February 18, 2026 • 20 mins
Show Notes: Worldschooling Q&A – Episode 22
Worldschooling Podcast Episode Title: Episode 22: How Can I Find Affordable Lodging For Worldschooling?
Hosts: Astrid & Clint, creators of The Wandering Daughter
In this episode of Worldschooling Q&A, Astrid and Clint answer a question nearly every traveling family asks: how can we find affordable accommodations while worldschooling?
Drawing from years of full-time travel experience, they explore practical strategies like staying outside major cities, slowing down travel to secure monthly discounts, and using alternatives such as house sitting, home exchange, hostels, and even repositioning cruises. They also discuss the importance of flexibility and choosing lodging options that align with your family’s values and comfort level.
Whether you’re planning a short-term adventure or long-term worldschooling journey, this episode offers realistic, budget-friendly ideas you can use right away.
For affordable lodging options, check out these platforms:
Trusted Housesitters - https://www.trustedhousesitters.com/refer/RAF132632/?utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=refer-a-friend&utm_campaign=refer-a-friend
Home Exchange - https://www.homeexchange.com/?sponsorkey=astrid-c3760
Booking - https://booking.stay22.com/thewanderingdaughter/egaw2zK2fQ
VRBO - https://vrbo.stay22.com/thewanderingdaughter/vpMXr-EvD3
🎧 Ready to dive in?
👉 For full show notes from our worldshcooling podcast, resource links, and a complete episode guide, visit: https://thewanderingdaughter.com/episode-22-lodging-for-worldschooling/
Listen
Watch
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I think that you still get a meal,
but maybe not the entertainment orthe shopping or the whole cruise
package, but you get to stayon a boat and travel for
10, 15 days or something like that.
This is world Schooling q and a. I'mAstrid, creator of the wandering daughter.
(00:21):
As a traveling family,
we've spent four years travelingfull-time to over 18 countries and six
continents. Wherever we go,
we try to learn as much as we can aboutthe countries and cultures we visit.
While we didn't coin the term, welike to call this world schooling,
using the world as our classroom.
Each week my husband Clint and I willanswer one question about world schooling
(00:44):
and share our experiences of travelingthe world with our kids ready to get
started? Great. Let's dive in.
So for today's question we're answeringhow can I find affordable accommodations
(01:05):
while world schooling?
Yeah,
so in a previous episode we talked aboutusing Airbnb as our kind of primary.
We have finding accommodations.
We.
Had some tips in there abouthow to find affordable Airbnbs.
I think this one we justwant to dive in more into
how do we find affordable accommodationsin general beyond the Airbnb stuff we
talked about.
(01:25):
Yeah, because lodging ends up whenyou think about your travel budget,
lodging ends up being one of those big,
besides the airfare.
I think lodging is one of those majorcosts that you have to think about, and so
it's always our objective to try and findaffordable ways to make that possible.
(01:49):
Yeah.
So what's one way we canavoid or find more affordable.
Accommodations? Well, one thing,
and this applies tohotels, Airbnbs, anything,
is you're going to find that thingsare more expensive when you're
either in a big city or in aplace that's popular for tourists.
(02:11):
So if you're really on a tight budget,
consider looking at places that arejust outside of the city limits or
not necessarily likea tourist destination.
Yeah,
I think the clearest exampleof this perhaps is maybe New York City for example,
where the closer you are to Manhattan.
(02:32):
Manhattan.
The hotel rates are going to bephenomenally higher than if you were
in a different borough, for example,
where you have to take the subwayinto Manhattan. So I think,
and that's with any major city,
I think it's mostly major cities thatthis is going to be an issue except maybe
smaller towns that aretourist destinations.
(02:53):
Sometimes often just staying in a townthat's outside of that and taking a bus
into that town can be considerably less.
Expensive,
and you also have to factor in howoften are you going to be going to that
destination and the cost ofshuttling back and forth,
not only in money but intime and things like that.
(03:13):
But that's definitely atip, just a basic tip.
I think another great example that wehad recently of this is last year we
stayed in Scotland and we were actuallystaying in a small town 45 minutes
outside of Edinburgh, and it was during,
part of our state was duringthe Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
(03:33):
And.
So all the accommodations in Edinburghthemselves were insanely expensive,
really expensive, hard to get,
but staying just a couple townsout or 45 minutes outside of
Edinburgh, the prices wereconsiderably less for us.
And.
Then we were able to just takea simple train into Edinburgh.
(03:54):
It was a 45 minute train ride and thenyou didn't have to think about driving
or.
Anything like that. Yeah.
Yeah. So let's talk a littlebit about, we mentioned Airbnb
last year, last episode.
What are some ways that we can makevacation rentals in general a little bit
(04:15):
more.
Affordable? I think the biggestthing is stay longer if you can.
Short-term rentals are really expensive,and even when I say stay longer,
like a month or two monthsor three months if you can,
those are still considered technicallyshort, like short-term rentals,
but they're longer than vacationrentals. So vacation rentals,
it's just the nature of the market.
(04:36):
They're going to charge more becausethere's more labor involved in
cleaning in between and making sureit's stocked or whatever the case is.
So the longer you can stay,the more leverage you have.
Also to negotiate prices. Wetalked about in an Airbnbs episode,
sometimes you can negotiate a discount.
Well.
If you're going to book aplace for say a month or two,
(04:59):
then that eases a lot ofcases. Not all of the time,
but a lot of cases forthe host that's like, oh,
I know that this place is booked for twomonths so I don't have to worry about
not having income during those two months.
And so sometimes that can mean itgives you leverage to negotiate prices.
Yeah,
some destinations have localrental companies that offer month
(05:24):
or multi-month staysthat I am thinking about.
When we were staying in theYucatan Peninsula, we went,
there's in I think near Progresso and then
also the company that we wentthrough in play Ade Carmen.
So you could try and lookfor local vacation rental
(05:46):
companies and sometimes their ratesmay be a little bit cheaper or are more
affordable than the global ones.
So beyond renting or leasing anapartment or going through Airbnb,
what are some other waysthat we've used to find
accommodations?
(06:07):
One of the platforms or waysthat we like to stay is a house
sitting.
So.
We use a platform calledTrusted House Sitters,
but there's other housesitting platforms too.
I think mine My house or somethinglike that is another one that others
do. I found that Trusted Housesitters has the most options,
(06:28):
and since we alreadyhave a profile on there,
it's easier to just findhouse sitting gigs that way.
What have you thought aboutwhen it comes to house sitting?
What are your thoughts on that?
I love it. For the most part,
I think house sitting is an amazingway to stay at someone's home in a
residential area and really get afeel for what it's like to live there.
(06:51):
We've stayed in some beautiful homeswith some really gracious hosts.
We've been in the UK and donehouse sitting. The kids love it.
They get to take care of animals.
And.
That's a lot of fun. It doeschange your travel style though.
There's not as much flexibilityas far as your time goes.
You do have a pet to take care ofand they're trusting you with taking
(07:13):
care of that pet properly. So
it does change how you're going tobe in an area. We really like it.
I think we get to feel whatit's like to live in that area,
but we do have to work around it.
It's not as easy as staying at avacation rental or an apartment.
Where.
It's just us. So I think that's achallenge. I think the other challenge,
(07:35):
which ties into the nextone too, you can talk about,
but the other challenge is thatit is really someone's home.
It's not a short-term rental.And so in that case, the classic,
it's someone else's home,
please take care of itapplies really critically
to house sitting as well.
(07:56):
So I have an article on my siteabout house sitting and tips
for house sitting with kids, and somethingthat I mentioned in there is it's,
think of it as, don't thinkof it as free accommodations.
Think of it as a jobbecause you are essentially
taking care of somebody's family member.
(08:17):
A lot of pet owners think thattheir pets are part of their family,
and so even just the processof applying for house sitting,
some families get charred, likewe're always getting rejected.
Nobody wants to hire ornobody wants to have a family
house sit. And there's sometruth to that. I think most,
(08:41):
most homeowners petowners want somebody that
is going to be responsible.
And so if you're going tobe applying for a house sit,
you need to be able to show whetherit's in your profile or whether
it's just in the messagethat you send to them,
or you need to be able todemonstrate that you are responsible
(09:03):
and that your kids willbe responsible too.
And then when you getthe house sitting gig,
treat it like a jobbecause make sure that you
show how professional you can beas somebody that can take care of a
pet,Follow their directions,
(09:23):
give them daily updates,walk their dogs whenever,
or their pets whenever theyneed to be, take 'em to the vet.
We had to take the dog to the vet.
Or.
One of the house sitting gigs that we did,
the dog just had surgery.
And so we were constantly making surethat it was clean, giving her bath,
(09:45):
and then just sending daily updatesto the owner. Look, this picture,
your pet is doing welltoday. They really like that.
Yeah,
I think those are great pointsbecause at the end of the day too,
at least with a program like TrustedHouse sitters, there's no money exchanged.
(10:06):
So you're not paying youto take care of their pets.
The exchange is that you takecare of the pets for lodging.
And so with that mindset,
I think we go above and beyond to makesure that their house is treated well.
We ask whatever they needus to do when we quote check
(10:28):
checkout as far as stripping the beds,washing the sheets, that kind of stuff.
I think that stuff makes sense.
And if that's not something that you asa family feel comfortable with or you
don't want to do, then maybe it's notan option for you. But I know for us,
we know when we book a house sitting thatwe know this is going to be more work
(10:49):
than normal, but we're okay with that.
We're also saving a lot ofmoney on accommodations,
and we're also getting to spend timein an area as some of the places that
we've stayed also are areas we wouldnever stay as a vacation rental because a
lot of times they're like suburbs or smalltowns that don't really have vacation
(11:10):
rentals.
But they turn out to besome of our favorite places.
So I'm going to move on to thenext one, which is kind of similar.
It's home exchange.
So like house swapping hasbeen around for a while.
I think this works if you have ahome that you can swap with somebody
else. We use a platformcalled Home Exchange,
(11:33):
and basically it's not like we don'thave to do it as a one-to-one swap.
We earn points when familiesor people stay in our home,
and then we can use points to stay insomebody else's home at a different period
in time.
So that's helpful for us to lower some of
(11:53):
the cost of traveling,but it does require,
this wouldn't be an option if youwere traveling full time and you don't
have a house anymore orsomebody's renting your home.
So this is more for short-term stints.
I think the other thing I want to pointout that remind me when you said that
(12:14):
for this and for house sitting itselfis that there's no guarantee of when
these will come up or when you'llget approved for which ones.
So your flexibility oftravel dates needs to be,
or you need to be really flexiblewith your travel dates. Because
I guess the thing I wouldcaution is don't be like, oh,
(12:36):
I need a place to stay next monthand I'm waiting on a house sit,
or I'm waiting on a home exchange tocome through because it might not work
out.
So you have to be really flexiblewith your travel and maybe
sprinkle that in with stays atAirbnbs or vacation rentals so that
you can fill those gaps.Astra, beyond longer stays,
(12:59):
there's a lot of timeswhen we have short stays,
what are some ways that we can saveon accommodations for shorter stays?
I dunno. I guess if you're travelingin the US and you like to go camping,
there's hip camp, which issort of similar to Airbnb,
but with camping.
So you're staying at somebody'sprivate property and it's usually
(13:22):
cheaper than if you werestaying at a lodging or
something, but that requiresyou to have the equipment.
And.
Things like that. Excuse me.
I think additionally,
if you're international or evenin the US it doesn't matter.
I think hostels oftenget associated with solo
travelers or couples,
(13:43):
but there's a lot of hosts nowthat are very family friendly with
private rooms or moreaccommodations than normal.
So definitely look into thehostels in your area. Additionally,
if you're in the US,
things like YMCA actuallystill has accommodation options
similar to a hostel. Theyoperate similar as a hostel,
(14:05):
and so you can look into YMCAs as well,
especially when you'remore expensive areas.
Now all these things come with kindof a little bit of a caveat, I guess,
like couch surfing. We know thefamilies that couch surf as well,
and that is definitely a way moreintimate experience, I think,
than having your own roomand stuff. So I think
(14:26):
based on your family values, dependingon your family's comfort level,
there's all sorts of alternativeaccommodations you can find as well.
Do you remember, thisis several years ago,
and I don't know if theystill do this, but we stayed,
it was in the off season,or not off season,
but we stayed at a universitycampus dorm because the
(14:48):
universities were offeringit up for rental when the
school isn't in session.
So I think try and becreative with finding things.
There's also work exchangeswhere working in exchange for
a home and if you're,
you're not working remotely or youdon't have a job that you need to
(15:11):
devote some time of your travels to,
that could be an option foryou and your family is working.
And we've mentioned this in the past too,
world scoring hubs is an interesting waybecause they're kind of all inclusive.
They can be all inclusivepackages or stuff.
I wouldn't necessarily say that's anaffordable accommodation because a lot of
those roles going hubend up being pricier.
(15:35):
Than.
If you were finding your.
In terms of lodging.
But they do kind of offer an all-inclusiveexperience and so that in the long
run, that might work out onyour budget for that reason.
But there's a couple other ways Ithink that are, what do you think?
Something that we don't do,
but friends of ours doreally well is points travel.
(15:56):
We've just never really gotteninto it, although we want to,
but we have a friend,
Katie from Katie's Travel Tricksthat she's like the points travel
expert, in my opinion.
She's always using it forher family to travel with.
Yeah, those are great.
Oftentimes they can stay in reallynice accommodations for weekends or
(16:18):
transition periods.
So if you are transitioning froma long-term to a long-term stay,
sometimes you need those short termstays in the middle just as transition
points, and that's where I thinkpoints can really come in handy.
Yeah, I mean,
I guess we did it recently when we wentand visited with our friends for New
Year's and we had a bunchof Hilton points collected,
(16:38):
and so then we just stayed thenight at a hotel and we didn't
have to pay for that.
Yeah,
so in recent years orpart of world schooling,
there's always been theconversation of cruises.
Some families will do cruises astheir world's schooling adventure.
Even the digital nomadcommunity has to certain extent,
(16:59):
embraced cruises.
Cruises as kind of the beingable to long-term travel
and still work remotely, but havekind of this alternate experience.
We have some ethical questions aroundcruises just because of the environmental
impact and things like that.
But I think it is an intriguingthing and several friends of
(17:22):
ours do cruises in general,but there's something unique.
How can you find affordable?
I don't think people think cruisesare necessarily affordable.
Accommodations.
But there is a way you cankind of make them affordable.
So there's this thing calledrepositioning cruises,
and basically we are not experts on this,
and we haven't done this personallyourselves, but friends of ours have,
(17:45):
actually several friendshave done this where the
after route,
the boat needs to go backto the port of entry or
whatever. So it's just aroute that is going through
repositioning the cruise ship backto where it started starting point.
(18:07):
Usually you can get a discount.
The cost of those are a lotcheaper than a regular cruise.
You probably don't get the same amenities.I think that you still get a meal,
but maybe not the entertainment orthe shopping or the whole cruise
package, but you get to stayon a boat, boat and travel for
(18:28):
10, 15 days or something like that.
So it's something that'sdefinitely intriguing to us,
but we haven't had a chanceto personally experience it.
Yet. Yeah. Cool. Is there anything else?
I think that is it for now.
I mentioned the house sittingarticle on my website.
I also have written about Hipc Camp too,
(18:48):
so if you're curious to learnmore about that, that is fun.
That's a fun experience to do,
especially if you are more into theoutdoors or you have an RV that you
can travel around with. Is it? Yeah.
Cool.
Well, that's all for today.
Thank you for joining us on this episodeof World Schooling q and a with Astrid
(19:11):
and Clint.
Be sure to check out the show notes forany links we mentioned in the episode
and visit my website,
the wandering daughter.com to divedeeper into world schooling and family
travel.
If you like what you hear,
please consider supporting theWandering daughter on Patreon.
It really helps us outand keeps the show going.
You'll also get exclusive perks likeepisode transcripts, additional resources,
(19:32):
access to office hours with us and more.
You can find us on Spotify orthe podcast app of your choice.
If you're listening to this on Spotify,
you can tap the bell icon to getnotified when new episodes come out.
And if you like this episode,please give us a five star review.
It really helps new people find our show.
If you're watching this on YouTube,
don't forget to like and subscribe andtap the bell icon to get notified of new
(19:54):
episodes.
You can follow me on Instagram atWander Daughter or Follow the Wandering
Daughter on Facebook. Links tothese are also in the show notes.
If you have any world schooling questionsyou'd like us to answer for future
episodes, feel free to throwthem in the comments or send us a
message@thewanderingdaughter.comslash podcast.
(20:16):
Until next time, happy travels. Bye.
I think that you still get a meal,
but maybe not the entertainment orthe shopping or the whole cruise
package, but you get to stayon a boat and travel for
10, 15 days or something like that.
This is world Schooling q and a. I'mAstrid, creator of the wandering daughter.
(00:21):
As a traveling family,
we've spent four years travelingfull-time to over 18 countries and six
continents. Wherever we go,
we try to learn as much as we can aboutthe countries and cultures we visit.
While we didn't coin the term, welike to call this world schooling,
using the world as our classroom.
Each week my husband Clint and I willanswer one question about world schooling
(00:44):
and share our experiences of travelingthe world with our kids ready to get
started? Great. Let's dive in.
So for today's question we're answeringhow can I find affordable accommodations
(01:05):
while world schooling?
Yeah,
so in a previous episode we talked aboutusing Airbnb as our kind of primary.
We have finding accommodations.
We.
Had some tips in there abouthow to find affordable Airbnbs.
I think this one we justwant to dive in more into
how do we find affordable accommodationsin general beyond the Airbnb stuff we
talked about.
(01:25):
Yeah, because lodging ends up whenyou think about your travel budget,
lodging ends up being one of those big,
besides the airfare.
I think lodging is one of those majorcosts that you have to think about, and so
it's always our objective to try and findaffordable ways to make that possible.
(01:49):
Yeah.
So what's one way we canavoid or find more affordable.
Accommodations? Well, one thing,
and this applies tohotels, Airbnbs, anything,
is you're going to find that thingsare more expensive when you're
either in a big city or in aplace that's popular for tourists.
(02:11):
So if you're really on a tight budget,
consider looking at places that arejust outside of the city limits or
not necessarily likea tourist destination.
Yeah,
I think the clearest exampleof this perhaps is maybe New York City for example,
where the closer you are to Manhattan.
(02:32):
Manhattan.
The hotel rates are going to bephenomenally higher than if you were
in a different borough, for example,
where you have to take the subwayinto Manhattan. So I think,
and that's with any major city,
I think it's mostly major cities thatthis is going to be an issue except maybe
smaller towns that aretourist destinations.
(02:53):
Sometimes often just staying in a townthat's outside of that and taking a bus
into that town can be considerably less.
Expensive,
and you also have to factor in howoften are you going to be going to that
destination and the cost ofshuttling back and forth,
not only in money but intime and things like that.
(03:13):
But that's definitely atip, just a basic tip.
I think another great example that wehad recently of this is last year we
stayed in Scotland and we were actuallystaying in a small town 45 minutes
outside of Edinburgh, and it was during,
part of our state was duringthe Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
(03:33):
And.
So all the accommodations in Edinburghthemselves were insanely expensive,
really expensive, hard to get,
but staying just a couple townsout or 45 minutes outside of
Edinburgh, the prices wereconsiderably less for us.
And.
Then we were able to just takea simple train into Edinburgh.
(03:54):
It was a 45 minute train ride and thenyou didn't have to think about driving
or.
Anything like that. Yeah.
Yeah. So let's talk a littlebit about, we mentioned Airbnb
last year, last episode.
What are some ways that we can makevacation rentals in general a little bit
(04:15):
more.
Affordable? I think the biggestthing is stay longer if you can.
Short-term rentals are really expensive,and even when I say stay longer,
like a month or two monthsor three months if you can,
those are still considered technicallyshort, like short-term rentals,
but they're longer than vacationrentals. So vacation rentals,
it's just the nature of the market.
(04:36):
They're going to charge more becausethere's more labor involved in
cleaning in between and making sureit's stocked or whatever the case is.
So the longer you can stay,the more leverage you have.
Also to negotiate prices. Wetalked about in an Airbnbs episode,
sometimes you can negotiate a discount.
Well.
If you're going to book aplace for say a month or two,
(04:59):
then that eases a lot ofcases. Not all of the time,
but a lot of cases forthe host that's like, oh,
I know that this place is booked for twomonths so I don't have to worry about
not having income during those two months.
And so sometimes that can mean itgives you leverage to negotiate prices.
Yeah,
some destinations have localrental companies that offer month
(05:24):
or multi-month staysthat I am thinking about.
When we were staying in theYucatan Peninsula, we went,
there's in I think near Progresso and then
also the company that we wentthrough in play Ade Carmen.
So you could try and lookfor local vacation rental
(05:46):
companies and sometimes their ratesmay be a little bit cheaper or are more
affordable than the global ones.
So beyond renting or leasing anapartment or going through Airbnb,
what are some other waysthat we've used to find
accommodations?
(06:07):
One of the platforms or waysthat we like to stay is a house
sitting.
So.
We use a platform calledTrusted House Sitters,
but there's other housesitting platforms too.
I think mine My house or somethinglike that is another one that others
do. I found that Trusted Housesitters has the most options,
(06:28):
and since we alreadyhave a profile on there,
it's easier to just findhouse sitting gigs that way.
What have you thought aboutwhen it comes to house sitting?
What are your thoughts on that?
I love it. For the most part,
I think house sitting is an amazingway to stay at someone's home in a
residential area and really get afeel for what it's like to live there.
(06:51):
We've stayed in some beautiful homeswith some really gracious hosts.
We've been in the UK and donehouse sitting. The kids love it.
They get to take care of animals.
And.
That's a lot of fun. It doeschange your travel style though.
There's not as much flexibilityas far as your time goes.
You do have a pet to take care ofand they're trusting you with taking
(07:13):
care of that pet properly. So
it does change how you're going tobe in an area. We really like it.
I think we get to feel whatit's like to live in that area,
but we do have to work around it.
It's not as easy as staying at avacation rental or an apartment.
Where.
It's just us. So I think that's achallenge. I think the other challenge,
(07:35):
which ties into the nextone too, you can talk about,
but the other challenge is thatit is really someone's home.
It's not a short-term rental.And so in that case, the classic,
it's someone else's home,
please take care of itapplies really critically
to house sitting as well.
(07:56):
So I have an article on my siteabout house sitting and tips
for house sitting with kids, and somethingthat I mentioned in there is it's,
think of it as, don't thinkof it as free accommodations.
Think of it as a jobbecause you are essentially
taking care of somebody's family member.
(08:17):
A lot of pet owners think thattheir pets are part of their family,
and so even just the processof applying for house sitting,
some families get charred, likewe're always getting rejected.
Nobody wants to hire ornobody wants to have a family
house sit. And there's sometruth to that. I think most,
(08:41):
most homeowners petowners want somebody that
is going to be responsible.
And so if you're going tobe applying for a house sit,
you need to be able to show whetherit's in your profile or whether
it's just in the messagethat you send to them,
or you need to be able todemonstrate that you are responsible
(09:03):
and that your kids willbe responsible too.
And then when you getthe house sitting gig,
treat it like a jobbecause make sure that you
show how professional you can beas somebody that can take care of a
pet,Follow their directions,
(09:23):
give them daily updates,walk their dogs whenever,
or their pets whenever theyneed to be, take 'em to the vet.
We had to take the dog to the vet.
Or.
One of the house sitting gigs that we did,
the dog just had surgery.
And so we were constantly making surethat it was clean, giving her bath,
(09:45):
and then just sending daily updatesto the owner. Look, this picture,
your pet is doing welltoday. They really like that.
Yeah,
I think those are great pointsbecause at the end of the day too,
at least with a program like TrustedHouse sitters, there's no money exchanged.
(10:06):
So you're not paying youto take care of their pets.
The exchange is that you takecare of the pets for lodging.
And so with that mindset,
I think we go above and beyond to makesure that their house is treated well.
We ask whatever they needus to do when we quote check
(10:28):
checkout as far as stripping the beds,washing the sheets, that kind of stuff.
I think that stuff makes sense.
And if that's not something that you asa family feel comfortable with or you
don't want to do, then maybe it's notan option for you. But I know for us,
we know when we book a house sitting thatwe know this is going to be more work
(10:49):
than normal, but we're okay with that.
We're also saving a lot ofmoney on accommodations,
and we're also getting to spend timein an area as some of the places that
we've stayed also are areas we wouldnever stay as a vacation rental because a
lot of times they're like suburbs or smalltowns that don't really have vacation
(11:10):
rentals.
But they turn out to besome of our favorite places.
So I'm going to move on to thenext one, which is kind of similar.
It's home exchange.
So like house swapping hasbeen around for a while.
I think this works if you have ahome that you can swap with somebody
else. We use a platformcalled Home Exchange,
(11:33):
and basically it's not like we don'thave to do it as a one-to-one swap.
We earn points when familiesor people stay in our home,
and then we can use points to stay insomebody else's home at a different period
in time.
So that's helpful for us to lower some of
(11:53):
the cost of traveling,but it does require,
this wouldn't be an option if youwere traveling full time and you don't
have a house anymore orsomebody's renting your home.
So this is more for short-term stints.
I think the other thing I want to pointout that remind me when you said that
(12:14):
for this and for house sitting itselfis that there's no guarantee of when
these will come up or when you'llget approved for which ones.
So your flexibility oftravel dates needs to be,
or you need to be really flexiblewith your travel dates. Because
I guess the thing I wouldcaution is don't be like, oh,
(12:36):
I need a place to stay next monthand I'm waiting on a house sit,
or I'm waiting on a home exchange tocome through because it might not work
out.
So you have to be really flexiblewith your travel and maybe
sprinkle that in with stays atAirbnbs or vacation rentals so that
you can fill those gaps.Astra, beyond longer stays,
(12:59):
there's a lot of timeswhen we have short stays,
what are some ways that we can saveon accommodations for shorter stays?
I dunno. I guess if you're travelingin the US and you like to go camping,
there's hip camp, which issort of similar to Airbnb,
but with camping.
So you're staying at somebody'sprivate property and it's usually
(13:22):
cheaper than if you werestaying at a lodging or
something, but that requiresyou to have the equipment.
And.
Things like that. Excuse me.
I think additionally,
if you're international or evenin the US it doesn't matter.
I think hostels oftenget associated with solo
travelers or couples,
(13:43):
but there's a lot of hosts nowthat are very family friendly with
private rooms or moreaccommodations than normal.
So definitely look into thehostels in your area. Additionally,
if you're in the US,
things like YMCA actuallystill has accommodation options
similar to a hostel. Theyoperate similar as a hostel,
(14:05):
and so you can look into YMCAs as well,
especially when you'remore expensive areas.
Now all these things come with kindof a little bit of a caveat, I guess,
like couch surfing. We know thefamilies that couch surf as well,
and that is definitely a way moreintimate experience, I think,
than having your own roomand stuff. So I think
(14:26):
based on your family values, dependingon your family's comfort level,
there's all sorts of alternativeaccommodations you can find as well.
Do you remember, thisis several years ago,
and I don't know if theystill do this, but we stayed,
it was in the off season,or not off season,
but we stayed at a universitycampus dorm because the
(14:48):
universities were offeringit up for rental when the
school isn't in session.
So I think try and becreative with finding things.
There's also work exchangeswhere working in exchange for
a home and if you're,
you're not working remotely or youdon't have a job that you need to
(15:11):
devote some time of your travels to,
that could be an option foryou and your family is working.
And we've mentioned this in the past too,
world scoring hubs is an interesting waybecause they're kind of all inclusive.
They can be all inclusivepackages or stuff.
I wouldn't necessarily say that's anaffordable accommodation because a lot of
those roles going hubend up being pricier.
(15:35):
Than.
If you were finding your.
In terms of lodging.
But they do kind of offer an all-inclusiveexperience and so that in the long
run, that might work out onyour budget for that reason.
But there's a couple other ways Ithink that are, what do you think?
Something that we don't do,
but friends of ours doreally well is points travel.
(15:56):
We've just never really gotteninto it, although we want to,
but we have a friend,
Katie from Katie's Travel Tricksthat she's like the points travel
expert, in my opinion.
She's always using it forher family to travel with.
Yeah, those are great.
Oftentimes they can stay in reallynice accommodations for weekends or
(16:18):
transition periods.
So if you are transitioning froma long-term to a long-term stay,
sometimes you need those short termstays in the middle just as transition
points, and that's where I thinkpoints can really come in handy.
Yeah, I mean,
I guess we did it recently when we wentand visited with our friends for New
Year's and we had a bunchof Hilton points collected,
(16:38):
and so then we just stayed thenight at a hotel and we didn't
have to pay for that.
Yeah,
so in recent years orpart of world schooling,
there's always been theconversation of cruises.
Some families will do cruises astheir world's schooling adventure.
Even the digital nomadcommunity has to certain extent,
(16:59):
embraced cruises.
Cruises as kind of the beingable to long-term travel
and still work remotely, but havekind of this alternate experience.
We have some ethical questions aroundcruises just because of the environmental
impact and things like that.
But I think it is an intriguingthing and several friends of
(17:22):
ours do cruises in general,but there's something unique.
How can you find affordable?
I don't think people think cruisesare necessarily affordable.
Accommodations.
But there is a way you cankind of make them affordable.
So there's this thing calledrepositioning cruises,
and basically we are not experts on this,
and we haven't done this personallyourselves, but friends of ours have,
(17:45):
actually several friendshave done this where the
after route,
the boat needs to go backto the port of entry or
whatever. So it's just aroute that is going through
repositioning the cruise ship backto where it started starting point.
(18:07):
Usually you can get a discount.
The cost of those are a lotcheaper than a regular cruise.
You probably don't get the same amenities.I think that you still get a meal,
but maybe not the entertainment orthe shopping or the whole cruise
package, but you get to stayon a boat, boat and travel for
(18:28):
10, 15 days or something like that.
So it's something that'sdefinitely intriguing to us,
but we haven't had a chanceto personally experience it.
Yet. Yeah. Cool. Is there anything else?
I think that is it for now.
I mentioned the house sittingarticle on my website.
I also have written about Hipc Camp too,
(18:48):
so if you're curious to learnmore about that, that is fun.
That's a fun experience to do,
especially if you are more into theoutdoors or you have an RV that you
can travel around with. Is it? Yeah.
Cool.
Well, that's all for today.
Thank you for joining us on this episodeof World Schooling q and a with Astrid
(19:11):
and Clint.
Be sure to check out the show notes forany links we mentioned in the episode
and visit my website,
the wandering daughter.com to divedeeper into world schooling and family
travel.
If you like what you hear,
please consider supporting theWandering daughter on Patreon.
It really helps us outand keeps the show going.
You'll also get exclusive perks likeepisode transcripts, additional resources,
(19:32):
access to office hours with us and more.
You can find us on Spotify orthe podcast app of your choice.
If you're listening to this on Spotify,
you can tap the bell icon to getnotified when new episodes come out.
And if you like this episode,please give us a five star review.
It really helps new people find our show.
If you're watching this on YouTube,
don't forget to like and subscribe andtap the bell icon to get notified of new
(19:54):
episodes.
You can follow me on Instagram atWander Daughter or Follow the Wandering
Daughter on Facebook. Links tothese are also in the show notes.
If you have any world schooling questionsyou'd like us to answer for future
episodes, feel free to throwthem in the comments or send us a
message@thewanderingdaughter.comslash podcast.
(20:16):
Until next time, happy travels. Bye.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The MeatEater Podcast
Building on the belief that a deeper understanding of the natural world enriches all of our lives, host Steven Rinella brings an in-depth and relevant look at all outdoor topics including hunting, fishing, nature, conservation, and wild foods. Filled with humor, irreverence, and things that will surprise the hell out of you, each episode welcomes a diverse group of guests who add their own expertise to the vast world of the outdoors. Part of The MeatEater Podcast Network.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by Audiochuck Media Company.