Round the World

Practicalities Types of Holiday Round the World The Practicalities 

Where to Go

You will know how long you have and need to plan accordingly.

The key, especially with children, is to make sure you don't try to cover too much. If you are taking 12 months to go around the world it would be best to tackle no more than 12 destinations and even better just six. If you only have six weeks you could think about squeezing in four but less might be more pleasurable.

You will know how adaptable your children are but many like to build up some degree of familiarity with where they are staying.

There are two ways of tackling this - buying or renting a motorhome, so at least where they sleep is familiar, or by making sure that every stop is for at least two or three nights, or preferably more.

Health

This is a key issue and worth thinking about very carefully in making your choice of destination. The more ‘interesting' the option, the more likely it is to involve health problems.

When to Go

Weather is the key to this though school demands may also play a part. It may be possible to work with rather than against these.

Schooling

If your children are old enough to be at school and you will be travelling during school terms you will probably have to discuss the issue of teaching while on the move with your school.

Schools which pride themselves on their academic results, (this seems to be a particular problem with private schools where results impact in effect on earnings from fees), may be extremely unwilling to agree to your child's absence for any significant time. This appears to be a particular problem in the first couple of years when children are being taught to read and write.

One of the best ideas adopted by some families on the road is not just to follow the curriculum at home but to use the places they are visiting as material for study.

One family is reported to have agreed to send a weekly project back to the school, and the child's class then used this as material for a weekly lesson. This clearly is an incentive for all concerned to make the sure the work is as good as possible.

More specifically you could improve your child's language skills. This is most obviously the case if visiting a country like France but even somewhere like China or Thailand children playing with locals can gain the idea that different parts of the world have different names for things and learn the confidence to use even just a few of those names to communicate. [Language and Holidays - report due spring 2001]

Getting There

If you are seriously thinking of travelling all the way round the world, a round the world ticket is probably going to be the best value and most convenient way of doing this. See the Round the World report.