We’re Rebecca and Zach.

Last year, we left six-figure careers in the United States to travel the world with our two young daughters.

Not because we were running away.
Not because we had everything figured out.

But because we wanted to pause long enough to ask:

Where do we actually want to build our life? And more specifically what kind of life do we want to live? What kind of culture and way of living do we want to normalize for our children?

We’re slow traveling with our girls. This means living in places long enough to understand what daily life feels like. Not just the tourist version. The grocery store version. The rainy Tuesday version. The school-run version. It is slower but ultimately gives us a sense of stability and routine, even just for a time.

We’re evaluating what might become our next home. Maybe even our forever home.

So far, we’ve spent significant time in Spain and the United Kingdom.

We’ve loved both for very different reasons.

Spain has given us beaches, community plazas, long dinners, and Mediterranean ease. I would include sunshine but we have actually been hit by back to back storms since arriving in the Costa del Sol. Like full blown red alert, stay inside, there are floods happening storms.

But the UK… the UK feels like home. It always has for me. It is one of the places I have been to a dozen times and always loved. It’s why we spent three months there. To see if it felt the same for the whole family. It did.

The charm. The history layered into everyday life. Sunday roasts and cozy English pubs. The museums and the CASTLES. The UK is home to over 5,000 castles. Then you have the stately homes where people actually still reside and call home but they can be open to the public.

We still plan to travel and explore more of Europe and beyond. But if you asked us today, the UK has quietly won us over.

And when you’re thinking about where to raise children — about education, safety, culture, and opportunity — that feeling matters.

Which brings us to the question we get asked often:

What about the girls’ education?

When people ask whether I’m concerned that my daughters aren’t currently enrolled in the American education system, I understand the assumption behind the question.

School is supposed to be stability.
Same friends.
Same teachers.

But after what we experienced, school no longer felt normal.

An active shooter was near my daughters’ preschool. They went into lock down while we were over an hour away shopping at Ikea.

One child hid in a closet.
The other in a bathroom.
For nearly an hour.

They came home safe.

But our peace of mind did not. The thing we had feared but told ourselves never would happened. Happened. Then the next day came and we dropped them off again.

In 2022, firearms became the leading cause of death for children in the United States (CDC data). The U.S. has experienced dramatically more school shooting incidents than peer nations over the past decade. In just the last five years there have been 1,486 school shooting incidents in the US (K-12 School Shooting Database).

And in my view essentially nothing has been done to prevent this from happening. Keep in mind these incidents aren’t isolated to schools. They can happen anywhere at anytime.

When that becomes real in your own child’s classroom, your framework shifts.

The question stops being “Will they fall behind academically?”

It becomes “How do I keep them safe?”

I thrived in the American system.

Advanced math.
Advanced science.
Graduated early.
College credits in high school.

Yet when I entered engineering school and met international students educated under different systems, I noticed something subtle but important.

Their training often emphasized depth, debate, and conceptual reasoning in ways mine had not.

The United States ranks around the middle among OECD nations in math and science on PISA assessments. The system is decentralized, locally funded, and heavily influenced by standardized testing accountability measures.

It produces high achievers.
But it also produces rigidity.

The UK, by contrast, operates under a national curriculum framework. Literacy instruction begins early and is systematic. Students specialize earlier in later years (GCSEs and A-Levels). The UK tends to score slightly higher than the U.S. in math and reading internationally.

Neither system is perfect.

The UK follows a national curriculum.

It introduces structured phonics early and generally performs slightly higher than the U.S. in math and reading on PISA comparisons.

There are tradeoffs — England starts formal schooling earlier than places like Finland (where children start at 7). Research from Nordic education systems consistently shows that play-based early years education supports long-term executive function and social regulation.

That matters to me.

Especially for my neurospicy babies.

They need time to learn how to be good friends.
How to regulate.
How to navigate their big feelings.

Delaying school means time to work on that. Also, time to be together as a family while spending time in beautiful new places.

If we relocate (and settle in the UK) when our eldest is 6 or 7, she will be placed by age cohort so I think Year 1 or Year 2.

From my limited research it looks like UK schools assess literacy and numeracy on entry but do not generally “hold back” children into younger year groups.

Based on Year 1 standards (phonics mastery, simple sentences, counting to 100, basic addition/subtraction), she is on track through informal learning and her lessons she got previously in school.

At this point I am not worried about the impact this will have when they are ready to enter a formal education system again.

While other kids are in a classroom, our girls have:

They’ve played with children who speak Spanish and Finnish.

They’ve learned that languages sound different. (Though, sometimes they still ask “what kind of Spanish is that person speaking?”)
That food tastes different, but my daughter now eats sushi. They learned to try new things and not all green foods are bad because they love edamame.
They aren’t just learning about history or geography (although they always remember how to get to Nando’s). They are experiencing it daily in real life. They can full understand what it means to not just change cities but to change countries.

At “home,” wherever we are:

Sometimes my daughter wants to keep reading.
Sometimes I’m the one telling her to stop and go play.

That feels right.

That is the powerful thing about being their parents is we set the tone based on what feels right for us, in this moment in time, not just what a set curriculum says we need to focus on. I definitely see the power of not just homeschooling but worldschooling.

Yes.

Short-term daycare while traveling has been a gift when we’ve found it.

It’s been good for us — and good for them.

They come home excited to share.
They talk about new friends.
They learn new routines.

School, when done well, is beautiful.

We’re not anti-school. If every city we traveled to allowed us to enter into some sort of temporary schooling we would love that. Unfortunately, we are finding these options limited. As we continue to travel we will post our experiences at the amazing centers we are finding.

I am not a homeschooling expert.
I am not here to declare worldschooling superior.

Yes — technically, what we are doing right now would fall under homeschooling or worldschooling.
And yes — we absolutely see the benefits.

We see the confidence growing.
We see the curiosity deepening.
We see the way they process the world through lived experience instead of worksheets.

We are also not rigid about it.

When we can find short-term school or daycare options, we take them.
It’s healthy for them. It’s healthy for us.
They come home buzzing with stories about new friends and new routines.

We believe in school.

We just believe in timing, too.

Right now, delaying institutional education feels aligned.
It gives them space to mature socially.
It allows them to regulate their emotions.
It lets us be their primary teachers in these early, formative years.

And if I am being completely honest —

I am not worried they aren’t going through the American education system right now.

I was more worried whether they would live through a day inside it.

After sitting in my car picking up my toddlers from a lockdown that wasn’t just a drill — after knowing one child had been in a closet and the other in a bathroom for nearly an hour — it becomes very difficult to pretend that this is just theoretical.

The UK is not perfect.
Europe is not immune to tragedy.

But statistically, the risk of gun violence in schools here is not remotely comparable to the United States.

And when you are a parent, that difference is not abstract.
It is visceral.

Eventually, our girls will sit at desks.
They will take exams.
They will write essays.
They will enter structured classrooms.

We plan to settle — likely in the UK — and when that time comes, we believe they will be ready.

Ready for structure.
Ready for peers.
Ready for independence.

But right now?

They are safe.
They are curious.
They are learning.
They are building emotional resilience.
They are seeing the world.

And for this season of life, that feels like education enough.

If this story resonated with you, whether you’re dreaming of moving abroad, rethinking education, or just trying to build a different kind of life for your family, we’d love to stay connected.

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