What do you do with the kids???

[Dakota]

I travelled a lot when I was younger which I loved, then I got married and did the kid thing, which I also loved and still am. But recently I've been getting itchy feet (maybe it has something to do with my impending 40th).

Our kids are 12 and 14 so our RTW trip will at minimum be 10 years in the planning and in the meantime we enjoy much shorter trips. For the first time in our lives together, my husband and I have both got bikes (we always shared one before). We joke that most couples have matching riding gear, but ours are completely different - it's our bikes that are matching!!

So my question is really for those people who go on extended trips. Do you have kids, are they grown up and left home, or do you take them with you? Our son (14) would benefit so much more from the 'university of life' but our daughter (12 going on 20) has always flourished in educational establishments and has aspirations of being a lawyer so taking her out of school wouldn't be the right thing to do and we wouldn't consider/couldn't afford boarding school.

We would like nothing more than to sell up, pack up and never look back, but for now it's a distant dream.

[Chris D (Newcastle NSW)]

Alison,
When our girls were 9 and 11 we took a year to travel with them. We did travel by vehicle though, not motor cycle..... The Education Department in NSW has a correspondence unit to cater for kids in hospital, living overseas, outback or travelling. It worked well for us and they haven't looked back. Maybe you have a similar facility where you live.

We could only afford to travel for a year but, keeping up with a formal educational they came back into the system when the time was right, seems this is one way to go. Our elder daughter in now finished university and a school teacher herself and our younger daughter is a fashion designer working in Milan, so it seems the time out did not harm them and their future work life. They have both done other interesting things like teaching English in China for a year etc. I am sure the travel opened their eyes to the possibilities the world has to offer.

My wife and I are now fifteen years on since our year of travel and working hard on the next major travel plans, overland Europe to Far East of Russia.

Hope you can see your way clear to taking them with you, you won't regret the effort.

Chris

[Dakota]

Thanks for that Chris.

We currently have a Landy 110 which a few years ago we thought was the way to go, but I guess biking is in our blood and we spend far more time on our bikes that we do in the Landy which is sadly languishing in a garage hardly ever seeing the light of day now.

The education system in Spain is sadly lacking and a correspondence course is not an option - 'home schooling' would be the only way to go. Our daughter is very bright and at 12 she has surpassed us in just about every academic subject - she teaches me mathematical equations in 2 languages.

I think they have just reached the 'wrong' age and all we can do is wait until they have completed their education then the world is our oyster.

[Riq]

A few years back my wife and I loaded our 2 son's, aged 14 and 15 at the time, into our Ford Aerostar and headed south from Canada. The deal was if the boys kept on top of their correspondance courses we would stay on the road up to a year before returning.

Some three months later while in Costa Rica it became apparent that the correspondence was not going to happen and we made a hasty return to Canada so the boys could enroll back into public school for the next semester.

The boys both managed to pick up the missed courses over the next couple of years and graduated on their original scheduled dates.

The education they received while traveling was well worth the trip unto itself. Both of my sons travel frequently now and both say they are more confident than they would be if they had not been exposed to the cross border shenanigans and other cultures at the younger age.

Ultimately it comes down to what you feel comfortable with. If you are not comfortable with the arrangements the children will know it and the whole thing will not work.

And just remeber that later is okay as long as it's not too much later.

Rick

[trevor daly]

hey dakota,i am very happy to hear i,m not the only one who dreams of selling everything and hitting the road.but like you i question what to do with the kids,i question my self would i be a good father to take my daughter out of school and travel rtw.for the past few years we have traveled by car across the u.s.and 2 years ago we drove from miami to mexico.my daughter was only 4 at the time but she still remembers the border crossing.she enjoyed the trip as much as we did.we also kept her involved in all the planing and marking the route on the map.she had a great time and loves to travel.my wife is very suppportive and also loves to travel,so i taught her to ride a motorcycle with hopes of buying an additional bike so that i could ride 2 up with my daughter and she could ride solo.i fantisized for years on how i was going to do it and still do.so i figured i'll wait until my daughter is 10 years old and then go for it.my daughter is now 6 but now we have had a lovely addition to our family,the birth of my son now 3 months old,so i guess for now the trip will be on hold for a few more years.i was recently at a motorcycle show and i think i figured out on how i could do it with all of us fairly comfortably when i saw the ural display. 2 wheel drive motorcycle with side car.so now our goal is to eventually purchase 2 urals and go.but for now i guess we will stick to traveling when ever we can by car which is not that bad but my heart is on 2 or 3 wheels..i would say to you if your kids are older and like to travel go for it.here in the u.s. a lot of parents home school their kids.they have home school packages that you buy to keep the kids at the grade level
then take tests each quarter.to me that would be the best way to do it.i don't know how they do it in spain but you may want to look into something like that.i've met several families that home school there kids and each child
that i have seen were very smart and actually more advanced then kids of the same age in school,so it proves to be very positive.now i think when you add the experence of traveling to different places and being around different cultures your children will be on top of anything a school can teach in a classroom.that's just how i feel on the topic and i to hope to do it in the future.so good luck and let us know how it goes....take care.....

[Dakota]

Thanks for the suggestions guys.

If the kids were younger, or older, I think it would be possible to travel but they are just at that 'wrong age'. I know in my heart of hearts that we couldn't stick to a correspondence course because we'd all be having too much of a good time to do school work. Besides which, there just aren't any programmes like that in Spain.

The only options we have for the forseeable future is to take longer trips during the summer holidays - the kids get 3 months off between June and September. But then my hubby can't take 3 months off work, so we're stuck between a rock and a hard place for the time being.

In the meantime I'll just carry on reading about other peoples adventures and carry on dreaming about ours.