The World is our Oyster...or Classroom

Neither Emily nor I had ever visited Disney when we were kids. When we went to Siesta Key for our honeymoon, we decided to take a one-day trip up to the Magic Kingdom. In hindsight, this may have been the start of a bit of a Disney travel addiction for Emily. 

Over the years, we’ve taken quite a few family vacations to the Orlando area and have visited the parks a number of times. Emily has developed lots of knowledge and expertise in Disney park travel and has even helped us navigate these trips on a budget. 

Starting during COVID, Emily decided to put all that knowledge to even more productive use by becoming a Disney Travel Advisor and helping others plan the family vacation of their dreams. 

Over the past few years, we'd said that when we ever leave White's, we would work remotely and go rent in Florida for a year, since we love vacationing there so much. 

However, while we have thoroughly enjoyed all of the Florida vacations that we’ve been able to take over the years, we’ve also been longing to broaden our horizons and visit other beautiful and exciting locations - national parks, international destinations, US landmarks, etc. 

So by the time we were actually faced with the reality of moving from our home that was provided by my work, our idea had evolved into the idea of traveling and seeing more of the U.S. (and eventually the world) instead of settling down in any location just yet.

It just so happened that at just the right times, we’d been exposed to certain influences that helped to shape our ideas and visions. 

One of these ideas was the concept of “World Schooling.” We started listening to a podcast by a world school family, Greg and Rachel Denning, who shared that over the past 17 years as a homeschool family, they’d visited or lived in over 55 countries. The idea of world schooling is essentially that travel experiences and interactions with people across regions, cultures, and nations become learning opportunities, i.e., your classroom. 

At about the same time, Emily also found what is essentially a travel itinerary taking you across the lower 48 United States in one contiguous journey, created by writer Tracy Staedter and data specialist Dr. Randal S. Olson. The route is connected by one point of interest in each of the states: either a national park, historic site, national landmark, or national monument. 

Since we had recently become fully prepared to embrace a mobile work and lifestyle, we decided to explore this as a possibility. 

For us, it didn’t seem as necessary to visit them in one actual continuous journey, but rather to start breaking the country up into sections and crossing the landmarks off of our list one state at a time. 

So, this fall we are starting with the New England states! We figured if you’re going to travel the entire continental US, it makes sense to visit the regions during their unique peak season! As of this writing, we are currently in Virginia and then will be heading to Washington, DC before making our way up the Eastern seaboard!

We plan to remain in New England through at least October and then spend the winter holidays in our hometown in Indiana. Stay tuned to our family website to keep up-to-date on where our travels take us from there!

P.S. 

When we tell people about our current travel lifestyle, the natural first question is..."Do you have an RV?"

No, we don't....yet.

We've got our eyes on an adventure van, but for now, we're doing a combination of hotels, Airbnb's, and housesitting to make this kind of continuous travel work for us. 

Through our blog and videos we'll get to share a little bit more about those arrangements and the types of places we visit. You can see some of the videos we’ve begun posting our social media channels linked on our website.