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October 30, 2025 16 mins

Show Notes: Worldschooling Q&A – Episode 8

Episode Title: Episode 8: What Are the Best Board Games for Worldschooling?

Hosts: Astrid & Clint, creators of The Wandering Daughter

Episode Summary:

In this fun and family-focused episode of Worldschooling Q&A, Astrid and Clint dive into a playful topic: the best board games for worldschooling families.

They share how games can be powerful tools for learning and connection—helping kids practice math, literacy, patience, and teamwork—all while having fun. You’ll hear their favorite travel-inspired games like Trekking the World, Tokaido, and Ticket to Ride, as well as compact games perfect for life on the road.

They also talk about Stack Scoops, the game they created while living in Vietnam, and share clever packing hacks for traveling with games, plus a peek into the unique game cafés they’ve visited around the world.

🎲 Whether you’re planning your next trip or looking to add more play to your learning, this episode is filled with inspiration for curious, global families.

 

🎧 Ready to dive in?

 

👉 For full show notes, links to resources, and a detailed episode guide, visit: https://thewanderingdaughter.com/episode-8-board-games/

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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Earlier in the episode, we mentioned thisfamily that the does a whole duffle bag.
They carry a whole duffel bag of games,and one of the things that they,
their hack, I guess you say,is taking the game out of the box.
You don't have to go with the box.
This is Worldschooling Q&A.

(00:20):
I'm Astrid,creator of The Wandering Daughter.
As a traveling family,we've spent four years traveling
full time to over 18countries and six continents.
Wherever we go, we try to learn
as much as we canabout the countries and cultures we visit.
While we didn't coined the term,we like to call this worldschooling.
Using the world as our classroom.

(00:42):
Each week, my husband, Clint,and I will answer one question
about worldschooling and share.
Our experiencesof traveling the world with our kids.
Ready to get started?
Great! Let's dive in.
Okay, so today's question,

(01:03):
is something that is, a fun one for usand something that is, dear to our hearts.
What are the bestboard games for worldschooling?
Yeah.
Why don't we start with, like,why do we like board games?
Yes. That's good to say.
Yeah.

(01:23):
This one is, I don't know.
We've always played board games,I think as a family.
Yeah.
We met a family
while we were while we were travelingfull time
that their family values board games,
and, we're one of their foundingvalues was board games.
And they traveled with just a giant duffelbag full of board games.

(01:47):
And we'll talk more about that later.
We talk about how you travelwith board games,
but also in Vietnamwhen we were in Vietnam in 2020
and we were there during the pandemic,when the pandemic first started.
And sowe were stuck inside like most people.
So we were playing a lot of board games.

(02:07):
And we ended up creating our own boardgame, our own card game at that time,
in which case we ultimately kind ofdo the side business and now sell it.
We've been selling it for a few years now.
So board games have a special connectionto us?
For. Sure.
And I think, like, what we realizedis, we've talked about, like,

(02:29):
the importance of, like, downtimeand, chill out time.
And one thing that we like about gamesis that it
kind of forces you to slow down.
And because, you know, you have gamesthat take like 15 minutes or, or things,
but you're intentionally likejust spending time together as a family.

(02:50):
And that's what we like about it.
And, and we find that the, the kids reallyenjoy that family time too.
And from a worldschooling standpointor a homeschooling standpoint, too,
there's a whole mindset outthere, called game schooling.
And it's really using board gamesand video games really to, yeah, to help,
inform or supplement your educationin a lot of ways.

(03:11):
Board game skills.
Yeah. Build skills.
Build like patience and fair playand reasoning.
Critical thinking,all those sorts of things
come with playing board games as well.
So beyond just them being fun and familybonding time,
they can also, really supplementyour educational goals as well.
Yeah.
So we thought we'd take this episodeto list out some of the games that we,

(03:36):
that that we like playing that eitherwill, like, inspire
people to travelor that are easy to travel with.
I have a, an article on my website,about the best games for travel.
So you can also check that outif you want some more, inspiration
or ideas of what to, travelwith or games to travel with.

(03:57):
So what are some of the gamesthat we like to travel with,
or what are some of the gameswe that inspire travel?
Yeah, so starting with the gamesthat inspired travel, I think one
that we like is, trekking the world.
This one is,
is great because it like,
the whole trekking series is greatbecause they, if you're not familiar

(04:21):
with that, they have, like, trekkingthe world, trekking through history.
Trekking national parks. Yes.
Yeah, exactly.
And so there's, like, all of these,
each card has, like, information
about places, in the world and stuff.
And so that that's a great wayto, like, learn about the world.

(04:42):
And then you're playing a game too.
So it's not just, reading a book,but you, you're playing
and engaging with these, these this topic.
Yeah. What else would you add?
Another one is a game called Tokaido.
It's a kind of is a great gamethat has like, historical significance,

(05:02):
and inspires inspired us really
to one of the inspirationsto travel to Japan.
To go is a game that's based on
traveling the road from Tokyo to Kyoto.
And stopping along
in, in I don't know, I can't rememberexactly what era that it took place in,

(05:22):
but it's the oldthe ancient road, between Tokyo and Kyoto.
And it's stopping along and visitingvarious merchants,
visiting hot springs, hot springs inns.
Yeah. Doing painting,that's all sorts of things.
So there's like a historical elementto it, which is cool.
Yeah.
And that's stillI still have an aspiration to someday,

(05:46):
jump on a scooter and travel the travel
the old road between Tokyo and Kyoto.
If you want another, like Japan, inspiredgame.
Let's Go toJapan is one game that we played recently,
and that's, more modern,
modern sights in Japan,also Tokyo and Kyoto.

(06:08):
Interestingly enough,but like activities that you do,
and you're planning an itineraryfor a trip to to Japan.
That game was great because we justplayed it after coming back from Japan
is all these places that we'd see like,oh, this is this is great.
Yeah.
A game that
you we like to play withour family is Ticket to Ride. Yes.

(06:29):
Ticket to ride is great.
We put it in this list,as games inspired travel.
Because there's a version forso many places around the world, right?
We have the US version,but there's a London version.
There's a,
I think in Asia version.
There's a Europe and an Africa version.
I think what's nice, I mean, noteverything is geographically correct,

(06:52):
but it's a good, good way to like,introduce geography into that
because, you know, it's got the mapand then you, you like,
understandwhere cities are in relation to the other.
Yeah.
I added a couple other thingson this list.
There's a game calledVillage Green, which is,

(07:13):
like England
base is you'reyou're creating like an English garden.
So when we, traveled to England,we visited a lot of gardens.
And that that game is reminiscent of that.
And then the next oneis, walking in Burano, which is,
inspired by, like,the island of Burano in Italy.

(07:35):
Yeah.
And if you if you're familiar at allwith Bronto, if you're not, it's
one of the five islands in the, Venicearea.
And Burano is really famousfor their colorful buildings.
And this game really captures that.
And it's a simple card game, a reallysmall one, which is easy to travel with.
Which also leads us to our next categoryand yeah, games to travel with.

(07:58):
Yeah.
So when, when we were traveling full timeand we did this from 2018 to 2022,
we chose games that were like compactthat we could fit into our bags
and then we could travel with,but then that we were still fun. So,
one of the games that we,
we traveled was, unstable unicorns.

(08:22):
It's like of a fun game,
a small ish box, and then you can put itin, like, what we liked to.
Is that, like,there's a lot of words on the card,
so it also is like helping the kids learnhow to read.
So some of the other thingsthat went into the choices of the games
that we brought were, like,what's the educational value of it?

(08:44):
What what things can we game?
Yeah, well, card games were perfectbecause we could put them in,
we use Statures, which are essentiallylike Eco-Friendly Ziploc bags.
So we could easily put them in Sasha'sand pack them away pretty easily.
I think another one that we traveled a lotwith were story dice.
Yeah.

(09:04):
So if you're not familiar a story dice.
Story dice are basically a set of dieor a set of dice,
and they have different pictureson each of the dice.
And the idea is you roll it andthen you build a story based off of that.
So it's kind of a great introduction and
role playinggames like RPG and stuff like that.
But it's also just like a fun,creative thing that we would do.
Yeah, kids love that. Yeah.

(09:25):
I would often use that when we're doing,like, writing activities like,
roll the story diceand then the kids have to create a story.
And when they weren't able to writeor if they didn't feel like writing,
I'd write it out for them.
But just the thought,the process of like creating,
creating a story, I think that's helpful

(09:46):
for the creative writing skills.
A game that we used to that
we would bring, in recent yearsis this game called ravine.
And it's,
it's a cooperative game.
So I think that is a helpful skillto, to teach their kids.
Yeah.
That game is great because it's it's kindof like a camping survival aspect to it.

(10:10):
Yeah, yeah, it's,funny and a little bit ludicrous.
Which kids?
The kids of our ages.
Like the ten, 11 year olds, like,they just got a super kick out of that.
Yeah. So that's a great one.
One I would say is, just a deck of cards.
A deck of cards is great.
And you can find all sorts of resourcesonline, either books or stuff

(10:33):
that showsyou all sorts of different ways,
like creative games to playwith just a simple deck of cards.
And then lastly, and.
Of course,you know, just plugging our game, this is,
this is our game stack scoops and,
it's an ice cream themed game,so not really related to travel, but
what we like about itis that it's, math related.

(10:55):
And so the kids get to practice their,like,
simple addition and multiplication skillsas they're playing the game.
And then,
yeah, it's it's
a small box and,it's compact and easy to travel with.
Yeah. And that's a game that we created.
That was the game that we created whilewe were in Vietnam during the pandemic.

(11:16):
So this again.
And we'll have links to our, the,we'll have Amazon links online.
And if you're in Seattle, we also have itin some stores around here.
But yeah,
what's a, how do you travel with games?
Because they're kind of bulky, right?
Yeah.
So, you know, our earlier in the episode,we mentioned this family

(11:37):
that the does a whole duffel bag,they carry a whole duffel bag of games.
And one of the things that they,
their hack,
I guess you couldsay, is taking the game out of the box.
You don't have to go with the box.
So we put the games for us.
We put them in, like what?
Flip mentioned the stashes.

(11:59):
They're like the silicone.
The black or silicone bags.
And that helps to like compact things,
keep things compact. But,
sometimes, like games will have,
what do you call it?
Like, meatballs.
They call them meatballs or, like,little pieces and stuff.

(12:20):
And, you know, if you have several games
that sort ofhave the same kind of, mechanic,
you can just use one meatballor one figure from one game
and then apply it to the other one,so you don't have to like
bring all of the components to the gameif you want to, like, do,

(12:41):
you know,
overlapping or like,just recycle it for a different game.
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, you could even take chess piecesand use them as meatballs for games
or the reverse.
You could use meatballsas chess pieces. Yeah.
For that one of the one, the course,one of the cool things
that I really like that the dad would dois he would take game boards

(13:04):
and he
would copy them or like,take a picture of them
and shrink it a little bit on the computerand then print it out.
Yeah.
And cut it outand then laminated with like packing tape
so that he basically had these miniature,really thin,
really light versions of the boardgame. Board games.
That were like kind ofindestructible, too.
They're like really solid.

(13:25):
So he could just throw themin the bottom of the bag and he, I think
I don't remember how many, he said,but I think that he said
they were travelingwith like 50 games or something.
Yeah.
I mean, that's a lot. Yeah.
And that's you know, that's great.
Like if that's a value of yoursthen you need to
you should definitely find a wayto continue that.

(13:46):
As you travel.
And one of the other thingsthat we love to do that
we've started doing over the lastseveral years of travel is visiting
game cafes or game librariesor game stores throughout the world.
Yes, we've been to games,
and if you're not familiarwith the Game Cafe
game, game cafes are basically a placethat you can sit and play a game,

(14:06):
usually over food or somethingwhile you're eating or something.
We've been game cafes and and Japan
and Indonesia, Vietnam.
Scotland. Mexico.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And and in the US,obviously they're incredible.
We've met incredible people.
We've bought games while we're, we've beenat those places and we have games.

(14:28):
We have a Singapore gameand Indonesian game.
Yeah. Yeah.
So it's that's been that's beena, a real treat for us as well.
Yeah.
You can tell we like it. Yeah.
All right.
Anything elseyou'd like to add on this episode?
I don't think so. I mean,
we could go on forever about games,but I think we should kind of sun.
All right.

(14:49):
Well, that's all for today.
Thank you for joining uson this episode of Worldschooling.
Q&A with Astrid and Clint.
Be sure to check out the show notesfor any links we mentioned in the episode,
and visit my website,
TheWanderingDaughter.com, to dive deeperinto worldschooling and family travel.
If you like what you hear,
please consider supporting The WanderingDaughter on Patreon.

(15:09):
It really helps us outand keeps the show going.
You'll also get exclusiveperks like episode transcripts,
additional resources, accessto office hours with us, and more.
You can find us on Spotifyor the podcast app of your choice.
If you're listening to this on Spotify,you can tap the bell icon to get notified
when new episodes come out.
And if you like this episode,please give us a five star review.

(15:30):
It really helps new people find our show.
If you're watching this on YouTube, don'tforget to like
and subscribe and tap the bellicon to get notified of new episodes.
You can follow me on Instagram at Wander
Daughter or follow The Wandering Daughteron Facebook.
Links to these are also in the show notes.
If you have any worldschooling questionsyou'd like us to answer

(15:51):
for future episodes,feel free to throw them in the comments
or send us a messageat TheWanderingDaughter.com/podcast.
Until next time, happy travels. Bye.
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