Worldschooling 101: Homeschool Around the World

Have you ever thought about traveling full-time with your family? If so, then worldschooling might be for you.

In this article, we’ll help you understand what the world schooling experience is all about. You’ll discover…

• Videos about worldschooling.
• Resources for worldschoolers.
• Worldschooling curriculum.
• An interview with a worldschooling mom.
• Information about homeschooling and travelling full time with your kids.

Click here and listen to this HomeSchool ThinkTank Parenting Podcast episode about worldschooling.

The Spelling: Worldschooling vs World Schooling

At HomeSchool ThinkTank, we prefer to spell world schooling as one word, worldschooling. However, both spellings of worldschooling and world schooling are acceptable. As a result, we will sometimes vary the spelling throughout our website.

What is Worldschooling?

As a worldschooling family, international travels and experiential learning are common. In addition, while your family may have a home base in various places, living a nomadic lifestyle for a lengthy amount of time is a cornerstone to being a true worldschooler.

Worldschooling is a lifestyle that does not mesh with traditional schools. If a family says that they are world schoolers, it implies that they are a homeschooling family.

While some worldschool families incorporate traditional curriculum, many worldschoolers take an unschooling approach. Worldschooling families can also encompass different methods of homeschooling into their worldschooling lifestyle.

• Learn more about the differences between roadschooling and homeschooling here.
• Discover more information about the term unschooling here.

Characteristics of a Worldschooling Journey

• Homeschooling while traveling.
• Frequent travel outside of your home country.
• Traveling the whole world or multiple continents.
• Experiential learning.
• Experiencing different cultures.
• Possibly learn a foreign language.
• Traveling to new places.
• Crossing large bodies of water by ship or plane.

HomeSchool ThinkTank’s Definition of Worldschooling

At the time of this writing, the words or phrases worldschool, world school, and world-school aren’t currently found in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary or other dictionaries we checked. This is true regardless of whether we did or did not include -ing at the end of the word.

Since worldschooling isn’t currently included in standard dictionaries, we’ve created our own definition for this word.

Worldschooling is a lifestyle that allows you to travel to many countries of the world, experience different cultures, and educate your children as a homeschooling family.

World Travel + Experiential Education

While it’s assumed that worldschoolers homeschool their kids, education is about far more than textbooks and online learning programs.

As a worldschooler, education includes travel to foreign countries and is about experiencing new cultures, new places, and different ways of living.

Worldschooling is truly a unique approach to homeschooling that can incorporate other styles or types of homeschooling.

For example, you could intermingle a classical method of education and worldschooling into your homeschool plan.

While you have choices about how to approach your child’s education, worldschooling parents recognize that textbook learning and watching videos cannot possibly compare with experiencing another environment or culture. As a result, worldschoolers go to great lengths to ensure that their children have a wide variety of educational and cultural experiences throughout their school-age years.

Video: What is World Schooling?

World Schooling Curriculum

As a worldschooling family, your children’s education will be full of real-world learning opportunities.

Homeschooling parents may choose to use a curriculum, or you might create your own educational plan. For example, you may choose to follow a traditional math curriculum while worldschooling. However, you can also use other approaches to homeschooling.

One example of integrating curriculum into your worldschooling lifestyle would be to purchase a curriculum like the Nomadic Professor. You could actually do social studies on the road. Go to the locations they teach about and experience the lessons firsthand.

Another example is to simply experience and learn more about the places you naturally visit. When you take a unit studies approach, you can integrate a variety of subjects into nearly any topic.

Benefits of Worldschooling

There are many benefits to educating your children while traveling throughout the world. This list will help you imagine the possibilities that worldschooling offers.

• Compassion for humanity.
• Patience with yourself and others.
• Overcoming fear of the unknown, like new places, people, and experiences.
• Learning through experiences.
• A better understanding of people.
• Exposure to new languages.
• Navigational skills.
• Understanding of geography and climates.
• Increased knowledge of animals.
• Access to museums around the world.
• Frequent field trips.
• Experiencing different living situations.
• Tasting different cuisine and understanding how people eat and where their food comes from.
• Exposure to various occupations and ways of living.
• Getting out of your comfort zone.
• Understanding of different governments and how those governments impact people.
• Learning how education or schooling looks in different countries.
• The mindset shift that comes with separating schooling from education and learning.
• As a worldschooler, you’ll have more experiences to draw from when creating.
• Confidence to be yourself, pursue your own interests, explore, and try interesting things.
• Self-growth from challenges, problem-solving, and experiences that come from worldschooling.

Any worldschooler who has a love of travel could add many more benefits to this list. Share your thoughts in the comments below!

Interview with a Worldschooling Family: Sarah R. Moore

We interviewed a former worldschooling mom, Sarah R. Moore.

At the time of our interview, the COVID Pandemic had recently brought their worldschooling lifestyle to a standstill.

While some worldschooling families continued their travels during the pandemic, Sarah’s family felt best settling into a community. Since our interview, Sarah and her husband have chosen to settle down and buy a home.

Before the pandemic, Sarah and her husband took several years to worldschool and travel with their young daughter. If worldschooling interests you, you’ll enjoy our interview with Sarah R. Moore.

• Listen to this podcast interview with a worldschooling mom on the HomeSchool ThinkTank Parenting Podcast.

A Homeschooling Mom’s Definition of Worldschooling

Sarah says, “Worldschooling, in a nutshell, is just homeschooling on the road.”

“We all know that we [homeschoolers] have chosen not to be part of a brick and mortar community.

We might have it [community] through co-ops or certain activities that we choose, but generally speaking, we are homeschooling where it works for us. Usually that place is home, wherever home is for you.

But… one of the things that we learned very early on is that home does not always have to be in the same place.

You take the child with you wherever you are, you can take the concepts with you. You know, math is math whether it’s in Colorado, USA or the South of France. It’s still math.

Living Lessons Through Worldschooling with Sarah Moore

So, you can explore the world.

You can live the lessons that you are trying to impart upon your children, and what better way to integrate these lessons than by saying, ‘Well, let’s see, today we are studying Greek mythology, why don’t we go to Greece and look at the ruins, and read the stories, and study the stuff while we are immersed in it.’

And for what it’s worth, I haven’t been to Greece yet, but it’s on our list.”

Sarah R. Moore, Former Worldschooling Mom

Sarah R Moore on Traveling & Worldschooling

“Now you can do whatever you want.

You can drive an hour down the road and go check out some other historical site and that way when you go home and you read the book about it, or you do the assignment around it, it is a life memory for the child that really helps them internalize in a beautiful way whatever it is they’re experiencing through the life that they are actively living with you above and beyond what they are reading about on a page.”

Sarah R. Moore, Former Worldschooling Mom

World Schooling Books

If you want a deeper look into the worldschooling movement, the best way to do so is by learning from other worldschoolers and their experiences. These books have good reviews.

• Born to Travel: Wanderlust Families that Collect Passport Stamps Instead of Toys by Sara Tyler , Kara S. McWest , et al.
• The Year We Ruined Our Lives: A Family Road Trip Through Mexico and Central America by Paul Carlino and Mila Villasana 
• World Schooling: How to Revolutionize Your Child’s Education Through Travel by Ashley Dymock de Tello and Brenda and Gawin Brave

Books About Worldschooling

• And Off They Went: One family’s journey around the world by Janet Revell
• Exit Normal: How We Escaped With Our Family and Changed Our Life by Domini Hedderman
• Rainbows on My Toes: From Ireland to Portugal with 3 Children by Indra Roelants
• The World Is Our Classroom: Extreme Parenting and the Rise of Worldschooling (Critical Perspectives on Youth) by Jennie Germann Molz

TEDx Video About Unschooling & Worldschooling

In this video with single mother Lainie Liberti and her son, Miro Siegel, you’ll learn how an unschooling approach to learning can be combined with worldschooling.

While the video comments make it clear that some people strongly disagree with this approach (and their hats), we’d encourage you to listen to their words and note how well this young man articulates his experiences.

Consider the Differences between Schooling, Education, and Learning

During their TEDx Talk, Lainie Liberti veers away from talking about education (as it is known in the public school system) and focuses on lifelong learning.

See these articles, videos, and podcast episodes for more information about schooling, education, and learning.

• School vs Education.
• A Study of What it Means to Learn.
• What Do You Believe About Education?

Project World School

If you’re a homeschooling family, tween, teen, or young adult who loves to travel, then you’ll want to know about this worldschooling community. Lainie Liberti and her son Miro Siegel co-founded Project World School. They host an online community for teens and organize temporary learning communities around the world. This is an excellent way to have a deeper travel experience and make new friends who share a similar educational philosophy.

More Resources for Worldschoolers: Books About Traveling

• A Beginner’s Guide to Traveling The World: Stories and Tips for the Travel Curious by Mandy Litton
• Destinations of a Lifetime: 225 of the World’s Most Amazing Places by National Geographic
• How to Travel the World on $50 a Day: Travel Cheaper, Longer, Smarter by Matt Kepnes
• The Bucket List: 1000 Adventures Big & Small by Kath Stathers
• Wanderlust: A Traveler’s Guide to the Globe by Moon Travel Guides

Learn About the World Through Reading

For travelers and non-travelers alike, you might like this book about books.

• Give Your Child the World: Raising Globally Minded Kids One Book at a Time by Jamie C. Martin

Helpful Resources for Homeschoolers

• Math Curriculum for Your Kids
• Learn Different Languages.
• Positive Parenting
• Minimalism & Homeschooling.
• Different Styles of Homeschooling: Classical Education, Unit Studies, Unschooling, and more.

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