10 Inspiring Family Travellers

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We meet many people who say they’d love to travel, but always have an excuse about why they can’t. Having children is a big one as most people assume that once they start a family long term travel becomes impossible. It may make things more challenging but there are plenty of families who are doing it. When we meet family travellers on the road we are always impressed by how mature the kids are and are convinced that exploring the world is an amazing education for children.

If you are still not sure it’s possible then prepare to be inspired by these family travellers.

Family on Bikes

Nancy and John Vogel and their twin boys Daryl and Davy (aged 8 on their first trip) have spent a total of four years cycling 27,000 miles through 15 countries. Their first year long trip took them around the USA and Mexico and they have just completed an epic three year adventure from Alaska to the southern tip of Argentina. Having travelled through South America by bus ourselves we know how steep and rough the mountain terrain is and are in awe of what this family accomplished.

Almost Fearless

Christine Gilbert and her husband Drew have been travelling the world as digital nomads since 2008. Last year Cole was born but having a new born baby hasn’t stopped them travelling to Colombia, Thailand, Bali, India and next up Africa. All the while they’ve been filming an ambitious documentary about digital nomads (with no previous filmmaking experience) – impressive stuff!

Raising Miro

We had the pleasure of meeting Lainie and her 12 year old son Miro in Medellin, Colombia. They’ve been slowly travelling through Central and South America since 2009, volunteering, couchsurfing and immersing themselves  in the local community along the way. Miro wasn’t like any 12 year old we’d met before: articulate, funny, fluent in Spanish, comfortable hanging out with adults and with great taste in hats! Read our interview with Lainie for more insight into their travelling lifestyle.

A favourite post: A Parent’s Guide to Unschooling on the Road

The Future is Red

Last year we stayed in Salta, Argentina with Leigh, Noah and their six year old daughter Lila (who speaks Spanish better than all of us). They left a hectic New York life behind and spent three years travelling the world before settling in Salta. They’ve just bought a house there and set up the Cloudhead Art Foundation, hosting artists in residence in their own home. What a great environment for Lila to grow up in!

A favourite post: How to Couchsurf as a Family

Got Passport

The Got Passport family moved with their seven year old daughter to Chiang Mai, Thailand and are using it as a base to explore SE Asia. They do lots of volunteer work, including matching up volunteers with available opportunities in Chiang Mai. The city has become quite a travel blogger hub and they have set up Team Chiang Mai as the focal point of these connections. They’ve made us very tempted to join the team later in the year.

Travels With A 9 Year Old

Theodora set off with her nine year old son in January 2010 with plans to travel for a year. They fell in love with Asia, discovered unschooling was way better than school and scrapped their round the world tickets. Since then they’ve scuba dived with sharks, learned to surf, released baby turtles in the ocean, motorbiked across Indonesia and countless other adventures.

1 Dad, 1 Kid

This single father and son team have just started their world travels in Mexico. They have an ambitious plan to travel slowly through Latin America before settling in Thailand and continuing their adventures from there.

1dad1kid.com

Location Independent

Lea and Jonathan Woodward invented the term ‘location independent’, meaning that someone can work from anywhere in the world as long as there’s an internet connection. They’ve had this freedom since 2007 and have taken advantage of it to live in exotic parts of the world. When their daughter Mali came along in 2009 they continued to travel and before she was one had lived in the UK, Thailand, Italy, Dubai,  Turkey and Scotland. They are now based back in England taking shorter trips abroad. Their website is packed with useful resources for aspiring digital nomads, with or without children.

Soultravelers 3

This family of three have been on their open ended world adventure for nearly five years now. They combine months based in one place such as southern Spain or Penang, Malaysia, with periods of faster travel, often by RV around Europe. Their daughter is sometimes home-schooled and sometimes attends local schools – most recently a Chinese language school.

A favourite post: How to Do Extended Travel & Mini Retirements

Our Travel Lifestyle

This Australian family set off to travel 16 months ago with two children aged 2.5 and 4.5 years. They wanted to spend more time with their kids and escape the rising costs in Australia. They travelled all over Asia and are now settling down for a while in Penang, Malaysia.

A favourite post:Travelling with Two Children Under 6: Insanity or a Great Idea?

35 Comments

  1. How bizarre. I just now got the trackback message from you site over a year later! LOL Thanks so much for including us. We’ve been on the road for 1-1/2 years now and are absolutely loving it. We are currently in northern Africa (Morocco) and this coming year will be spending more time in Europe, and heading to Asia and New Zealand.

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  2. Great List. We’re almost 2 years in traveling with our 6 year old. I can’t imagine doing it any other way…

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  3. It was just now that I found out that there is a number of family travel bloggers out there. Here in the Philippines, we have a group called ‘Pinoy Travel Bloggers’, which is composed of solo and duo tandems. I can’t remember having a family travel blog on the list. I’m following some of the blogs you mentioned here. Not only will they share about the destination – i am very much sure they will also remind us some family values :D

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  4. I can only hope that when the time comes for my wife and I to have kids we can live exciting lives like these great families.

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  5. Awesome! Some of my favorite traveling families on this list. They’ve inspired us.

    We’re driving from Alaska to Argentina with 5 kids under 8, in a veggie powered truck.

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  6. Wow! Thanks for featuring us on your list — and glad you like the Asia piece… Travelling as a family is a fantastic adventure, and I recommend it to everyone.

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  7. Such a great group of families defying the norm. Got Passport has been an inspiration since before they left for Thailand (fellow peeps living in Texas) and I just had the wonderful opportunity to volunteer with Lainie and Miro for several weeks in Ecuador. Hope to meet some of the others on the road as well!

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  8. What a fabulous list and I am so happy to see that the trend of long term family travel is growing! We actually began our location independent life in 2005 when we sold our home and almost all of our belongings..but first started traveling with our daughter when she was just 2 weeks old. ;)

    Now having been to 42 countries on 5 continents on just 23 dollars a day, ( in places like Bora Bora, Bhutan, Sydney, Stockholm etc) we have no plans on stopping and think this life rocks!

    One of my passions is letting other families know this is possible even for ordinary families like us, so I appreciate this post and that you included us! You are so right..If there is a will, there is always a way. And many ways to make it work.

    Maya Frost’s family is also a good example of how to do it with 4 teens and give them all a college education with NO debt..she wrote a fab book about it ..global student…for families with teens who think it’s impossible.

    Our child was 5 when we began and is now 10 1/2, so we have a real understanding now how very enriching this is for a school age child and the whole family. She just skipped two grades and is a fluent trilingual/triliterate in Mandarin/Spanish/English so I am convinced that there is no better education in the world for the coming 21st century’s global citizens. We even travel the world with a piano and violin for her …with teachers online on different continents!

    We’re in Barcelona now ( yep motorhoming Europe again this summer) but will be back in Asia for the winter, so hopefully our paths will cross! I didn’t know you were headed to Asia..happy to hear it!

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    • Yes, Asia was calling us and we got a house sit in Japan so we changed our vague plan of heading back to Central America. Sounds like we’ll be there around the same time. Have fun in Europe this summer!

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  9. It’s so encouraging to see these fabulous families on the road – the younger you start travelling, the more normal it seems and the more it becomes an intrinsic part of who you are!

    AND … thanx for the great reads!!

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  10. Great list of amazing families! It is so inspiring to see so many people questioning societies expectations and then marching to their own beat. Bravo!

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  11. Great List! Love see this traveling families living such interesting lives! Thanks for the post guys and such a fabulous website!

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  12. Thanks for including us in the group. It has been the best things we’ve ever done! We’re now coming up on 500 days since we left Australia in January 2010 and I have to occasionally pinch myself to ensure it’s all real.

    We’ve met some amazing families, like AlmostFearless and GotPassport, Travels with a Nine year Old & Soultravelers3 and hope to meet many more before (if ever) it ends :)

    Thanks again…

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  13. We’re traveling to Borneo as a family of five this year and preparing to do a year in SE Asia after that. With three kids under 11 one of my concerns about traveling with 5 is finding taxis that can take 5 when we need them and cheap accommodation. Most family rooms have only 4 beds.

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    • That sounds like a fantastic trip! I’m sure when you are in Asia you’ll go local and squeeze your entire family into a taxi, or even on the back of a moped! It’s a pretty common sight there. And sometimes one of the kids is driving!

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  14. Awesome list! I find it really inspiring to see that it is still possible to travel once you have kids, even full-time.

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    • Although we don’t want to have kids ourselves we wanted to highlight all the people that are travelling as families and inspire others to do it too.

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  15. Nice group of families wandering about in our beautiful world. Thankful to be included. We look forward to seeing you in Chiang Mai later this year. Cheers! :-)

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  16. I love that photo of the GotPassports — they are the cutest family! Thanks for including us, we’re new at the family thing, but so far it’s been great, I think we’ll keep the little guy. :)

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    • It is such a cute photo! We are looking forward to meeting them in Chiang Mai later in the year.

      I love the way that you’ve carried on travelling and don’t seem to have let Cole stop you doing what you want to do.

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  17. Great article! They are inspiring and definitely show that RTW family travel is not only possible, but is a wonderful journey together.

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  18. Thanks so much for a wonderful post! I love reading about traveling families – and actually discovered one I didn’t know through this post!

    Nancy

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    • I’m impressed we found someone you haven’t heard of! Hope things are good back in the US – hopefully we can connect at TBEX this weekend.

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