Planning

Why/When

Firstly, I’ll cover off why and when we decided to travel.

When we were moving from Ireland to Canada last summer, I wanted to have a trip planned back to Ireland within the year to take the sting out of saying goodbye to the life we built there over the last 9 years. Knowing we’d be back in a few months made it easier.

We also wanted to trial slow travel, where you stay for a longer period than a typical vacation in any one location before moving on to the next. This method of travel is used by a lot of families who worldschool and travel full time. It is easier on the mind and body in terms of adapting to change and usually cheaper as you can avail of long-term stay discounts.

In terms of when and where, Ireland was obviously part of the equation but when we decided that we’d want to be in Canada for the summer, it made sense to travel somewhere warmer during the winter. Travelling in the off-season is also quieter and cheaper. When we lived in Ireland, Portugal was only a 2.5 hour flight away and we had been a few times and knew we liked it.

I played around with different durations, originally we planned on travelling for 3 months but when it came time to actually book we felt this might be a little too long to be away from our home base and cut it down to 2.5 months.

Flights

As usual, I had a spreadsheet to plot out the trip. I looked at a few different flight routes and checked prices on google flights fairly regularly to get the best price. Once upon a time, I would have looked for the cheapest deal only regardless of duration and flight times but now I know what toll it takes on my body and I’m willing to pay a bit more for better options. I generally try to find direct flights that leave between 10am and 8pm. I’d love to avoid red-eye flights but that seems to be the only option from Montreal to Europe.

The route options I looked at were:

Route 1:

• Montreal-Lisbon 1 way
• Bus Lisbon-Portimao
• Bus Portimao-Faro
• Faro-Cork 1 way
• Bus Cork-Dublin
• Dublin-Toronto 1 way
• Toronto train to Ottawa

Route 2:

• Montreal-Lisbon return
• Bus Lisbon-Portimao
• Bus Portimao-Faro
• Faro-Cork return
• Bus Faro-Lisbon
• Lisbon accommodation 2 nights

Route 3:

• Montreal Lisbon return
• Bus Lisbon-Portimao
• Faro – Cork 1 way
• Dublin – Lisbon 1 way
• Lisbon accommodation 2 nights

All 3 options priced out at about 3,100$ for the 3 of us. That meant the choice was really down to preference. We opted for Route 3. The longest day was the first flight and bus, the rest were direct 1 way flights/bus trips.

Accommodation

Once we had the flights/dates booked, we needed accommodations. Portugal was the simplest as we were staying in one location for the whole duration. I searched on booking.com, homeexchange.com and a local real estate office which we had found through booking.com and had stayed with a few times before.

As we had been before we knew the area and where on the map we wanted to be so it made it easier to narrow down where we wanted to be.

We ended up booking a three-bed apartment with huge balcony as we hoped we would get some visitors to come stay with us.

School

Little MH is in kindergarten so school is not yet mandatory in Quebec. We let the school know the dates we’d be gone and they provided us with some activity books to work on while we were away.

In terms of socialisation, I found some local ex-pat/digital nomad/ worldschooling Facebook groups in Portimao. During the week, school-aged kids are in school so the playground isn’t a guarantee to find similar aged kids, unless they’re on holiday. The world schooling/digital nomad groups would have more school-aged English speaking kids available during the week for meetups. Little MH went to one of the group meetups while we were there but in general was happy out with just us. While I was working, Mr. MH and Little MH would go to the playground, play on the beach and play ball on the boardwalk.

Packing

We’ve gotten fairly good at packing minimally after all our travels. This time we managed to keep it to 2 40L backpacks, 2 regular backpacks and 1 large handbag.

At a high level we brought:

• 4-5 days worth of clothes each
• Minimal toiletries
• 3 months of diabetic supplies
• School activities, pencil, eraser, markers
• Electronics:
  • Work laptop, keyboard and mouse
  • Personal laptop
  • PS5
  • Nintendo Switch
  • Plug converters and chargers

I have a “leaving for months” checklist at home that I’ll add in at another time that includes the things we needed to prepare before we left to maintain the house/car ie: have plants watered, mail collected, arrange to have the car driven periodically to stop the battery from dying etc. I’d keep a paper list in the kitchen that we could add things to in the days coming up to the trip to help keep track of things not to forget.

What it cost

The below details what it cost for the 1 month in Portugal for the month of Feb. Flights and travel insurance are proportioned 40% to this portion of the trip and 60% to the Irish portion which I’ll detail in another post. The total cost was 4,342€ (6,338$).

We of course have ongoing costs at home which add to this. Costs for Feb for remaining expenses like Rent, Electricity, Internet etc came to 1,369€ (2,000$). Some of the travel costs like flights and accommodation would have been paid in December and January so the outgoing for Feb was not the full 6,292€ (9,187$).

Our estimated annual spend for the 12 months including travel is 44,000€ (64,000$), this averages out to 3,652€ (5,333$)/month. So the Portugal portion on its own is only a little over 1,000€ more than the average monthly spend.

How it went

In summary, it was lovely. The weather was warm and sunny and we had the beach, boardwalk and restaurants pretty much to ourselves, which is typical for this time of year. Working from a nice location was also great.

That said, a month is probably our limit. As we experienced in a previous mini-retirement, even though we had people visit us, it does become very isolating to not have friends and family to visit on the weekends.

A typical work day

• I would wake up naturally without an alarm between 7 and 8am
• Make my way to the kitchen for breakfast
• Little MH would already be awake, playing the switch or PS5
• Make myself and Little MH breakfast, having my tea on the balcony in the sun if it was out
• Get dressed, brush teeth etc
• Go for a walk on the beach by myself, taking a few moments to consciously breathe in the fresh sea air and look up at the sky without sunglasses to let in the morning light to my retinas to set my circadian rhythm and regulate hormones.
• Get back, grab my water bottle and log on to work
• Mr. MH would usually get up some time between 9 and 10am and get himself and Little MH ready to head out for some activity and groceries.
• I would typically have lunch by myself on the balcony
• Work for a few more hours
• Mr. MH would have dinner ready by the time I log off from work
• Eat dinner together as a family
• Spend the evening sometimes doing a school activity or playing card games, sometimes doing our own thing.
• Get Little MH ready for bed and asleep some time between 8:30 and 9pm. I’d usually go to bed at the same time as Little MH.
• Mr. MH would stay up a bit later.

A typical weekend

Similar to the work day in terms of wake up and sleep routine. We’d go to restaurants more often on the weekend. Sometimes for brunch, sometimes for dinner, heading down to the beach and playground either before or after food. I’d call home at some point. We had Mr. MH’s sister over for a few nights one weekend.

A few weeks before we got to Portugal, I saw on Facebook that someone I went to school with was posting pictures of Portugal. We got to chatting and it ended up they had moved there in 2020 and spend their summer’s at a cottage 20 minutes from where we are living now in Canada. Although I was probably 12 years old the last time I saw them in person, we decided to meet up. They came down with their partner for a night and we got to catch up. We will likely meet up again this summer. Such a small world.

Lessons learned

As with every trial, there comes some error to learn from As long as we learn from them, it will make the next trip even better.

1. We may have been able to save money on groceries by availing of grocery delivery from bigger chains. Continente and Uber Eats offer food delivery which we’ll likely avail of next time.
2. Uber/Bolt to and from the airport is only slightly more expensive and less hassle than the train and bus that we used to take. The bus/train takes 1.5 hours from Faro to Portimao and you still need to use Uber to get to the train and to the accommodation costing about 28€ for the 3 of us. Uber was 50 minutes total, 40€, and no timetables to worry about.
3. In regards to deposits, from now on we will take a video tour of the accommodation as soon as we get there. This trip Little MH accidentally pulled a curtain rod down and as a result the property manager did a thorough walk through when we left and blamed us for breaking a number of other things that were broken when we got there. We are still trying to get some of our deposit back on this one. Also, best to give the deposit as a separate payment not included in the total for the accommodation so that you can dispute it with your bank if needed. Lastly, perhaps booking through a website like booking.com rather than directly though the property company might give you more protections in terms of these types of disputes.
4. Packing wise – next time we might try to pack 1 checked bag between us. Having to carry all our bags on our backs any time we move around is cumbersome. While it’s nice to not have to wait for your bag in baggage claim and there is no risk of it going missing, we’re still trying to find the balance of what we carry and what we check.
5. As mentioned before, a month is probably a little too long, unless we can get more people to come visit us. I think the sweet spot might be 3 weeks.

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In my various readings about financial independence, many of the people I follow end up travelling for at least a year once they reach financial independence, some continue to travel full time with no end in site and others do a mix of both where they have a home base for 6 months and then travel for 6 months. That said, most of the FIRE community who retire in their 30s or 40s don’t have kids but what if there was a way to have it all?

Enter a growing group of families called worldschoolers.

What is Worldschooling?

I first came across this term when one of the bloggers I follow met a mother traveling with her son in Mexico, they asked her if she was just traveling for the summer and she said no, and that being from Australia, it was actually cheaper to travel with her son and do a combination of home schooling while travelling alongside enrolling him in international schools when they are settled somewhere for long enough.

Now that I have a son myself, numerous parenting forums have mentioned enrolling him in schools now (he just turned 1), even though I don’t know where we’ll be in 4 years time. I’m always interested in ways to live a simpler more fulfilling life (no school runs, more family time) and the more I read about alternative schooling the more I’m enjoying the idea of it.

I have since come across a few other terms each with their own variation on the idea: Home schooling, road schooling, free range learning, unschooling and so on. On top of that there are also a variation of school-like institutions like Montessori and Sudbury schools which offer a similar approach.

There are actually a number of these Sudbury school which have opened up in Ireland but as they are not covered by the state will cost you about as much as a private school so something like 3,900€/school year (which would add on another few years to our time to financial independence).

Anyway, the general idea is that children will learn on their own if you give them the opportunities to do so. You can turn anything into a learning experience. Especially so with travel where you can immerse yourselves into new cultures, find out about that countries history, flags, cuisine and language. You can learn about math through currency exchanges, trips to the supermarket and cooking at home, you can learn about ecology and geography by mountain climbing and getting out into nature and so on. It’s learning largely by doing rather than theory. The most common concerns with this approach are: what if my kid ends up weird and anti-social, what if there are gaps in their knowledge and how will they get into university, if that’s what they want to do, but all of these are addressed by the people who have done it and their kids are now fully grown and working successfully in the world. You can learn more about this by checking out the resources below or googling any of the alternative methods mentioned above but what I want to cover in this post is: HOW do people afford to travel the world with their kids?

Ideas from the online community

Just this week I joined the Worldschooler Facebook group and I’m totally inspired by the content there. They are a group of 50,000 and growing. Feel free to join and get more ideas if this is something that is of interest to you.

I also really enjoy their group structure in that each day of the week they have a topic to provide a bit more structure.

To give you an idea of the type of content they are:

• SUNDAY SOCIAL: “Where are the Worldschoolers?” Post here to find others in your area and to arrange for meet-ups.  Search here to find people who are in (or have been to) places you wish to go. Location-based questions are welcomed here too!
• MONDAY MARKETPLACE: The only place in our group for business and commercial activities. Post items to sell, rent, swap or donate. House swaps (with both parties offering to exchange lodging) are an exception and are welcome here and on the main wall.
• MONDAY MONEY: This is our weekly topic all about money. If you’re looking for an answer to “How do you afford to Worldschool/travel” you’re in the right place. Explore ways to save and ways to spend! (Search the group by keywords “money mondays” to read all of the past weeks!). 
• TASTY TUESDAY: You’re guaranteed to get hungry, and we encourage you to post photos or food experiences here. Past or present, no problem! 
• WELCOME WEDNESDAY: Our internet version of a hug to welcome new members! Introduce yourself and your family here! Our support team can help you get to know the guidelines and show you around. It’s not required if you’re camera-shy, but we’d love to “meet” our newest friends. 
• WHERE IN THE WORLD FRIDAY: We love to see pictures of where you are and what you’ve done this week. This is a great thread to check out if you’re not sure where you want to go next. You’ll leave with plenty of ideas!
• SATURDAY EVENING POST: Bloggers and social media experts, this is for you! Introduce yourself and post your blog, channel, or insta. Search this thread to find like-minded families and inspiration. This is the only place we allow promotion of your own blog or social media accounts. (Linking to your blog as a relevant comment to a question is okay, though).
• CONVERSATIONS STARTERS: Or special editions of weekly threads are posted from time to time. We hope you’ll contribute if you have something to share!

But how do they afford to travel full time?

On this week’s Money Monday, a variety of people commented on how they fund their nomadic lifestyle. I thought this would be of interest to the financial independence group as it includes a wide variety of side hustles which I hadn’t considered myself and may be a way to achieve the financial freedom you are searching for much sooner than you originally planned, especially if one of your end goals is to travel more.

So without further ado here is what people are doing:

Online Services

Teaching/Courses

• Teach English online (VIPKID, Palfish)
• Tutor math online
• Day trader teaching others to day trade
• Digital marketing agency providing online courses
• Birth preparation classes online
• Coaching for families who want to worldschool but don’t know how
• Train others to have their own travel agency and network marketing business

Professional services

• Web developer
• Web design
• Digital marketing
• Copywriting
• Relocation services for the location they are in at the time (finding rentals, airport pickup, language tutors, childminders, housekeeper, showing around on arrival) – marketing through Instagram and Facebook business page
• Online business helping families protect against online threats
• Travel business (book things for commission – airfare, transfers, lodging, experiences, detailed itinerary with additional recommendations),
• Psychologist and emotional healing coach seeing clients online
• Online health and wellness business via Arbonne
• Day trader
• Business which refers others to free membership on cashback program
• Blogging

Online Sales

• Essential oil business (doTERRA)

In-Person Services

• Yoga teacher and wellness educator hosting workshops, retreats and classes on the go, online courses
• Birth Photographer/Doula who books clients in their location when they will be there for prolonged times
• Volunteering on farms in exchange for room and board with families http://wwoof.net/ and http://workaway.info/

Other Passive Income

• One family sold their house, cars and belongings and survive on a military pension+savings
• Passive income from real estate (buying low end rentals in areas where you can buy for less than 50k and rent is no less than 500$)
• Property portfolio with airbnb and long term rentals

Jobs with perks

• Airline worker travels for free

Resources

Looking for other online job ideas? Check out www.onlinegigsandjobs.com

Some other reading/listening on worldschooling:

• Home schooling in Ireland
• Podcast on free range learning
• Series of blog posts on one families experience

I’m still very new to the idea and don’t know if it’s something I will do myself but exploring the possibilities and seeing how other people are making it work has certainly piqued my interest, not to mention all the side hustle ideas which could potentially reduce our time to financial independence.

How about you? Have you had any experience with alternative schooling or do you have some nomadic money making options not listed? Please share below.