Family Gap Year Post #2: The Planning Begins

Sometimes I fall madly in love with an idea but then wake up the next day with a “What was I thinking?” feeling. I’ll be honest and say there’s a little of that when it comes to the idea of a Family Gap Year. But the more we keep talking about it, the more excited I get.

I’m still trying to figure out whether it would be possible with my work. It will depend on what the priorities are for my role next year and whether those can be accomplished via video conference.

In the meantime, I’m moving forward with planning. If we can make this trip happen, you know I will need to have a plan in place!

Family Gap Year Spreadsheet

Step one was to start with the general outline of our trip. What kind of trip would we want to have? Go live abroad for a full year? Put the children in school? Live like locals? Travel to a different place every week? Plan the whole thing in advance or plan as we go?

I started doing some internet research and came upon these sites for inspiration:

• Somewhere Slower
• The Bucket List Family
• The Family Voyage
• No Back Home
• World Travel Family
• How to Plan a Family Gap Year

Other people make it sound not so scary!

If we can make this work, I think we would want to visit 12 different countries in 12 months, settling into a place for a full month before moving on to the next destination. I think this aligns with our general approach: we are homebodies who like to have a home base, but we are also adventurous and look forward to seeing and doing new things. I think the hybrid would work nicely.

P.S. Are we really thinking about doing this?!?