Travelling / year out with kids

[little h]

Hello

Has anyone got any exerience of taking a year out with kids? It looks like I might lose my job, and my husband has a chance to take voluntary redundancy. We're wondering whether to rent our house out and go abroad travelling and/ or working for 6 months or a year. Our kids are 4 and 2, so seems like a good opportunity, although not sure what would happen with school - b is due to start this sept. anyone done this ? If so any advice or suggestions for good places that worked with kids. Could be a great experience and adventure!

Thanks

H

[alieh]

That sounds amazing! We have been tempted by this too but the timing hasn't worked out and I got a bit twisted into knots with the school situation. You can't defer a school place, that much I know. So you would have to be prepared to take whatever school in the borough might have places in Year 1 on your return and go on a waiting list for your nearest school I think.

The only other consideration is whether you would have enough money to get by even if you can't find work - if not, it might be quite an added stress to try to secure paid work for such a short time.

Go for it I say!

[snowboarder]

I think - depending on when B's birthday is - you can defer school entry till January? Would give you 6m without losing school place - sounds amazing!!

[Renata Hamvas]

Depending on when your child's birth is, if their birthday is January or later, you could defer the school place until Summer term (ie April 2014).

Renata

[alieh]

Interesting! I knew you could defer until January but didn't realise for later birthdays you could delay until April. Hope that gives you the reassurance to go for it Little h!

[canela]

sounds like an amazing opportunity. where are you thinking of going? we haven't done this, but we did do a 3 month stint to visit family in australia and asia with a 2 year old, and then another 3 month stint in south america with 3 year old. only thing i would recommend is that you don't overdo the actual "travelling" bit - depending on the child of course. We found it easier to go to one place and stay for a long while rather than be constantly on the move.

[little h]

hello all

Interesting... We've not given any thought to this other than, wouldn't this be a fab thing to do whilst we can . I had no idea we could defer our school place, so thanks for that little gem Renata. It would be a great thing to do :-)

Hx

[bee74]

little h

what a great idea.

i've been thinking of doing the same before my son starts school this year. again, we can defer till jan (dec baby) but that's it. i was thinking that if we came back and he didn't get into the nearest or chosen school, then maybe i could home school him for a while till he is given a place - not sure about the feasability of this option tho

i have two kids and the youngest doesn't sleep well so that has put me off so far, but she is improving and now i might actually do it to also coincide with moving out of london (if house search succeeds!)

i would most likely be on my own with the children as my partner is not so keen, but that doesn't put me off. i took my son to india when he had just turned one and we had an amzing month there and then again we spent 3 months in kenya just before he turned 2 - i did some volunterring there and he was always with me.

if you let your house, then you can live from the rent. and don't need to worry about paid work.

anyway, best of luck.

b

[little h]

thanks for this b, my eldest son's birthday is jan 6 so we could in theory have until april...

h

[Anna M]

At the end of my maternity leave, we took a 9 month old and 3 year old for six weeks to Kerala, in India. We rented a house for 4 weeks with a housekeeper (who did laundry, breakfast, other meals if we bought the ingredients and asked her to, and tidying/cleaning) and a manager (who visited several times a day and nipped out for eggs, the paper, beer, and booked taxis or trips for us). For two weeks we travelled around with our own lovely driver and a funky old Ambassador car, which he filled with incense every morning and hung fresh flowers inside. I thought we were being very brave but when we were there, I realised it was much easier than I'd imagined. We had a great, great time. I would hesitate to take such young ones to other areas in India, having travelled there myself when young free and single, but Kerala was unhassley and very clean. Employing people to help is very cheap there, so you can live quite well and feel quite supported, if you see what I mean.

Also my friend went for a couple of months with a 5 month old and a two-year old to Thailand. They rented a house too and stayed put (while looking for jobs on that side of the world). They rented out their flat here which paid for their accommodation and their nanny there. At the time, her hubby was out of work and she had unpaid maternity leave past 3 months, so it was a brave lets-put-ourselves-out-there thing to do, I thought. Even with the nanny!! Days on the beach with their little girl, who had a daily routine of poking a stick in a hole to see the crabs pop out, and watching the elephants go for baths in the sea... Thailand's lovely with kids I think.

Just some ideas. Go for it!!!

[little h]

wow that all sounds amazing - would you mind passing on the details of where you stayed? Please pm me...

We've never done anything other than 2-3 week holidays, actually haven't managed 2 weeks anywhere for a few years, so this would be a real adventure for us... :-)

H

[damzel]

Do it! As soon as you get stuck in the school system, you are stuck. I didn't really appreciate how free we were prior to school and wish we had done something similar. Now it feels like we won't get any decent opportunity for adventure for 10+ years. Reception is a lot about learning social skills and your kids will learn that in spades when you're travelling.

[canela]

i would second recommendation for thailand - is lovely with kids.

however i have to say the best place i've ever gone with kids is rural Spain. obviously it's not such an adventure for the parents maybe, but southern spain is amazing and sooooo child oriented. think really depends on the heat - as i'm not great in it so Asia was amazing but sweaty. having said that - we are planning a trip to Malaysia in next few years to take advantage of an old uncle who lives there!

my son - who had been to the 5 continents by the time he was 5 - asks me every morning when we can catch a plane and go on an adventure again. but my daughter likes nothing more than to potter at home. kids are different too.

sounds like an amazing thing to do - keep us posted!

[little h]

I have absolutely no idea where/how we'd start planning this - but it would be great if we could pull it off!

H

[esme]

Sounds very exciting - go for it! Very jealous :)

[TimN]

Hi Anna really interested in doing something similar in Kerels or Goa

Sent you a Pm just interested in who you used and or where you stayed?

Many thanks

Tim N

[WorkingMummy]

This is a very interesting thread for me as I currently have an opportunity to take a contract that would relocate me and my family to the other side of the world for about 4 months.

I have a colleague who took a 9 month sabbatical in which he and his wife and four children went travelling around Europe, focusing on Italy and the Med. At the time, his eldest two (twins) were in the last year of primary but had already secured a place where they wanted to be at 11+. His younger two were 8 and 7. They took some home schooling study aids and some material provided by the children's primary school. It was a great success and did not hold the children back academically - quite the opposite.

I think it's a wonderful thing to do.

But I'm not going to do it. I'm going to say no to the contract and here is why.

My eldest starts school in September and it would interfere with that. But over and above that, I think that at the ages of my older two (4 and 2-and-a-half) my children have a real sense of place and connection with their community, and friends and wider family, which moving far away for an extended period would disrupt. I think they are old enough to miss their lives here very badly. And let's face it, what is there about travelling that is all that fabulous to a toddler or a 4 year old? They would not have playgroups and story-times where I would be placed. And I do not believe that they are old enough to benefit very much from the "Experience" (different culture, language, way of life etc).

I know someone who went abroad at around this stage in her children's life and she said they spent the whole time trying to turn their temporary home into a place that felt like home to her tiny children, and/or replicating the activities that we all take for granted in London, and ultimately failing.

So it is interesting that some people are saying to you that this is the perfect time to do it and that you cannot do it when your kids are older. I kind of think the opposite. If I only had my baby (who is 1 next week), I'd do it. If my children were all 5 or 6 years older, I'd think more seriously about doing it. But at this age, no. Personally I wouldn't (and won't).

[canela]

I think it depends a lot on the kids and the place you go to. We spent 3 great months in Latin America with 3 year old and he loved it - beach, swimming pools, jungle, tho i suppose we stayed with family, he didn't know them before but obviously got a lot of attention.

interesting thread for me as i would like to go back for a year at some point to spend more time with family there. am trying to work out which might be the best and am thinking that it would be the last year of primary? or maybe year 5 so as to get friends to move on to secondary together with? we would stay put in one place and the kids would go to british school.