The other day I received an email from a guy who is actually doing what I have only up to this point written about: traveling the world with his kids!
In the winter of 2010, Tim Murphy and his wife Oa pulled their 3 kids out of school, rented out their San Francisco home and headed to Thailand. They plan on traveling the world indefinitely. They blog about it here.
Oa with 8-year old Tawan and 5-year old Plyfaa riding an elephant in Maehongson, Thailand
According to Tim, the experience of traveling together as a family has been profound. “We have become a close-knit family and have learned to appreciate the beauty of the world all around us,” he writes.
I was so intrigued by their story, I asked Tim for an interview, which he generously agreed to. In this interview, Tim reveals:
- why losing hundreds of thousands of dollars was the best thing that ever happened to him
- how anyone can spend more time with their kids if they choose
- what coping strategies his family uses to transcend stressful situations
- how they can afford to travel the world on $67 a day
Here’s the full interview. I hope you’re as inspired as I was.
1. You’ve probably seen those “spot the difference” puzzles where you have to identify the ways in which two similar pictures differ from each other. If an imaginary observer had taken a snapshot of you and your family ten years ago, and then took another snapshot today, what are the most important differences that we would spot? And how did you get from there to here?
Ten years ago. We didn’t have kids yet but I was working like a madman. I was teaching full time, investing in the stock market, and building homes. I kept up this crazy pace for a decade working 60-70 hours per week.
The dot com bust came and I lost hundreds of thousands of dollars. It was the best thing that happened to me. I examined my life and I realized that I was not happy. It felt that I wasted 10 years of my life. A few years later, I quit my teaching job and stopped the real estate business.
I married about 10 years ago and a couple of years later we started our family. I never turned back. We live frugally but we have our lives back. I am so very grateful that I can spend my time watching my kids grow up. Our kids are great teachers to us. They are teaching us how to view the world through their observations and questions. Life is too short to be concentrating all your energy on possessions.
with Thai homeschool group in Kanchaburi, Thailand
2. You must come across some amazing people in your travels – and I bet people tend to be pretty amazed by your family as well. What about your lifestyle seems to interest people the most?
It’s quite funny traveling with kids. Everyone is happy to see them and you end up having an extra 20 sets of eyes looking after them. Our kids are treated like movie stars sometimes – lots of people are snapping their pictures and coming over to them. There is never a shortage of warnings when they think your child is doing something unsafe.
A few days ago, my son, daughter, and I were on our bikes waiting to cross a street. It was filled with traffic. We usually just wait it out. A man pulled his car over, got out, and helped us cross the street! Acts like these are very typical and not out of the ordinary.
There are 3 things that surprise people.
- We don’t work because we are full-time stay at home parents.
- We homeschool and are traveling the world.
- We opted out of a consumer orientated lifestyle and live frugally.
All the people that we meet wish that they could spend more time with their kids. We tell them that they can if they make choices and prioritize. It’s a hard choice to break away from this mindset but we hope we inspire some people. If we can do it then anyone can!
Rafting with Thai homeschoolers in Kanchaburi, Thailand
3. Let’s talk nuts and bolts for a minute. How exactly are you traveling at the moment? Are you camping or do you stay in rented accommodation? What sort of equipment, materials, tools, software etc do you find indispensable?
We had lived in Thailand from 1999 – 2002. It was the Asian economic crisis and during that time the dollar was worth about 60% more than it is today. We bought a condo and we’re using this as a base to explore Asia.
In the US, we drove a minivan and we had it loaded up with tents and camping gear. My big advice is to buy quality camping gear because it will last a life time. In the beginning, we had bought cheaper equipment and it quickly fell apart and it ended up costing more because of the replacement cost. Buying 2nd hand on craigslist is also a great place to look.
We also have a Kindle and a laptop. I suppose we could do without these items but we use them to teach math, read books, and to stay connected with friends and family. It’s really not necessary as there are loads of places to use the internet. The kindle is great because children books are hard to come by in non-English speaking countries.
When traveling in the US we relied heavily on our GPS. We used it all the time to locate parks and libraries in towns. We visited hundreds of libraries across the US.
4. Something I hear a lot from my readers is, “I’d love to travel but I can’t afford it.” How do you afford to travel?
Our budget is $67 per day for a family of five. We own a duplex in San Francisco that we rent out. It pays the mortgage and gives us around $2100 per month. We have learned to budget and we save a lot of money by eating at home or eating street food which is very inexpensive.
On a cave tour in Kanchaburi, Thailand
Last week, I met a young Russian family with a young child. They don’t speak English very well and they homeschool. He’s a computer programmer and the wife stays at home. They split their time between India and Thailand. The cost of living is very low for them. They rent a furnished house in Northern Thailand for $150 a month (I know because I helped them find it). I think their budget is about $500 or so a month. He tries to get jobs locally.
So the point is that there are places all over the world and even the US where you can travel and live cheaply. Americans can teach English all over Asia and there are plenty of jobs.
5. One of the biggest challenges for someone trying to travel fulltime isn’t just making the logistics work, but also dealing with others in your life — for example, other family members, naysayers, and people who don’t understand or support your lifestyle choices. How do you deal with that?
I suppose we are lucky. Our families respect our decision. I think it is because of all the negative news about public education in both the US and Thailand. They do worry about natural disasters and such.
For example, we made a tour during the rainy season in Northern Thailand and there were a few mud slides and a river flooding. It was really no big deal if you use common sense. We were never in any danger. A joke we make to our families is that it is far more dangerous in San Francisco then a small village in a developing country.
6. I’m fascinated by how children seek out and internalize new information if left to their own devices. On your blog, you refer to both homeschooling and unschooling. Is there a difference between the two? Please share some concrete examples of how your kids learn. Down the road, do you think they will want to go to university or do you foresee a less structured path for them?
University? Absolutely! However, it is their choice ultimately. College for them is our dream and all we can do is hope that they find their passion in life and be able to pursue it. My wife and I both have college degrees and we enjoyed college life. We hope all our children have a chance to experience this as well. But, it is their choice, not ours.
Homeschooling takes many forms from classical education to letting the children teach themselves (unschooling). We do a hybrid form which is a little bit of both.
My 2 and 5 year old do little sit-down work (sometimes math and phonics computer lessons). The emphasis is on play but we do a great deal of oral reading to them. My soon to be 8 year old is given academic work in math, grammar, spelling, writing, and science. The total amount of lessons never amounts to more than 6-7 hours per week or 90 minutes per day. However, I never force her to do work unless she is up to doing it.
Now, we are writing a book together. It’s an adventure story. The plot is being stranded in Burma with her brother and sister. We have incorporated things that we learned from our travels. It’s a lot of fun and we are learning how to develop the plot and the techniques of writing. We do a lot of proof reading and re-writing. We are on chapter 6 now and I think we will get the girls to do all the drawings. Who knows? We may even publish on Amazon as an e-reader book.
We sometimes do a 2 minute lesson on money, addition, subtraction, multiplication, and percentages. My girls are always on the prowl for loose change that I drop around the house (sometimes I do it on purpose). They taught themselves the value and names of the (Thai money)1 baht, 5 baht, 10 baht coins and the 20 baht, 100 baht, and 500 baht paper money. They go to the shop by themselves. Now they are counting money and buying the usual stuff kids like such as ice cream and drinks. I smiled the other day when they came back a little upset. “Daddy they raised the price of Mentos by 2 baht” they said. We did a quick lesson on inflation and percentages.
7. On my blog I write a lot about finding your calm center and using contemplation to diffuse anxiety. Traveling with 3 kids under 10, I imagine you come across your share of potentially stressful situations. Do you have any specific coping strategies for those times?
Haaa. What an understatement. My wife is a Buddhist so she is always trying to center herself. I am an older dad so I am pretty calm. But, kids will be kids and our patience will be tested every now and again. We try to get the kids to settle their own disagreements. We tend to ignore undesirable behavior and we try to use positive reinforcement. Whenever one of us feels frustration, the best policy is to let that person get away for a break. However, I am human and I sometimes get upset at my middle girl who is going through a stage right now.
We spend a lot of time with each other and we really enjoy our time with each other. I think we make it work by respecting each other, letting everyone voice their opinion, and most importantly to listen to each other.
We find that breathing exercises work wonders. We often try to diffuse a stressful situation by remaining calm and talking through it. Kids can pick up on parents’ emotions so it is important to be aware. We find that if we are calm and relaxed then our kids will be as well. We strive to explain rather than dictate good behavior.
8. In your last blog post you described visiting an orphanage, and in an email to me you mentioned that you are going to be joining an NGO soon to install clean water filtration system in a refugee camp. Giving back to the local community is obviously important to you. If you could do one thing to leave the world a better place, what would it be?
2-year old Panmai hiking in Maehongson, Thailand
Great question. A lot of people tend to get over whelmed with the sheer size of poverty, disease, and other social issues in the world that they shut down, turn a blind eye, and convince themselves that nothing can be done because it affects so many people.
I met a young women in Mae Sot that is single and is running her very own small NGO. She raises a few thousand dollars a year back in Switzerland and she has built a concrete fish tank for a small village of refugees to raise fish. It was a small gesture but she said that if everyone tried to do something, however small, then it would eventually cause change. I think she is right.
My wife and I hope that we raise our kids to be caring global citizens free from nihilism. We are educating my kids not be slaves to consumerism and to become independent thinkers. We teach them to respect all people, cultures, and most importantly the planet. We hope that this simple philosophy spreads.
9. On a related note, do you have a personal philosophy or guiding spiritual belief that helps you plot your course in life?
We see the world filled with beauty with amazing people and culture. We teach our children to appreciate this wonderful world and to cherish and respect these natural wonders. We tend to use the Buddhist teachings more of as a philosophy and guide to moral behavior.
10. After several stints of tent camping across the US, you began your world travels in Thailand, the birthplace of Oa and Faa. Do you know where you will go after Thailand and why? If not – how will you make the decision? After all, there are SO many wonderful places to choose from…
We are looking at a 2 month tour of Cambodia-Vietnam-Laos. Later a short trip to Malaysia. Next year we want to visit Nepal and India. We need to save up for the air tickets but I think we will start in Katmandu and work our way down to Goa. We will probably take 5-6 months for this trip.
(end of interview)
This interview with Tim reminded me of why I love travel. It’s not about superficial experiences, but about widening your horizons and making a difference to this beautiful world we live in. I was especially stoked to hear that Tim’s family may be in Nepal and India next year, as Kathmandu is one of the places I spend a lot of time in (and one of my favorites in the world).
Please feel free to share this interview with friends, family and anyone who would be interested. Help spread the word that it’s possible to travel the world without being consumed by stress, materialism and debt. 
I want to help you find your calm center and experience travel with courage, curiosity and compassion.