Kersti Taylor, middle back row, with her children; from left, Maisie, 11, Elsie, 8, and Geordie Taylor, 10, who are sporting their new packs bought for the world schooling trip.
Kersti and Dwayne Taylor have decided to take their three children – Maisie, 11, Geordie, 10, and Elsie, 8 – globetrotting for a year.
The Lower Hutt parents were inspired to strike out on the adventure after meeting a family from the United States who were staying at their bed and breakfast.
The family were world schooling their children, an educational concept of self-directed learning through experiences where parents take their children travelling, often for extended periods.
Kersti Taylor said the idea of her children learning as they travelled made more sense to her than having them cooped up at school.
“How do you know if you want to be an architect if you haven’t seen the different designs around the world? [Travel] broadens their opportunities and puts life in perspective.”
The children have been home schooled for the last year and will use transit times and nights to catch up on their school work.
The trip would complement the home schooling curriculum, and the children would develop skills such as time management as they moved between destinations, and computer and literacy skills while they blogged about their trip.
Dwayne is a business development and with the company he works for winding up operations it was an opportune time to go travelling.
The family was looking forward to spending time with each other and was preparing for the good, the bad and the ugly.
“We’ll laugh and we’ll cry together. We want to be time rich, we just want to be with our children,” Kersti said.
They had been in contact with other families in the online world schooling community where they asked questions, developed ideas and even arranged meet-ups and accommodation.
The family had a loose itinerary for the first two months of their trip through China, Latvia, Estonia, France and England. Once in Birmingham, they would decide where to go next.
They leave New Zealand on August 1.
