I am still adjusting to life stateside, after a month in Central America. If you are interested in how the difficulty and expense of American camps led us to this trip for the second year in a row (and how we afford it WITHOUT a five-figure travel budget, I’ve written about this extensively here.)
If you are interested in planning your own extended summer adventure abroad on a budget while working remotely, it’s actually not too early to start doing some prep and brainstorming to make it happen. I personally find this kind of trip dreaming fun any time of year.
I’ve written a guide for everything you need to know to pull this off, (including a clutch list of programs for kids so you can work remotely) and I’m offering it with a steep end-of-summer 50% discount for a limited time, so grab it now with the code ENDOFSUMMER.
A lack of choice is good for our brains. One of my favorite things about this trip is getting a break from consumerist culture, and a reminder that we don’t actually need a lot of stuff. Even small choices, like buying food or toiletries, come loaded in America with information and persuasion about how we’re supposed to spend our money. I ran out of contact solution during the trip. I went into the pharmacy and asked for it. They had exactly one brand, and the pharmacist asked if I wanted the small size or the big size. That was my only choice — no price comparison, no wall of brands like an American drugstore. It’s a small thing, but multiply it by hundreds or thousands of times a day, and not having to constantly make choices like that really gives your brain a break.
Taking a vacation, and time off work, while my kids were in camp was a total game changer. I’d never done it before. Ten stars, highly recommend.
Working less was eye-opening. Not just taking full days off, but on the days I did work, working fewer hours and taking Fridays off every week let me feel more relaxed and less like I was trying to maximize every moment. Of course, when you work for yourself, certain things will just be waiting for you later. But I tried to put those things aside for a while and focus on essentials rather than maximimizing my productivity.
Our kids do not spend enough time outside at home, and I’m not sure what to do about it. On our trip, they were outside usually seven to ten hours a day, and I think that’s incredibly good for them. It makes me despair a bit that our lives at home aren’t like this.
It’s nice to spend time in a place where no one is thinking about the world’s problems. In a small Central American beach town, nobody’s sitting around worried about AI or what Trump did today. I wouldn’t want to go through my whole life in blissful ignorance, but it is very helpful — mentally, emotionally, spiritually — to take a break from those worries sometimes.
So much joy comes from trying new things and getting out of our comfort zones. Even though we returned to the same place we spent a month last year, we discovered new restaurants and tried things we hadn’t done before, like a boat trip to see dolphins and zip-lining. When we’re in routines, at home or even on vacation, it’s easy not to push ourselves to try something new.
I have more empathy for people who don’t have great spaces for hosting. Through writing about Deep Casual Hosting over the last year, I’ve often encouraged people to not let not having a big or ideal space for hosting stop them from inviting people over. I think this is a great principle, but I realized it quite easy for me to say living in a home with an open concept kitchen/living room/dining room, a screened in porch with a dining table, and a generously sized backyard and a dishwasher! On our trip, our rental house (which was just for our family, each family we traveled with had their own rental house) was really not ideal for have the two other families we traveled with over for dinner. We had 13 people in our group, had one table with six chairs, no dishwasher, and barely enough plates and not enough cutlery for this crew. We didn’t host much by the way of meals, so we had to get creative. We pivoted to hosting people to hang out by the pool, I organized a beach dinner picnic, we brought food and ingredients to other people’s houses, and I spearheaded some fun outside-the-house activities.
Our community life is so rich, but damn does it take a lot of logistics. Putting ourselves in an environment with very few logistics and only two other families we knew at all made me see how much energy and bandwidth maintaining a lot of relationships takes. Our lives at home aren’t bad, in fact, what we’ve put into our relationships pay dividends all the time, and I wouldn’t want our “regular” lives to be any other way. But it takes a lot! I got the time wrong for a neighbor’s brunch! I need to check in on my friend who broke her arm! I need to check in on our neighbor who’s about to have a baby! Let’s coordinate the kids playing pickleball! Let’s coordinate the kids playing D&D! There’s a birthday party! Let’s pick up those two hand-me-down bikes! The event at the synagogue starts at 4! I’m tired but I want to show up for my friend’s political fundraiser!
It’s a rare privilege to go on a trip that’s wonderful, you actually have time to unwind, and to stay long enough that you’re ready to go home. So much of how we vacation these days keeps us constantly on the move, trying to fit in as much as possible. That’s not a personal failure — it has to do with limited vacation time, the difficulty and expense of traveling, and jam-packed schedules. Staying somewhere for a month for us means falling into a routine, and normal things like random fevers and a barfing incident don’t ruin a large chunk of a meticulously planned trip. It feels like an especially rare privilege to have a great time and get enough of it that you’re able to appreciate what you love about home, rather than dreading the return.
So you may be wondering, are we doing it all over again next year? I think taking a month-long trip is a high priority for our family for the foreseeable future, but we’re planning to try somewhere new next year. I’m already dreaming about it.
Don’t forget to grab your guide for planning a longer trip abroad, including a list of programs that offer childcare that make remote work possible!
I’m offering it with a steep end of summer 50% discount for a limited time, so grab it now with the code ENDOFSUMMER.
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