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Our Route
GENERAL UPDATE:
Dear Fellow Travel Enthusiasts,
Welcome to the 19th and FINAL installment of the Roamers' Report!
We have now been home for a month and have settled in better than we'd expected. Francesca and I started new jobs so we're right back in the thick of it and the kids have been busy catching up with their friends. We have been reminded about what an amazing area we live in and how it could easily be a destination on our world travels.
As a final wrap up I wanted to leave some travel stats from the trip and some reflections about how we're feeling now that we're back.
We hope you enjoy this final newsletter.
Regards,
The Roamers - Dan, Francesca, Ryan, Austen & Finley
Arriving back at Santa Rosa Airport after 378 days abroad
Outside the Charles M Schulz Airport in Santa Rosa
WHERE WE ARE NOW:
We're back home in Sonoma County among the redwood trees. Here are some pics from around our neighborhood in Monte Rio, CA nestled in the heart of the Russian River Valley.
Our current destination - West Sonoma County - Wine and Redwoods
Pacific Coast, near Jenner, CA
Wine country
Armstrong Woods
Russian River
Vinyards
Monte Rio, Beach
TRIP STATS:
At first I was reluctant to keep running stats of our trip, things like how many countries we visited and how many flights we've taken, etc, but looking back on the enormity of this adventure, I think it's interesting to put it all in perspective. With that in mind, here are some of the key stats from the trip in a nice infographic.
Here is the link to the full trip stats page.
Here is a look at our spending breakdown for our year abroad by category. The top four categories aren't all that suprising. Lodging and transportation (airfare) would typically be at the top, but we did some home exchanges for no cost and some volunteer experiences where we did not have to pay for accommodations and Francesca worked her travel ninja magic to keep our transpo costs down.
TRAVEL STORIES:
I have really enjoyed writing these travel stories - even more so than the blog postings. I have always enjoyed creative writing and this was a fun, creative outlet for me during our trip. Many of you suggested that I write a book about our trip and while there are MANY books written by families who have done something similar, I do think that compling my travel stories into a book might be of interest to people.
So I am slowly making progress towards making that a reality, refining some of the stories, generating AI images for each one, creating a table of contents, page, introduction, etc. I hope to have it completed by the end of the summer or early fall. Stay tuned!
As a reminder, here are links to all of the travel stories I wrote during our trip.
HOMESCHOOL UPDATE:
Not much to report here since I already did the recap from their year of worldschooling. But I will add that the kids finally got to meet their teacher, Mr. Stasey, in person a few weeks after we got back home. We met him at his office at the Pathways Charter main campus. It was interesting to see his legs after only seeing his torso for the past year!
He has been an amazing education partner in this adventure, always open to having the school work take a back seat to the travel experience and allways eager to infuse his lesson plans with local content from whatever country we were in. A big thanks to Mr. Stasey for making that part of our trip smooth sailing.
In case you missed this last time, here is a link to take the 50 question FIVE TICKETS TO ROAM Final Exam that we designed for the kids. The questions are about the history, culture, religion and cuisine of the countries we visited during our adventure.
Five Tickets to Roam Final Exam
Five Tickets to Roam Final Exam
BLOG POSTS:
(Blog Posts Published since the last newsletter - in case you missed them on social media)
TRUTH SERUM:
(A dose of truth about some of the things that did not go according to plan or worries that we've had about the trip)
Everyone keeps asking how it feels to be back. Honestly? Better than we expected.
We had a lot of worries before returning — that jumping back into work after a year off would be overwhelming, that we’d come home to a country that felt completely different from the one we left, and that we might no longer fit into the fabric of our community.
But none of those fears have come to pass. We've both hit the ground running at work and, surprisingly, we’re thriving (for now, at least). Truthfully, it would’ve been much harder if we were still unemployed on top of adjusting to life back home. Yes, the current administration is a full-blown dumpster fire, but our community remains intact, the area we live in is still beautiful, and we’ve been welcomed back by friends — and our kids' friends — with warmth and genuine kindness.
There’s only one downside we’ve both felt. Because the return has been so smooth, and because the kids aren’t yet back in school — meaning we haven’t seen many people or fielded many questions about our travels — it almost feels like the trip never happened. It’s strange. We know, of course, that we absolutely did go on this journey, but it already feels like a distant memory.
I was hoping for more of a post-travel glow. Still, I get to relive some of our best moments as I edit the final videos from the trip — so stay tuned for those.
One of our first photos from our first stop in Myrtos, Crete in Greece June 2024
FINAL PHOTOS:
Below I have chosen one photo from each country as a final visual look at our worldschooling adventure. It was INCREDIBLY difficult to chose a single photo from each country, but I did it. They are in chronological order as well so it's interesting to see the change in the kids' from the biginning of the year to the end (especially Ryan) and follow my weight gain. :)
London, UK
Chania (Crete), Greece
Dubrovnik, Croatia
Mostar, Bosnia
Slap, Slovenia
Worthersee, Austria
Trieste, Italy
San Sebastian, Spain
Porto, Portugal
Merzouga, Morocco
Bran (Transylvania), Romania
Chiang Mai, Thailand
Sagada (Luzon), Philippines
Taipei, Taiwan
Hong Kong, China
Hoi An, Vietnam
Mt Batur (Bali) Indonesia
Lukla, Nepal
Machu Pichhu, Peru
Galapagos Islands, Ecuador
Santa Fe, Panama
Palos Verdes (LA), California
We’re so grateful you chose to follow along on this journey with us. It meant more than you know to share our highs, our mishaps, our discoveries, and our detours with such a thoughtful audience. We hope our stories brought you a little joy — and maybe even stirred a sense of wonder or wanderlust for your own travels or other big adventure.
Who knows? Maybe one day, we’ll pack up the backpacks, dust off the passports, and do it all again. Until then, thank you for being part of our story.
We'll leave you with some final videos we edited recently. The last one is our reunion with our dog Everest after 378 days without him. He was still a puppy (2 years old) when we left him and he's a man now. Well, a dog man, but still.....
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