How to Take Your Kids Overseas For a Family ‘Study Abroad’
Katharine Gammon ’03 took five months and two kids to explore the world. This is what she found.
Like many millennial parents, my husband and I were itching to find a way to expose our kids to the broader world. Last year, we took that leap: We unenrolled our second and fourth graders from their public school in Santa Monica, California, and hit the road.
We had looked at placing the kids in an international school in Europe, but many of the schools wanted a year’s commitment. Through a friend, we heard about Boundless Life, a program that drops families into cities to “live like a local” for three months — the maximum time Americans are allowed in the EU without a visa — and includes school, a coworking hub, and community experiences. We signed up to do a program in Italy, with the hopes that we could use it as a jumping-off point to explore the rest of Europe. We extended our trip by living in Bali for a month before Europe.
We lived in Pistoia, a small Tuscan town just outside Florence. My fourth grader had staunchly resisted leaving home, but as soon as we arrived and he went to one day at Boundless’ education center, he admitted, “Mom, I was wrong. This place was awesome.”
It was a new experience for all of us. Since we worked U.S. hours, we could explore in the morning — sometimes we’d play padel (a racquet game, somewhere between squash and pickleball) or take the train to another town to explore. When the kids tumbled out of school around 3 p.m., we would wander the piazzas and eat gelato on the way back to our apartment. They had school field trips every other Friday, which included an art scavenger hunt in Florence, and a visit to the tiny mountain town of Vinci (where Leonardo was born). My husband and I sometimes scrambled to work the evening hours, which coincided with dinner and social time — but the tradeoff was worth it.
Boundless organizes community gatherings as well — one parents-only night floating on the Arno River brought a majestic rainbow sunset over the Ponte Vecchio, while another day was a visit to a local agriturismo for local cheese and olive oil tasting.
The other worldschoolers were a mix of digital nomads and people like us, dipping their toes into living abroad with kids. Between morning coffees, thrilling downhill bike rides, and Aperol spritzes at the playground, many of us became instant friends. The idea of slow travel — staying in one place and really soaking up the local style of life — brought us together.
Boundless started in 2020, when co-founders Rekha Magon and Mauro Repacci saw the need for a different type of schooling during the pandemic. By 2022, they had gathered 15 families and were setting up apartments and an education center. Both Magon and Repacci are still living on the road with their families — moving every three months. Boundless now has programs in Sintra, Greece; Bali, Indonesia; Kotor, Montenegro; Syros, Greece; Estepona, Spain; and La Barra, Uruguay and Kamakura, Japan. Its education centers take kids from age 1 to 14, but some families come with older or younger kids and find other ways to keep them busy. The education center teaches in English — there are always language classes and cultural immersion opportunities in the local languages.
During our three months in Pistoia we were able to take advantage of trains and short-hop flights around Europe to extend the history the kids were living in at our medieval, walled town. In Paris and London, we saw the artistic elements that were fed by the Renaissance in Italy. We spent a weekend in Istanbul, discussing how that city was the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire. Having a home base — and a structure — allowed us to connect the dots in a meaningful way, instead of rushing through a European holiday. At the end of our trip, my kids cried as they bid arrivederci to the local gelato shop, whose sweet purveyor had learned their orders. Not only did we leave with a sense of local culture and a love for la dolce vita, we also gained a real chance to connect as a family – and spend time exploring slowly together. As we re-entered our sweet, hurried life in California, I wistfully held onto the memories we made strolling slowly through piazzas, eating far too much gelato, and discovering our own family sense of adventure.
There are other options for scheming to go abroad with kids. We have friends who have done soccer summer camps in the U.K., gathering a few friends to share the experience, and others who have sent their kids to sailing camp in France. Boundless offers one-month summer programs, which are more like camp. We are already dreaming of going to Greece and learning about history on our next foray. Now back in our home in California, the kids talk about Michaelangelo and Italian history as easily as Minecraft.
No responses yet