World Schooling in a Teardrop

What if you could work when, where, and how you want? What if you and your kids could learn side by side, free of walls and standards and test scores?  That is the essence of world schooling.

Maybe you’ve been staying up late at night reading articles about road tripping, listening to podcasts on working remotely, or peeking at family adventure blogs. Perhaps an unexpected layoff has served up the gift of time, or stories of full-time traveling families have you filled with desire.

Maybe your experience with virtual work and remote school opened a window, and now your travel fantasies are pouring in with the morning light. Can you actually pull up stakes and hit the road with your family for longer than the usual two-week stint? Of course you can! And you would not be alone!

Anywhere Families

Family travel is one of the fastest-growing segments of the travel industry. We all became familiar with remote work and virtual school through the pandemic, and whether you think of it as a silver lining or living in the slipstream of Covid, there’s a trail of adventurers choosing long-term travel.

This growing generation of “anywhere families” is spawning massive expansion in lodging and camping options, destinations and attractions, digital nomad working hubs, and opportunities for educating your kids while traveling, otherwise known as worldschooling.

What is Worldschooling?

One of the limitations of classroom learning is that we tend to learn about people, places and things.

With worldschooling, we begin to learn from the world. It’s an exchange. Learners experience the changes in humidity and daylight and they feel the change in latitude. They engage with the nooks and crannies, and the moths and moon phases. And they create their own opinions based on direct experiences rather than simply repeating what they hear from others or fill in on a worksheet.

You can’t fake a personal interaction. And you can’t ignore the wind or darkness or rain. Living so close to nature impels you to solve problems, to align your cadence with the natural world. This synchronicity is gorgeous and deeply educational for our children.

Worldschooling from a Teardrop Trailer

Colorado Teardrops are the perfect vessel for worldschooling adventures. They are so well suited given their durability, quality construction, versatility and affordability. Teardrops are also amazing for their light ecological footprint, excellent for the planet and excellent for worldschooling “lessons.”

Try measuring how much water you use each day. Or the relative carbon footprint of a 3000 square foot home versus a 48 foot RV with a gas-powered generator versus a Colorado Teardrop Mt. Massive four-person camper. Colorado Teardrops put families RIGHT IN IT. Families become part of the natural world, surrounded by learning opportunities.

Worldschooling can be:

• Learning to tap a maple tree in Vermont
• Visiting Civil War sites in Virginia to understand the legacies of those who battled
• Sourcing ingredients and learning to cook shrimp and grits with a campground host in the Carolinas
• Taking the Junior Ranger pledge after completing educational activities at Dinosaur National Monument
• Visiting the bridge on the Cape May-Lewes ferry from New Jersey to Delaware to learn about navigation equipment
• Collecting river water in your neighborhood and looking at it under a microscope at your kitchen table
• Calculating fuel efficiency at different elevations or on different types of terrain
• Visiting with a Ski Patrol team in Colorado to learn how dogs become avalanche rescuers
• Talking with your campground neighbor about what life was like when she was a kid
• Listening to an audiobook about the ancient Chacoans while driving 13 miles of dirt road on the way to Chaco Culture National Historical Park (don’t worry, your Teardrop can handle it!)
• Drawing a picture and naming the phase of the moon every night for a month from your campsites

Traveling in a Teardrop maximizes the surface area between families and the world, creating new worldschooling opportunities every day.

Over the past couple of decades, worldschooling has gained traction. Sometimes people call it roadschooling. Others refer to it as unschooling. Whatever your terminology, worldschooling is not something you sign up for. There’s no one to register with, no dogma or governing institution. There are many resources to help you design what worldschooling could look like for your family.

New Book on Worldschooling

There are many resources to help you design what worldschooling could look like for your family, and a great starting point is the forthcoming book, Wonder Year: A Guide to Long-Term Family Travel and Worldschooling. CLICK HERE to order a copy and use promo code TEARDROP for 20% off. You can also submit your order number HERE to get a free “Epic Adventure Starter Kit” from the authors–including an essential packing checklist, an uplifting playlist for the road, worldschooling journal prompts, and more!

Whether you take a gap year or sabbatical, a month over the summer or two weeks every winter, we hope you can get into motion with your family and begin your worldschooling adventure – embracing a lifestyle of growth and discovery as a family.