Family Gap Year Post #5: Getting into the Weeds

I’m still waiting for things to get into a steady and strong place at school. We are hiring a new principal for the 2020-21 school year. However, I am moving forward with planning a Family Gap Year. My hope is we can hire a really strong principal and feel like the school is in a strong place. Then I will make a formal request to the Board of Directors to allow me to work remotely for one year, starting in June. (I’m the Executive Director, not the Principal.)

With all the locations planned, I need to secure an AirBnB in each place. We know we want to settle into a house or an apartment. Our family does better when we can fully unpack and settle in. We would mainly be staying a full month in a place. One month stays would would enable us to take advantage of many AirBnbs that offer a 20% discount if you stay for a month. There are a couple places where we would be staying in smaller increments. For example, in Italy we would do two weeks in a rural area and two weeks in an urban area.

We will each travel with a single carry-on and a backpack. We’ll be chasing the summer around the world, so we won’t need too many clothes. However, we will need easy and steady access to a washing machine. That way, we can thinking about packing for a week instead of a year.

Having only carry-ons will help us save a ton of money on flights. We will use a lot of budget airlines around Europe, for example, and there is frequently a huge savings if you have a carry-on instead of a bag that needs to be checked. I think it will also help traveling feel easier as we are loading in and out of transportation, and the kids will be able to take responsibility for their own stuff (except when they are melting down).

A reader just emailed me about a “borderless bank account.” I have never heard of such a thing! There are so many things to learn as we prepare for this adventure.

I also learned that when we use a credit card overseas, we should reject any offers to “see the total in USD.” We should also be sure to get a credit card that doesn’t have foreign transaction fees.

There is a lot of different information to juggle and things to pay attention to! When I start to get overwhelmed by stuff like this, I just remind myself: One task at a time.