long term travel with kids

Hi Colleen,

As others will no doubt tell you, there are plenty of people that have and plenty of people that are still travelling with school age children.

I was talking to a couple last Monday that have been on the road for 7 years.

Their daughter finished HSC while they were travelling and their 14yo son was doing all of his via remote tuition.

Don't know the details of how it works but the education dept in your state will put you right. This couple just went to the local library and submitted the tutorials via internet.

Neither of them had any complaints at all.

I do believe that in a recent 4wd magazine was a series of articles about a family that went on an extensive tour of Oz.

Go for it and enjoy every minute.

Cheers
Michael

The best education chideren can get I reckon.

Experience live al over the place

Hi Colleen,

Not sure if you have seen it yet but on the left hand side of the screen there is a blue bar headed " Topic search " click on the "trips with kids " title and happy reading :-))

Avagoodn
Pezza

Hi Colleen,

My husband and i are going to be doing the same thing, still in the early planning stages,probably take off in about 2 years.The kids will be 3 & 4 so wont have to worry about schooling strait away for ours. Hope you guys have a fantastic time im sure your kids will!!

Jan & Wellsy

Don't sell the house. Rent it out whilst you're away which should cover the mortgage?

Otherwise you may finish the trip and find you can't afford to buy back in if the market moves a lot, even a little.

Hello Colleen,

What a great decision you have made. We completed 9 months last year travelling Oz in a camper trailer with a then 11/12 year old and was the best 9 months ever. Our son was still enrolled in his school and together with his teacher and ourselves devised a curriculum for the time we were away.

We found that after 9 months the setup and pull down of the CT became a little labourious and envied the travellers who pulled up in their vans, and were having a cuppa or coldie within 10 minutes and were off again in the morning with a minimum of fuss and time.

So having decided that come January 2007 we are off again, this time in a purpose built 21'6" van which we have just taken delivery of.

On the schooling side for next year our son will be doing distance education / home schooling through the School of Distance Ed. in Brisbane, I'm sure every state has a similar arrangement.

We found that Sam (our boy) learnt so much, both academically and in life skills that it was amazing the change in him over a relatively short period of time.

Depending on the amount of time you intend to travel it may be worth while investigating a van, rather than a CT, just to give you a little more creature comforts and ease of setup / packup, especially when you have one-nighters.

As for entertainment, we set our laptop up to play DVD's, installed a USB TV receiver and even were able to hook Sam's Playstation up to the laptop, but these "luxuries" were limited to only time when we were on powered sites in caravan parks... and the amount of times that the Playstation was actually used I could count on 1 hand, there are just too many "natural" things to do!

The only thing that was a benefit was being able to watch DVD in the car whilst travelling, making those long trips a little less tedious.

Any way you go you won't regret your decision.... and yes we have decided to sell our house and invest the proceeds... we really did'nt want the hassle of being remote landlords or leaving it in the hands of an agent... you lose control over what you have and could end up with a trashed house costing $$$$ in repairs and maintenance.

Good luck and enjoy this great country with your kids.

Regards

Graham, Sandy and Sam

G'day Colleen,

you have come to the right place with your question, as they say "there is a wealth of knowledge and experience here." I myself don't have any answers for your specific question but wish you and your family the best with your adventure together.

Dreaming of this myself....but how is it possible - financially?? recently met a couple that had been travelling for three years with eight children! on there way back home but then decided to go around again...:)