Unschooling and Worldschooling Has Changed Us | The Conrads in dialogue with Heidi & Andrew Schrum - Self Directed

Episode Transcript
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Jesper Conrad (00:00):
So today we are yet again together with Andrew
and Heidi Schramm, and thereason is they had a lot more
questions that we would like toask and also that we enjoyed
hanging out with them.

Cecilie Conrad (00:11):
We would like to answer them.

We would like to answer them.

Yes, and you would like to ask them.

So first of all, welcome.
It's super nice to see youagain.
I hope you have had a wonderfultime since last.

Heidi Schrum (00:32):
Yeah, good to see you again.
I hope you have had a wonderfultime since last.
Yeah, good to see you too.
Yeah, thank you for having usagain.
Fun, always fun.
Yeah, one thing we're talkingabout was I really love to hear
people's stories and we'recurious about how your
unschooling journey has kind ofunraveled since you started.
I mean, we've probably heard ita few times in other podcasts,
but just to kind of get like ageneral kind of like how it all

(00:55):
unfolded for you.

And this is a new version of the question,
because it's not why did youstart home?
No, it's how it unraveled, it'slike how did it unravel after
you started unschooling?
So we're not sharing why westarted unschooling.

No.

It's.
How did that play out?
It's still playing.

It's still playing.
It's a good question, thank you.
So I think that when I lookback at what has happened since
we started unschooling, then Ibelieve that the biggest change
is in me more than in thechildren.
It is like being on a holidayin the summer.

(01:40):
For the kids, if they have beenin school normally, if they
have been at home, as our kidshad, then it's actually just not
starting school, it's just life.
But my perspective has changedand the fun part is that I think
I feel more in sync with myselfthan before, because my

(02:06):
personal story is that I was nota bad student in any way.
I was personally not veryinterested in what happened in
school.
I had a lot of ideas, projectsI wanted to do.
So I have almost all my you cansay young life not as a child,

(02:30):
but from I was 14, 15, beencreating different kinds of
projects and learning throughmaking and creating these
projects.
And in the start, when I saidyes to okay, we can homeschool
this weird thing and all that,then for some reason even though
I myself have learned throughcreating projects or have just

(02:54):
created projects and pickedstuff up under the way then I
thought that my children shouldlearn inside what looked like
school.
Somehow that part has nowtotally been removed from my
worldview.
Now I am fascinated by seeingmy kids pick up an interest or

(03:20):
finding a fascination with somesubject, and then I trust that
they do it because it intereststhem.
I am often overwhelmed andsurprised by the amount of their
knowledge, what they havelearned and I don't know often

(03:40):
where they have picked it upfrom Some of it is definitely
from YouTube videos or podcasts,et cetera, where they then
ponder around it or hear moreand pick more up along the way.
So for me, what has unraveledis my own.
I've become to say it veryshortly I've become better at

(04:05):
relaxing, trusting that my kidswill figure out what is fun for
them, and I can see that whenthey have an interest in
something, they just do it andenjoy it.
And then, if I put on the old,do they learn anything?
Glasses that you sometimes haveor people people sometimes have
, and I can myself sometimesfeel the need to explain oh,

(04:29):
they actually know stuff andthis.
When I put on those, then I canalso see that, yes, they pick
out, also pick up a lot of stuffalong the way of knowledge.
But the wide thing is, it is inno way different than how I
learn or how almost any otheradult I've met in my life
learned.

(04:49):
I have had the joy of being atan office for more than 20 years
before we started full-timetraveling.
I got fresh out of university.
Students who came and werethere and needed to go into a
job, who came with a longuniversity degree, but they
hadn't learned how to work.
What they ended up becominggood at were stuff that they

(05:13):
learned at the job.
They had some knowledge theycould drag on, but it was not
knowledge that was directlyone-to-one usable in the job.
So if you, I think the biggestthing that I believe my children
learns through this is if Iwant to know something, I can

(05:35):
figure it out.
I can.
I know how to get knowledgewhen I want to.
Yeah, so that was a long backand forth answer to the question
, and I want to hear Cecilia's.

I think unravel is a very good word in the
question, I think, unravelingthe whole fabric of ideas that
we have spun around the idea ofeducating our children.
It's a process.
It takes time.
Since we are schooled I supposeyou are schooled I'm schooled

(06:13):
10 years more than my husband.
I was schooled for 23 years ina row School, high school,
university.
It was a long journey and it'sprobably still ongoing to
uninstall that whole mindset.
I don't think probably notreally any hacks to it or fast

(06:36):
track lanes.
Really it takes time and trust.
I think what really, now thatwe're somehow at the other end
of it?
If you think about mandatoryschooling, the compulsory
schooling, the involuntaryschooling of children under the
age of, let's say, just 15, justto say something, that kind of

(06:56):
schooling is what I'm personallyvery much against.
And we're at the tail end ofthat.
We have one who is 13 and ahalf, so he's almost over that
phase of life, and the othersare older.
I think the most interestingthing that I can observe from
this other end of that story ishow, letting go completely of

(07:20):
that agenda, letting gocompletely of academics, letting
go completely of academics,letting go completely of
thinking in these concepts, it'sbeen a long journey.
For me it's been really easyfor the children to just be who
they are.
And now that they are here theyare 13, 17, almost 19.

(07:42):
Now they're walking into aphase of structure.
Now they say even the 17,almost 17-year-old girl that we
have who has never shown anyinterest whatsoever in math,
just like our other daughter,the one who's 26, it's just not
her thing, it's not a girl thingin our family.

(08:03):
It's very gendered.
We never pushed.
But now she says kind of thinkI'll go through that math book
just to figure out what it is.
And that's the IGCSE.
So that's an A-level mathcourse that her brother is
taking, who's very passionateabout math.
She's like I could do that.
I'll do that, I'll take thatexam next year.

(08:25):
And she's like I could do that,I'll do that, I'll take that
exam next year.
And she's 17 and she's never.
Well, she said it last year.
So she was 15 the first timeshe said it and she's not
jumping at it.
I'm pretty sure she will takethat exam.
And it's not to say that allunschooled children will be very
academic at the other end, orit's like waking up or anything
like that.
It's just interesting how theirideas about their own education

(08:48):
actually emerge from knowingthat it's nice to know things
and knowing that it's fun tostudy.
And the funny thing is reallyand that can be very hard to
understand and I explain thisoften the funny thing is for our
children living this free life,having the time and the

(09:12):
resources and the mind space tostudy the way that you would,
that some people would hope thattheir kids would sit down and
study.
That's a privilege for them.
If they have that, they jump atit.

(09:34):
If we stop and there's a deskand there's a pile of books and
a pile of yarn and a computerand some art supplies and a
kitchen to play around in tolearn some new skills there,
they are jumping at it.
They are looking at newcuisines to explore.
They are jumping at a newlanguage or the same language to
keep studying.
They want to learn newtechniques with I don't know a

(09:56):
needle.
They want to learn to code inthe computer.
They're exploring new games.
They're really going into focusmode and they love doing it.
They really do.
It's the other way around.
We don't push them at all to doacademics for them.

(10:18):
It's like so kids who are inschool and who are pushed all
the time.
When they come home and andsomeone says, hey, how about we
read some Shakespeare?
They're going oh, go away withthat ugly book and leave me
alone.
Yeah, and I understand it,because someone's pushing them
all the time to do things thatit's kind of brainy.

(10:38):
But our kids, who have thechallenge that we're traveling
all the time and there's alwayssomeone to meet and somewhere to
go and something to see andsomewhere to adapt to, and we
have to go look for gluten-freein this new country and we need
to look up the word and we don'tknow what we're doing.
They just love it when there isspace for studying, and that has

(11:00):
been true for a very long timenow, also when they were way
younger.
Now that they are older, what Isee is more structure, I see
more focus and I see more goalsetting and more clear.
I want to go this way.
I want to read a poem every day, or I want to work with my math
skills every day.

(11:20):
Or our 19 year old son he picksup really complicated
philosophical works and he sitsdown with a notebook and he's
just pushing through until he'sdone with it and and he's not
been in high school and he's not.
He has no formal education, buthe really enjoys doing it.
And then he lets it out on mewhen I'm unfocused and I learned

(11:45):
something really interesting.
I'm like, and he's like no, itcannot work, okay, but anyway.

Yeah, that's just the reality of it I actually
think that the more I learn, thelonger time I've been in this
process, the more I am in doubtwith the whole schooling of the
young child.
I think it is the wrong focusIf we instead focused on helping

(12:14):
our children develop as natural, normal human beings, gave them
time to mature, had time totake all those talks with them
about life, social life, he said.
She said what went on there?
Why did I react like this?
How, why did I feel like this?
And if we gave ourselves thetime to care for them and be

(12:38):
there for them and Basic thing,can I sorry?

Basic thing like letting them sleep enough.

Yeah, yeah.

If I revel back to before, when we still had
kids in institutionalized life,even the fact that I had to wake
them up, Exactly, that's crap.

Because you guys started.

Heidi Schrum (13:01):
Sorry.

Andrew Schrum (13:02):
Because your kids started in school, right?
No, no, we had our oldest.

We had them in institutions in my kindergarten
one of them, so we had thembefore and after I had cancer.

I had cancer when our oldest was 11.
The second was she 11?
Yeah, second must have beensomething like four or five.
And the third one was she hadher two years birthday.
I was bald, yeah, yeah, andwell, we had one more after and

(13:34):
before that.
We knew about Home Ed, and wehad them in a Waldorf school.
The oldest one was theDemocratic school.
Yeah, waldorf Kindergarten, andI kind of I kind of wanted to be
a stay-at-home mom and jasperthought I that would not be a
fulfilling life for me and wecouldn't really agree and all
these things, I don't know Imean.
So they had this part-time andthen I had cancer and then

(13:58):
things changed.
So two middle children havenever been to school.
School the oldest one of themhave been like dipping a toe for
a week kind of situation.
The third child have never beento school ever.
Funny enough, yesterday we werecelebrating her boyfriend's
birthday and there weresomething like seven or eight

(14:21):
teenagers in the same room, allhome educated, unschooled,
actually all of them, and theywere talking about this being
unschooled.
They make all these jokes Canyou read?
You know, I've never been toschool.
It's really funny, Really funny.
Amazing young people.
And then we realized that shewas actually the only one in the
room who had never set her footin a school.

(14:43):
All of them had somehow hadsome sort of toe-dipping
situation.
Some of them had even been toschool for several years.
So that's the story.
The fourth child had never beenin any kind of institution.

When I look at the age our children have and
see how a loss for taking inknowledge, how it emerged, then
I think back to something SugataMitra said on one of our
podcast episodes.
He said that learning is anemergent phenomenon.
It will come, it is in us, itwill naturally occur and it does

(15:24):
so when we are together ingroups, and even more in groups
than when we are individual.
But when I look at all theyears we try to get kids to
learn something, I'm very afraidthat what we learn, or what we
teach them, is to be annoyedwith learning, that it's not a
joy for them, that it's not ahappy thing for them.

(15:46):
Because I can see how in my kidswho have had time to be young,
they have learned to be children, you can say, and they have had
this slow pace of being able tomature into wonderful human
beings.
And then comes the teenageyears and if you don't have the
time to encompass and care forthem, then it can go really

(16:07):
wrong between parents andchildren and reality is they
need a lot of love and care inthat period and school on top of
that.
That is, in my mind, just crazy.
They will find the loss to getknowledge.
Nobody likes to be bored In thefirst, many, many years.
They should be allowed to getknowledge.
Nobody likes to be bored In thefirst, many, many years.
They should be allowed to bechildren and not be small adults

(16:32):
.

But can I rant on the whole concept of the
curriculum?
I mean the whole idea that we,the adults, know what the kids
need to learn and we can come upwith this list of things that
they need to learn and we knowbetter.
So we steal about six to eighthours of their day every day for
about 10 years of their life tomake sure they learn these

(16:52):
things that we have decided theyneed to learn, and lots of them
.
We teach them in ways that makeno sense to them, at points in
time when they have no interestin it.
We tell them that, even thoughyou define this really boring,
you have to learn it, and eventhough there's something else
you're really passionate aboutand your mind is spinning about
it, you have to ignore thatbecause we know better.
That's just uninstalling theagency.

(17:15):
The child has the feeling ofbeing in this world with
personality and using youremotions and your motivation as
a compass, as a guiding systemto find your way through your
days.
It's not just about what welearn.

(17:36):
It's also very much about howwe hold our being, how we feel,
how we can carry ourselvesthrough this life, and that's
what childhood is about aboutbecoming something, someone who
can carry themselves.
That's at that point you don'tneed your parents as a carrying

(17:59):
system any longer.
You need them more as alighthouse or a backdrop for
your life, a guiding referencepoint, and and that's what we're
doing as parents, carrying themto that point.
And if we're carrying them tothat point and leaving them
insecure and and confused, withno experience in making any good

(18:25):
decisions for themselves, noexperience knowing what they
like and dislike, no experiencein making their own mistakes
Because we made 100,000 mistakeson their behalf and only the
narrowest window of exploringwho they are and what they want
and what they feel like, andthat window, by the way, very
often you have to hide itbecause your parents will

(18:48):
disagree with what you're doing.
You should rather do some moreof that Shakespeare thing or
whatever it is.
It's really ruining it and Ithink that's the reason I'm so
hardcore against this compulsoryschooling of the young ones,
because we're ruining theirself-esteem, we're ruining their
presence in life, we're ruiningtheir agency and just making

(19:10):
things harder for them.
So if we could stop and thinkfor a while, do I really know
what they need?
And if I really strongly thinkI do like?
I personally believe that mychildren should learn a lot of
languages.
I usually tell them you shouldbe able to speak five languages
and I think I know it soundsvery ambitious, but actually I
don't think it is.

(19:31):
I would never shovel it downtheir throats.
I would never shame them out ofnot studying languages.
I would rather say I know thisis a very important key.
It's a very important key.
It's a very important key inlife, especially if you're a
nomadic, which we are.
Learn languages, learn morethan two.
Preferably learn at least five.

(19:52):
Then they will know to jump atit.
If they have the option whichis different from me forcing
them to do it four hours a daythere are other.
There's one more thing that wepush them or I put kind of push.
I state very clearly they needto learn, but now I forgot.
Oh yeah, it's literature.
I have a really hard time but Ihaven't.

(20:16):
I don't have the need, but Iwould actually struggle, I will
agree.
I will admit that, even being aradical unschooler, I would
struggle if my kids didn't readbooks, because it's just such a
big part of what life is to me.
It's such a strong and hugepart of art and we need art to

(20:42):
be human.
So if they couldn't ventureinto novels and have an
experience like that and comeout bigger and stronger, if they
had no experience and noinclination and no way of doing
that no need, no motivation Iwould struggle.
I will admit it.
It would be really really hardfor me to unschool that one.
Fortunately I don't have to,but of course there are things.

(21:04):
It's just that it's navigatedin an organic way.
My kids read books because Iread books, because we read
books, because we talk aboutbooks, because one of them is an
author, because it's a big dealin our family, and that's not
the same as me telling them whatto read, when to read it and
what to think about it.
Yeah, okay, I'm ranting,ranting over Cecilia out what to

(21:27):
think about it.

Yeah, okay, I'm renting renting over cecilia out
and how does travel kind ofaffect all of that?
Unschooling, so like beingnomadic, obviously has a big
implication to your day-to-day.
But how does unschooling andbeing nomadic kind of go hand in
hand?
And how have you seen your kidsgrow, maybe exponentially or
not, because you're travelingaround and you're seeing

(21:50):
different cultures and all ofthat?

I have an answer where we'll look inwards first,
which is what can I see?
it has done for me to travel,and I don't know if it's a word,
but unstuckness, otherwise itshould be a word unstuck, and

(22:12):
unstubborn, yeah, yeah I can seethat the fact that I'm changing
my environment often makes melook at and reflect on what I'm
doing, how I'm doing it in newways.

(22:36):
I co-live with new people, I seenew places, I learn new
cultures, and every time it'slike a mirror on my own life
where I need to ask myself ifthe pad I'm on or the line of
thinking is how it should be.

(22:57):
It is a kind of effective wayto break your echo chambers,
which we all have.
We, of course, also have themas we travel with a lot of
like-minded people, but livingin a different culture shatters

(23:19):
your echo chamber of sitting inyour own little street with the
same neighbors doing the samething, going in the same place
to shop.
It changes your perspective onso many things when you take
yourself up with the rules andthrow yourself into a new place.
I would say that the nomadicthing is very different than

(23:43):
being a tourist, because as anomad you try to anchor yourself
in the culture, for or we do,at least for a certain time.
Sometimes we are tourists,absolutely.
We have taken a route that waswonderful, scenic, from turkey
to denmark, where we juststopped one to two days days out

(24:05):
of seven years.
Yeah, yeah that's what I'msaying.
But where we just stopped oneto two days that was 10 days out
of seven years.
Yeah, yeah, that's what I'msaying.
But where we just stopped nextto the big cathedrals, we played
.

American.
I'm sorry.
No, we saw, we've done that.
Yeah, yeah, taking the photo,taking the photo, but it was
stunning to see the differentcathedrals in different
countries, but then we were intourist mode.

Yeah, then we were in tourist mode.
When we are in nomad mode, wemore go into culture.
This summer, here we are, one amonth, maybe one and a half in
UK, and it's different thanbeing a two.

Yeah, no, no, no , we were in Germany 22 days ago
and we're leaving in a week, somaybe we're only two weeks so
whatever Less than a month, butwe're around a a week so maybe
we only so whatever, yeah, lessthan a month but we're around a
month in uk and but it givesanother time.

you, you end up using time and thinking about
why do they drive like that inthe streets?
Uh, how, how are they?
You, you, you sink down intothe culture in a different way,
which make you unstuck in yourthought patterns, and I think
that is the same for our kids.

(25:13):
So now I have defined a lot ofwhat isn't happening.
It is the stuckness that isn'thappening.
So you become and I think mykids also become way more
resilient in the way that theyknow where they are, they know,
have their own personal rootsand anchor in us as a family and

(25:36):
you get to figure out that youcan be anywhere.
You, you learn to interact, youlearn to do a lot of the things.
If we should put on thelearning glasses again and talk
about it as world schooling andtalk a little educanese kind of

(25:56):
educationese language, then oneof the very big things is when
you see a culture and understandthe culture and you are there,
then it gives you a perspectiveyou cannot read about.
You can read so much in historybooks, but but, for example,

(26:19):
there's a lot of people who lovethe second world war and read
about that et cetera.
Yeah, but we have been in, ohmy God, many countries that was
affected by it and have seen howthey were affected by it just
learned something new about it,which actually it did surprise
me when we were at that, uh, thedover castle yeah I, I mean, I,
I.

Second world war grows old in a way.
Lots of things happened inhistory and it just keeps being
Second World War.
I mean, we lived in the Jewishghetto in Poland.
We did so again in Budapest.

We have learned a lot about Second World War.

And I didn't know that it would surprise me
to learn something new.
I'm like, oh, that was actuallyan interesting new perspective.
So yeah, but in a way it'squite obvious that traveling
around feeds the unschooling ina way that can intuitively be
understood by schooled adults ashealthy.

(27:20):
You know, it's a differentcontext, it's a different
feeding system relative tostaying in one place and we love
it and you're going to probablylove it.
Some people really thrivestaying at home.
I'm not going to as much as I'magainst compulsory schooling.

(27:42):
I'm not against people stayingin one place if that's what they
want.
I think that can be great andsometimes, actually just a few
days ago, we were discussingwhether we would go to Nepal
over the winter and one of thekids said you know what?

(28:03):
We could also?
Just not, we could just.
What about just staying in oneplace?
We could just.
How about just staying in oneplace?
Just, you know, take out theinstruments, take out the books,
just chill.
And then he started talkingabout all the things you can do
when you don't move around, whenthe context is not interesting.
He said how about France?

(28:25):
We've been there so many times.
It wouldn't be fair.
We would go see two or threethings.
And then if we stay in oneplace, we've been there, we've
done that and whatever.
And he's right.
So I'm not saying it's betterto be nomadic when you're
unschooling.
It's just a different way ofunschooling and obviously it has

(28:45):
its pros and cons.
And obviously it has its prosand cons.
I think as a beginner unschooler, maybe you could be very
obsessed with the.
You know the teachable momentand and and be very.
You know we're here.
Do you want to hear about thesecond world war?
And you know you have all ofthis teaching agenda and maybe
the kids are interested in therocks or the color of the

(29:07):
flowers or something they justlearned to do in Minecraft or
something completely differentthan your idea about why you
went to the place where you went, and of course, both are legal.
You know you can say, hey, Iknow you're very, I will sit
down and see your Minecraftachievement, can you please?
I want to show you this.
I'm passionate about showingyou this and hopefully you have

(29:31):
a mutual respect for each otherenough to pay attention.
But on the other hand, I wouldsay it is kind of a danger zone
if you want to do yourde-schooling and you want to be
an unschooler to not show upwith that agenda all the time.
That said from someone whothinks my kids should learn five

(29:52):
languages and all these things.
No, but I mean, I think so, butI'm not.
I'm not against it if theydon't, so it's.
It makes it way easier in thecontext of other people.
So if you're an unschooler, aradical unschooler, and you
share with other people, wedon't teach our children

(30:12):
anything.
They will be like wait what?
But if you say, oh, we'retraveling the world, seeing all
these people and places andcultures, and we're not doing
formal education, we're justplaying it by ear, people would
just be impressed.
Yeah, it changes your socialcredit score credit score quite

(30:37):
a lot and also the toll it takeson you to be in this explaining
mode all the time.

That's really nice, but the unschooling, the
mechanisms of unschooling, theyare the same inside the family,
I would say, how much do you letyour kids kind of and help you
make decisions on where you gonext and what you're doing?

and so it changes with their age, of course.
Right now we are in UK becausethey wanted to attend a home
education family festival.
We are here where we are rightnow because our daughter wanted
to celebrate her boyfriend'sbirthday and hang out.

(31:25):
And then we are creating thisevent in tarragona, this world
schooling village in tarragona,because our kids, they want to
hang out with some friends theyhave there and all their other
friends.
So we was like, hey, let's,let's create a community for a
month there and then we will goto rome, because their friends
are in rome, then we will go toRome because their friends are

(31:47):
in Rome, then we will go toNepal because their friends are
in Nepal.

Then we will go to Norway, because their friends
are in Norway.

And the same way.
So if our kids aren't happy, wewouldn't be able to travel.

How much do we let them decide?
I think, there's something withthe question bothers me a little
bit because and you probablydon't have this opinion I'm just
saying it because I we like tobe very leveled with our
children, so I'm not likeallowing things um and I don't

(32:26):
let them do things as if Icouldn't tell them not to.
Does that make sense?
I don't have that kind ofrelationship with them.
We cooperate and obviouslyJesper and I well, not any
longer.
Let's roll back seven years,you know, to when our kids were

(32:46):
more like your kids age.
We are the responsible adultsAt the end of the day.
It's our responsible to keepthe family, family healthy and
safe and thriving, hopefully.
And so we have the final sayand which also means we have the
final responsibility.
It's our fault if things gowrong, if we're not having fun.

(33:07):
I'm not blaming it on the kids,saying you wanted to go here
and now see it sucks.
You know, I would never do that.
Now we have more of an actualadult who's almost 20 years old.
We have a almost 17 year olddaughter who's very much, you
know, has her own agency, andthen this teenager who is 13 and

(33:29):
a half.
So we call it the family braidthat, and it's very much my job.
So I have conversations.
I spend most of my day talking,uh, in not that I talk all the
time, but in conversation withthe children and also
occasionally gets to have a say,just learning about what

(33:51):
they're passionate about, whatthey're working with, what they
want to share, and and alsoabout the traveling.
I talk to them.
You know we have these options,I see these perspectives and
what do you see?
Sometimes they come to me andsay all the friends are going to
do that thing in London inDecember.
Can we join?
Or I've seen that concert orthat festival or that whatever.

(34:11):
Or I want to see.
We just went on a road tripbecause of some art one of the
kids wanted to see.
So that was the dots on the map.
So I just listened to all theseneeds, also a need to could we
slow down, could we stay in oneplace for a while because I'm a
little tired of moving?
Or I need to be in a citybecause I want to explore xyz,

(34:34):
and then I take it on me mostlyand we all obviously we discuss
it.
We're very good at talkingabout it when we drive, yeah,
and we just take all thesedifferent options and needs and
feelings and state of minds andmake this complicated braid that
you could see in some Lord ofthe Rings kind of situation and

(34:54):
try to get it all in there intothe plans, and the plans they
change all the time, so thebraid has to be redone all the
time, but it's that kind ofprocess.
So even though some of them areadults, I think I still have
sort of the final responsibility.
Yeah.

(35:16):
But we are doing things theywant to do.
I've let go completely the pastyear.
I've let go completely ofhaving my own agenda.
I think you know, at some pointand I see that point not too
far away on the horizon Jesperand I are traveling, just him
and I, and I can go see all thethings I personally need to see
in my life, which at that pointmight have changed completely,

(35:37):
and be all my grandchildren.
I don't know, but you know, ifthere's anything that was on my
bucket list that we didn't dowhen they were smaller, there
many years after that, but yeah,sometimes it's also a question
of understanding the wish saidout loud.

For example, I often has this dream of being in
the same place at the same fora longer period and were there a
beach in front of me, thatwould be fine.
But then I ask myself and, indialogue with Cecilia, is
talking about but yes, but whatis it it actually represents for

(36:20):
you?
What is it you want to achieve?
Instead of a specificdestination, what is it you feel
is lacking in your life?
And it's the same level ofdialogue we have with our, if
our, kids.
Sometimes it's very easy tofigure out what the the actual
wish is.
If it's, hey, I want to go upand hang out with this friend,
it's because they want to go andhang out with this friend.
But for me sometimes it's morea oh.

(36:41):
There's an inner mind state Ihaven't achieved where I am more
relaxed in my work life balance, and part of me thinks that if
I just sit down in the sameplace to say all the time, then
I would find that relaxation.
And then we have tried it andit doesn't work, as you say.

(37:03):
No, but it's, it's a questionof it's not the place, it's not
the space, it's the, it's themind space, it's the way of
thinking that needs to beaddressed and and worked on I
think.

So the past year has really been different than
the years before.
I'd say the past three yearsthings have been changing, but
the past is we've just letcompletely go.
It's just it's all about wherethe kids want to go really, and
they want to go where theirfriends are, and now one of them
is in a serious relationshipand we have to sort of

(37:37):
accommodate that, not sort of wehave, we have and want to
accommodate that.
So it's all about aligning withthat actually really, and with
it's a great group of friendsthey have and they're all
nomadic.
And so it's just a question ofwhere does the group go?
Have we aligned?
But they have a few really goodfriends that are not nomadic,

(37:58):
so we put that in the calendaras well, and there are very few
things like full solar eclipsesthat we all want to see as a
family, so that goes in thecalendar.
I just think for them it'sabout the friends first and
foremost.
Now wasn't always, but now itis and that could change again.

So and are those friends, just like you know,
friends you've made on the roadyeah, yeah, it is.

I mean it really within the first.
This was the first big, no, thesecond big epiphany.
We had one real big realizationbefore we even left, which was
we're buying this bus andconverting it just because it's
kind of a ticket out that weneed.
We probably don't need the bus,but we need the ticket out.

(38:52):
This is the way, this is whatwill kick us in the butt enough
to let go.
So we're doing it.
That was the before big insight.
And then the first surprisinginsight, the thing we hadn't
really fully understood beforewe left was how important it was
to be together, all five of us,all the time.
So the fact that he was workingnow 100% from home.

(39:13):
That was a game changer.
We had not seen how big it was.
We knew we were looking forwardto it, but we had not seen how
big it was.
It was really big.
And then the next one was wethought that we were traveling
for places, for culture, forarts, for mountaintops, for
little villages, for big citiesyou know that kind of bucket

(39:34):
list.
And before the first hundreddays were over, we knew we were
traveling for people, the realadventure is the people.
The people we meet is just.
It's just.
You cannot even compare howmuch more of an adventure that
is For us.
I'm not saying that's true foreveryone.
For us it's the key into theplaces.

(39:59):
It's just been so amazing andwe've met you couldn't have
planned for it.
We've met the mostoverwhelmingly interesting, fun,
loving right now.

I was thinking about we have a castle in
normandy.
Who's?

the most amazing man.
Oh, and then when we met atthat castle in the north of
Spain, when we just got therewith the beard, remember, I mean
it's just been overwhelming.
So all of our dots.
Now, if we had one of thesemaps that we don't have with all
the places we've been, it wouldhave faces on them, it would be

(40:37):
people.

And it's not necessarily like through hub,
like World School Hubs.

It's just going places.
It has also been.
Going places, but I mean yourlife will and reaching out to
homeschool groups where we gowas the hack in the beginning.
We've also not hubs not like LaHerradura hubs, not like, you
know, permanent hops but we'vebeen to events and that has been
a game changer and we highlyrecommend joining events for

(41:07):
world schoolers really.
It is a game changer to meetpeople who's been doing it for
years and to meet other peoplewho are new to the game and just
hang out for a while.
We did the first one in 2019,which was just a year after we
started and then we didn't, forsome funny reason.
We didn't do any until 23.

There was this little thing called the pandemic
in between.
Yeah, I know.

There wasn't a lot of activity.
That was annoying.

Yeah Well, we did do a lot of things, but
there were no big gatherings forsome crazy reasons.
Some people thought thateverything was dangerous I don't
know whatever.

Not discussing that, we talked about for this
lifetime but it's a really goodthing to go out and say where
can I meet people?
Go to events, go to.
It could be people reading outof their books, literature,
whatever, but go out and andimmerse yourself in people.
There is wonderful people outthere, but it doesn't have to be

(42:07):
planned for.
It doesn't have to be plannedfor, no no, but the openness is
something that is easier andit's also a personality thing.
We got invited.
We were almost we gate crasheda 40-year-old birthday yesterday
when you did, yeah, I did and Iloved it and we were invited.

(42:28):
No, no, we talked with the kids.
We were out just walking thedogs and it seemed like a really
good party, but at the sametime we were also like yeah,
okay, but the kids want toactually go home and just chat.
It was their last nighttogether.

And a birthday for one of the boys.
Yeah, he was like I'm joininganother person's birthday.

But it's about being open and most people are
happy to share and happy toshare their time together and
happy to share whatever theyhave.
And one of the biggest lessonsI've had in my life is, if
people are passionate aboutsomething, they love to talk

(43:09):
about it.
Just look at us being asked byyou and we're like, oh, someone
want to hear what we have to say.
It's wonderful.
But this has given me so manygood experiences.
When we meet someone and it canbe a guitar builder we met at
eco village I'm like so how areyou building this thing?
Yeah they just share, and theamount of passion and lust and

(43:34):
and sharing, and it is sodifficult not just to enjoy and
learn and be like, so much beenthe friends of the children,
though no, is that is?

that there's more like you walking up to
people and I just love chattingbut I think for the family life
really it's been couldn't havebeen planned for.
We've been working for it andthat's mostly been me, I, I, me.
I won't do much social mediaany longer.
I feel it's become a little tothe toxic side, but it was

(44:05):
better seven years ago and I didwhenever we went to a new place
or thought, okay, let's go inthis direction, I would join
some of the home educationgroups and just reach out and
say, hi, we're coming this wayand we're this danish family and
we have these kids and we'dlike to meet some like-minded

(44:26):
people.
And sometimes people want toand sometimes they don't.
Sometimes I had high hopes foran area in portugal at some
point because there were so manyexpat home educators in the
area.
Language, obviously, I,obviously I say five languages,
but it doesn't happen instantly.
So it's quite nice if there aresome who do speak the one
language we are fluent in, orlike the second language we're

(44:47):
fluent in.
But that was just a really hardcommunity to penetrate, really.
It really was.
And then at one of the CanaryIslands, it was overwhelmingly
easy.
So it's just.
And there was a city in Mexico.
It took us like three or fourdays and we had close friends
and were part of, you knowcommunity work.

(45:09):
So it is also just to try toreach out in these groups and
see sometimes it's WhatsApp nowmore than it's, you know,
facebook and also just what theycall coincidences.
There's been a lot of thosewhere we meet people and you can
kind of see if people areunschoolers actually.

Do the boys have long hair?

I don't know.
There's something about the waythey move as a group.
So often we've been to placesand then we see, oh, that's an
unschooling family for sure andor at least you know, a
traveling home education familyand we walk up to them hi.
Um, sometimes they're usuallythey're very open.
Sometimes people walk up to us.
That happened in portugal.

(45:55):
Actually, funny enough, it wasa Danish family, but they had
some kids and they weretraveling and unschooling and
and one day at one of the CanaryIslands I sat down at the beach
.
It was packed.
It was La Palma.
It doesn't have a lot ofswimmable beaches, so those that
are pretty full it was the.
It was just around Christmaslots of tourists on the island

(46:16):
and sat down and I needed to sayhi to the guy next to me
because it was so packed thatyou sat so close.
You kind of say hi, and thathappened to be one of the three
home educating families on theisland oh wow, yeah, it happened
and that kind of thing justhappens all the time.
I feel like, yeah, yeah, you canplan for it, you can work for

(46:39):
it, but also just maybe just paya little bit of attention and
it there's, this inflow ofpeople yeah, yeah do you want to
ask one of these?

it was just kind of more of a question on work
life, like, because you bothstill work yeah like just how
that works on the road and Iwish I could answer that
question I don't know, but we'restill here no, so I I recommend
the book pseudo, pseudo work,pseudo work, however you

(47:12):
pronounce it in english, by deandennis normag and a Anders Fogh
Jensen.

I will make a link to it.
It is in English as well,because that is changing.
It helps open many people'seyes to what work is Basically.
The whole idea that work shouldtake 37.5 hours, as it does in
Denmark, denmark, is a weird one.

(47:41):
In reality, if you're reallygood at what you're doing, you
can solve things very fast.
People pay for things to besolved, not the amount of hours
you put in.
And when I and that was one ofthe things that ended up
frustrating me going tofull-time work was I didn't want

(48:02):
to hang out with my colleaguesthat much.
It's not that I didn't likethem, but it was not.

He actually liked me more.

Yeah, like my wife and the kids more and I
wanted just to hang out withthem, or people where I shared a
lot, just to hang out with them.
Or people where I shared a lot.
I've always been able to figureout someone to talk with or
someone who had if I couldn'tfind a good subject, then they
had a similar absurd humor wherewe could use our minds in being

(48:33):
more and more absurd and had alot of fun over lunch.
But it's weird to be in prisonfor so many hours to get a
paycheck when it is as lucky assome of us are to have what you
could call mind work and notbeing in the service world where
you are standing behind thecounter for eight hours where

(48:55):
you need to stand there.
It's way different.

Of course it it is can I say something really
practical, because I'm trying towind back seven years and I
remember how I mean we would setaside actual time for you.
Yeah, that would be.
Now.
Dad is working and now he has acall, so you have to be quiet
and we would make sure to find away where it would be

(49:18):
navigatable for the kids to bequiet so that he wouldn't be.
You were way more stressed outabout it at the beginning that
you know what would the clientsthink?
and would they know that he wasin a car and would that be a
problem?
And we only had the bus at thetime so we had to all be in
there if it was raining,otherwise I could obviously go
for a walk with the kids.
So they have had a lot of yearsof training.

(49:41):
They just know we actually Ijust snap like this and I tell
them that's on a call and theyshut up.
They know what to do and andthey respect that.
They know that's our bread.
It's mostly him working when Iwork.
It's just it looks differentwhen I work as a psychologist,
as a coach or a therapist.

(50:04):
I work from the phone and Ileave the family.
I can't be around anyone, so Ijust go for a walk, leave the
group.
Obviously, the kids are so oldnow no one has to look after
them as such.
We had to do that in thebeginning.
They were younger and it's justbeen a learning journey for all
of us.
How do we make this work?

(50:24):
And sometimes we have to stopand do a few days of just
working.
That doesn't happen very often.
Sometimes Jesper fantasizes ofa house on a beach with a nice
view and a comfortable chair anda wife who would serve him
little meals and and happy,quiet children in the sunset and

(50:46):
just getting things

done yeah, um, that would be so.
Never happens, never everhappens.

Never have, even if the house is there and I
serve him little meals, you knowanyways it's, it's just, you
know.
So we often talk about howgreat it would be, so maybe we
could recommend other peopledoing it to actually sit down,
let's say once a week, and justthink about okay, what do we
need to get done this week andwhat are the time slots where we

(51:13):
are trying to work, and how dowe make those time slots work
for everyone?
That would be really smart.

We're not doing it.

No, no, we're playing it by ear.

I will share the biggest wins of it and the most
stress from it.
So the biggest wins of goingfrom full-time office work to
full-time nomadic is I own mymornings.
Oh my God To not have to be aspecific place at a specific
time, the freedom I have that Idecide when I say yes to a

(51:53):
meeting.
I try not to say yes tomeetings before 10 am because I
like my mornings to be wake up,lie in bed, read my book a
little until I'm probably awake,go for a run, do my yoga, make
my wife a coffee, drink coffee,take a shower.
I like to use two to threehours every morning on just

(52:19):
enjoying life.

I didn't have time for that.
It's a part-time job.
You know that, yeah.

I didn't have time when I had to be in an
office.
That is such a big gift.
I'm so grateful for it.
And then I'm grateful foractually having clients that
want to work with me.
So I have something to do,because I am still trained as
this mindset that for me to feelvaluable, someone needs to pay

(52:48):
me to do a task.
It I I'm.
One day I might come out of it,but I'm still in that loop of
thinking where I am morevaluable as a person when I have
done a task and they say, ohgood boy, and I get a paycheck.
Then I feel good as a humanbecause, oh, I can serve my

(53:10):
family.

I have no problem spending the money.
No, no, yeah, yeah.

So the wins is owning your time, yeah, yeah.
So the wins is owning your time.
Also, for me to work in theevening sometimes or oh, now we
need to go to a museum or thebeach is right there, then I can
postpone my work, that is alsowonderful.
The biggest stress is, as Ibase my income on working with

(53:39):
different clients.
Then I'm really never off.
I'm not really good at notworking, so there's always this
in back of my mind.
So, oh, maybe I should do thisinstead, or I could also you
were never good at not workingno I mean no, really, when you
had an office job.

He wasn't the kind of guy who would come home
and just play soccer in thegarden?

No, no.

You'd come home and start some sort of project
with your computer.

Yeah, yeah, I like doing stuff, and if you go.

I'm just saying it's not about the nomadic
lifestyle, it might be just moreabout you.

Yeah, it might be more about me.
And then I think there issomething to learn about the
whole.
Why do I need to feel valuablein that way?
But at the same time, there'salso something very good and
healthy in, hey, I'm providingfor a family.
It's, it's okay that it givesme joy to provide for the family
.
Yeah, so the freedom is good.

(54:40):
I felt a shift in me after hererecently.
What happened was I separatedwith a client after 10 years and
it was the last client I hadfrom a day job in Denmark job in
Denmark.
They didn't start this yet tome yes, but you can go travel,
but one year, then I don't wantyou back or we should figure

(55:06):
something out.
And then they kept on.
I was there three years beforewe started traveling and they
kept on having me as afreelancer for seven years until
there was like maybe you'reactually not coming back yet,
maybe it's time to cut our ties.
It was really good, but itchanged.
So it has been good 10 yearswith them and I still go have a
lunch with them when we see eachother.
But I can now see that I feeldifferent being on a call with

(55:30):
them, because I felt that theybecause it was one of those
clients I had from before I wasnomadic.
All the clients I have now theyknow I'm nomadic, so I have no
problem saying to them meetingThursday, I can't, it's a day of
transition.
I will be driving the whole day.

(55:50):
And then there's acceptance.
But the biggest acceptancecomes from me daring to say it.
I'm pretty sure my old boss,who I love and respect a lot, he
would have been totally finewith me saying it, but I had
some insecurity in it and maybeyou can get over that insecurity
faster than I can.

(56:11):
Hopefully it took me sevenyears.
Maybe that's too long time.
Yeah, yeah.

Great, I don't.
I mean, maybe this is a I don't.
I think I know the answer tothis question, but do you ever
feel a pull to to stop?

Yes, and yeah, and like what?

what makes that like what?
What is it that?
The thought process and whatmakes that like what?
What is it that?
The thought process and whatcauses that like, are there
things that you're around orlike.
And then what do you do withthose feelings?
Do you kind of be like we have,but this is still great, or?
How do you deal with that?

we sometimes feel a pull to stop, but it's
usually just overload, yeah, andwe know we don't really want to
, we know it's.
It's usually just some sort offrustration, some unmet need we.
We know we don't really want.
You know, like all peoplesometimes feel frustrated with
the life they live.
You know and and so do we.

(57:15):
Obviously, sometimes theclosest we get to actually
acting on it is when we say howabout we slow down for a little
bit?
And then we explore that idealong enough to actually hype
ourselves up to think that wewill slow down, and then it
doesn't happen Because otherthings are more interesting and

(57:36):
more important.
We do sometimes take a month inone location.
That happens fairly often andthat's nice, but for the most
part, it's a month in onelocation, where a lot of our
friends are in the same location, and you know, yeah, not chill

(57:57):
time, it's party time in reality.

Yeah, yeah I think that the dark days when
they come, as cecilia say, it iswhen we have been too busy and
estranged.
But what I long for is slowingdown more than returning to one
place, because I know somepeople actually just rent a

(58:21):
house and it's like, okay, welive here for half a year or a
year.
In my mind I'm grown up withthis idea of you buy a house and
then you live there kind offorever and take a 30 year
mortgage on it, as my parentsdid and Cecilia's parents did
and we did in the start.
Now that thought is actuallymore scary for me than than not

(58:44):
traveling.
I could see myself maybe in ina half half a year.
No, not even half a year is along time.
I can see life change in theway that when we get
grandchildren I maybe want to bearound more.

Of course, yeah, but the risk is that we're
going to have grandchildren infour different countries.
Yeah, but then.

I'm supposed to be around in four different
countries.

Yeah, but that's not staying in one place.

Then sometimes I consider, if I miss seeing
things grow, I have planned itmyself.
So there is this idea aboutmaybe getting something and
having a base that we return to,but right now I would feel

(59:34):
obliged to return to that place.

The thing is, the base is a trap.
Really, it's very hard to notgrow a little bit lazy.
Our bus worked as a base for along time, as we drove it for
three months and then we parkedit at a great place and for many
, many reasons, it never left.
So we left many times.
We bought another vehicle,started traveling based out of

(01:00:00):
that and coming back to the bus.
So that went on for about fouryears until we sold the bus.
And it was a trap.
We had fun, but also it was atrap.
It was oh, this is easy, thisis free, this is safe, this is
comfortable.
We know the people in Spain.
Sun's always shining, peopleare nice, we speak the language,
we know what we're doing, andso you stay.

(01:00:22):
And then you stay a littlelonger.
And now when the kids talkabout those years, they do talk
about it with fun memories, butthey also say that was boring.
And every time we came back wedid the same thing over and over
, over and and over and over andover and over, and it wasn't
that interesting.

(01:00:43):
So I think, wherever we wouldset up a base, it would be very
easy to go there.
We would have that mind.
I could have it right now.
Okay, let's just go home, havea pause, just do our thing.
But how much energy would ittake to move on?
How much energy would it taketo get going?
Would I pay for an airbnbsomewhere else when I have a

(01:01:06):
free, or at least already paidfor, accommodation in my home,
in my base?
Yeah, maybe not, and so I thinkit's sort of a trap.
I kind of like the idea, butthen, on the other hand, I think
it's a trap.
I think it would stop us fromdoing the things we really want
to do, and we need to meet thatneed in a different way.

(01:01:32):
So traveling based out of a vanhas created that safe space of
and stealing us home.
Our van is very, very comfy andpersonal and and well, you know
the Danish concept hygge it'svery much, uh, our place.

(01:01:54):
And you know, I actually sleepin my own bed, no matter where I
go, or at least I can go.
If I have an Airbnb, at least Ican go to my private personal
space where I feel at home, atthe parking lot and sit and do
my writing or my meditations orwhatever.
So we have that in between andthe kids have that in between

(01:02:17):
feeling that we have our homewith us and the fact that we
don't have a home anywhere elsemakes this our actual, real home
.
That's parked outside ofwherever we are.
That works for us, I think.
And then I think, looking atthe need for stability, for

(01:02:37):
roots, for peace, forcontemplation, for slow living,
all of that can be met withoutsetting up a base.
You can return to the sameplaces.
Yeah, have favorite places andgo there and feel at home.
Uh, we do.
We have that in many places,where many places where we, we

(01:02:57):
just love.
We love that walk in thatforest in that country and that
specific little city, or we lovethat restaurant there, or we
love that cafe, or we love thatmuseum, whatever, and we go
every time we stop right thereand go home.
So we just feel at home atmaybe 20 different locations in
Europe instead of one.

Jesper Conrad (01:03:18):
Which is kind of cool, and an example on how life
also can be is my parents.
They had a vacation home, likeone and a half hour away from
their home, so one of these likea cabin.
It would be in the States orwhatever, where you go, and then
, oh, it's just relaxation time.

(01:03:39):
It's close to a beach, it wasgreat, but it also meant that so
many of the vacations and theweekends were there.
So the question is, what areyou not experiencing?
Yeah, that's a lot, and I meanthere, of course, is something

(01:03:59):
to the circulariness of going tothe same place over and over.
It's very comfortable, you feelvery secure, but it's a really
big world and I don't mindseeing a lot of it.
I see a lot of it, I enjoy alot of it.
I learn so super much from it.

(01:04:20):
And one of the things that isfun is returning to the same
friends, and I feel the same.
But we have some friends whoare really good at recognizing
where you are as a person, andone of them, dore, is a great
friend.
She's every time we meet her,like once a year or twice a year

(01:04:41):
.
She's like, oh my God, you havemoved so much in your mind the
last year, and it's nice to beseen, because it's not always
you see it yourself when youtravel.
But we grow a lot more than Iwould have done as a person
living in the same place, a lotmore than I would have done as a
person living in the same place.

Andrew Schrum (01:05:01):
One of the questions is kind of like van
life versus airplane life, and Idon't know if you've done both,
or we're going to about to dotransplants and automobile life
and try to cram it intominimalist and be in a carry on
suitcase style if we can, so Idon't know any any thoughts on
all of that.
I mean, basically we're takingour entire life here and lots of

(01:05:26):
toys and that we're not gonnahave with us, you know we're not
gonna have mountain bikes andrafts and all big things, you
know, and and just trying tofeel how that's gonna play out
and it'll, it'll be fine, I knowit will be.
But any advice in the airplanetravel life?

Cecilie Conrad (01:05:47):
I think that you are going to travel in many
different ways in the years ofyour travels and I also think
that the sum of money we spendon the bus to begin with, we
could have bought a lot of planetickets and taxi rides and bay
and amusement parks and you knowentertainment or rented bikes
or you know.
So if you have that mindset ofokay, we didn't buy that huge

(01:06:12):
vehicle, so maybe we can afforda box of Lego that we are going
to donate when we leave thiswhatever hotel we're living or
whatever makes happy some toys,some balls and maybe, yeah, you
know, and just leave it behindwhen you go or send it back to a
storage whatever.
Whatever say it was sales aboutreally.

(01:06:32):
Um, yeah, we've donebackpacking.
We've done most van living witha lot of airbnbs.
We don't live in the van, wemove around in the van and do
road trips between stops in thevan.
We've had our reasons to stayin europe.
It's very comfortable to have avan with us.

(01:06:53):
You know we have three tons ofthings no, including the van.
Um, yeah, and so we have ourcoffee machine and the
skateboard and it's way lessthan if we lived in a house, but
it's way more than the carry-on.
We did a carry-on backpack tripfor almost eight months last

(01:07:17):
year and so we came back in May24 from Mexico and the US and
when we were thinking aboutgoing again to India and Nepal
last year in November, so comeSeptember, we started to look at
, okay, are we doing it andwhere will we go?

(01:07:39):
We were all like I just can'tgo into a backpack again.
It's only been six months.
I just need more of a break.
So now we're doing it by theend of this year or the
beginning of next year.
Any good advice?

I have one.

Yeah.

So mine is.
What I really like is for mykids to feel at home where they
go.
So if there's something forthem it could be a poster,
whatever that if you move intoan airbnb, they could have a
little corner where they puttheir toys, something that is
carrying life with them homewith them.

(01:08:16):
And then one of the ways wehave learned to leverage being
in an airbnb or a rented placethat I've talked with some
people who are surprised by hey,can you do that?
It is, it is yours for the timeyou're there.
You are allowed to move thefurnitures around, be kind

(01:08:37):
enough to put them back, ofcourse, but, oh my, we have to
come into many an Airbnb andbeing like I want the desk over
there.

I want the sofa to face the window.
I don't want to look at thattelevision I want to hang one of
my scarves on the TV becausethat big black thing is
disturbing my mind.

So yeah, that.

That is a really good hack to making your place
for the time being it's reallybeen the worst decision I did
about the backpacking was that Ididn't bring my big camera.
I like taking pictures and Ithought the camera is a really
big one maybe.
Maybe in such a small backpackthat was a bad choice, Whereas

(01:09:20):
clothes you don't need clothes,you can buy clothes everywhere.
Wherever you go, there will bea thrift store or something.
With clothes for the season,with clothes for that area and
it will cost you like $50 to getdressed.
So if you go and you don't havea have warm enough sweater or
cold enough shirt or whatever,that's not the no reason to take

(01:09:43):
up a lot of space in yourbackpack.
Bring the stuff that you need,buy the clothes and donate them
again before you fly next timeand then have all the little.
So what we also do is we havethese really thin tote bags you
know you use for shopping, somereally thin tote bags you know
you use for shopping.

(01:10:04):
So when you embark on anairplane you wear like three or
four layers of clothes and yourpockets full of those bags and
then you take it off and youhave a lot of bags with you that
work.
Like you have to fly and youjust found a sweater you really
like and you want to bring it tothe next place, just wear wear
it, wear it yeah.

Yeah, yeah, but seriously make the places your
home.
Yeah, you're there because noone likes to live in an Airbnb.
Go down to the local thriftstore, buy some trinkets.

Heidi Schrum (01:10:31):
Whatever you need, Don't get too attached yeah.

It's fine.

And all barefoot shoes.

Oh yeah.

They take shoes.
Oh yeah, they take up nothing.
I don't know how you, how youshoe, we don't.
We walk barefoot a lot, but in,in, to the extent we need shoes
, we use barefoot shoes.

They just don't take up a lot of space and we
travel one pair of shoes eachand uh well, we travel with our
yoga mats or buy a new one, butit's really the shape so that it
can get in.

So I mean, it's just, and probably you're going
to pack a bag and uh, then callme again after living in that
bag for six weeks and tell mehow much of what was in it to
begin with is still there andyou will learn it's not yeah,
not yeah and maybe some people.
Actually, we know, we know alot of nomadic people, and some

(01:11:23):
of them, uh, they have justchosen to not carry on.

You're like you know what?

This is my full-time life.
I move once a month and I'mjust having my big, big suitcase
with me with all the stuff thatI want to have with me to feel
happy, and I'm not doing thethrift store thing.
I want my jeans, I want my bootsand I want my high heels, I
want my slippers and I want mysneakers and I want my work and

(01:11:52):
I've got all of it, I've got myblender with me, I've got my
guitar with me and I am going togo through all of that every
time I fly, because that makesme happy and there's no shame in
that maybe an entire suitcasejust for the lego, I mean some
people.
Just, you know, shouldn't beabout how, how big your suitcase

(01:12:12):
no, and the whole issue istraveling fast.

It's expensive if you move once.
Yeah, oh, oh, my god.

Especially us yeah .

When is the travel?

When are you starting?

Yeah, we're in the final three weeks or so here
.
So yeah, we're in the Pack upthe house and get it all put
away.

Why don't we talk again in six weeks from now
?

or like when you have been on it for from maybe a
month or two it's almost thesame.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that'd be great, yeah
that would be cool yeah well,how exciting.

Yeah, I'm jealous of the life ahead of you, life
you already have no, but it's abig shift.
It's a fun shift.
It will be fun.

I hope you'll have a lot of.
Where are you going first?

Yeah.

Well, we're going to do.
We're doing like a two-weekkind of road trip in the US and
then we fly to Mexico.

Ah nice, Are you going to San Miguel de Allende?

We are.
You'll be there for 11 weeks.

Yeah, yeah it's a great place, just reach out,
reach out, say hello to all ofthem from us, the ones who are
in the river, great people,beautiful city, nice, nice.

We wanted to come back ever since we left but
you know.

That's so funny that you called that out.
Well, there are some places in.

Europe, it would be La Herradura it's a good
starting place.
Oh yes, it's a good place tostart.
Yeah, all right, I really needthat coffee now all right.

Thank you so much, enjoy it it was fun talking bye
, bye, bye, bye.

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Unschooling and Worldschooling Has Changed Us | The Conrads in dialogue with Heidi & Andrew Schrum

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Unschooling and Worldschooling Has Changed Us | The Conrads in dialogue with Heidi & Andrew Schrum