunity, so we decided to go for it – even though it’s tough financially.

In order to keep costs down, we camp out every chance we get and buy groceries in supermarkets rather than eating in restaurants. We carefully choose which activities we will do in order to extend our finances a bit farther. For example, we chose to go snorkeling a lot rather than taking a lot of expensive scuba diving trips on the coral reef in Honduras in order to save money. (The kids opted to use their Christmas money for two dives, but I don’t count that since it was their money.)

We carry very few belongings with us on our bicycles, but those we have are good quality and hold up well to the demands of our journey. We paid more for them up front, but they save us money in the long run as our equipment failure rate is very low.

We've written a series of articles about how we are handling things on the financial side here.

Soul Travelers 3: We actually find it MUCH cheaper to travel the world than to live at home. We live large on 25K total costs for a family of three and never lived that cheaply (or any where near that) at home. One could do it for much less.

We do not have car payments, house payments, private school costs, our insurance costs and medical/dental costs are much, much less, etc.. Our rental and fuel costs are very small, partly because we travel slowly. We have few things and don't buy much and have always been frugal and enjoy getting great value for less. 

We travel for 7 months out of the year primarily by RV ( although we have it parked much of the time and use every mode of transportation from cargo ships, trains, and mass transit to bikes, camels and horses) and then rent a home for 5 months in the winter. We have traveled over 76,000 miles, mostly over land (29 countries, 4 continents) but went the first 2 years with only one long flight. Slow travel is greener, cheaper and much more enriching travel. We plan and book everything ourselves, eliminating costly middle men, and always with the eye on getting the most for less.

We sold every thing (home, cars, most possessions) in 2005 and invested wisely, so that we may travel on interest earned. We also mostly got out of the dollar at that time as we foresaw the housing crash and economic crisis coming. That helped us a lot when we were in Europe and the euro and pound were so much stronger than the dollar. We do make some money from our soultravelers3 website and soultravelers3 YouTube Partner account.

We research thoroughly about each purchase based on value. What we do buy tends to be high quality so it lasts. For instance, my husband and I just bought one pair of smart wool socks each before leaving (albeit we got slight irregulars at discount prices) and we are still wearing them and cherish them 3 years later. Same with our 2 macs, etc… We are mostly vegans and eat very healthy, so we save a ton of money that way and almost never get sick. We love beans and brown rice which is very cheap and nutritious. This allows us to splurge on other things like 5 star hotels from time to time, including wonderful meals out at renown places around the world (although we often do them at lunch instead of dinner).

Tips to consider: First go slow, that right there will save tons and help it to be more enriching. Long stay, furnished rentals even in Europe off season are very cheap. Live like a native.  More than ever one needs to be aware of currency and coming economic trends, so I would have that be part of one's prep. Think ahead to all possibilities and read smart folks who think out of the box more than traditional media. I would learn about what is going on with currencies today and make wise choices around that. I have written and video taped content about how to do extended travel and here are two that are very helpful:

How To Do Extended Travel & Mini-Retirements

How to Eat Healthy & Cheap Traveling Europe

Toast Floats:  We financed our journey before all hell broke loose, to be honest. Even so, many cruisers are finding their trips cut short or even terminated by the economic problems. OTOH, cruising is a heck of a lot cheaper than living in the States. I think more people should consider traveling as an alternative to sitting at home and waiting for things to improve. If you have a little cash, it can go a long way if you're willing to pare your life style way way back. Going on the road forces you to do just that.

As far as educating the children, the best advice I can give is to start homeschooling WAY before you leave. Homeschooling is consistently cited as the most challenging part of family travel. You don't want to start your trip and your homeschool experience simultaneously. Trying to do both can be overwhelming.
 

For more info: Never Underestimate your Child, How to Afford an Extended Family Vacation, Family travel: a life-changing event