Family motto: Part 2 Explore

The second part of our family motto is Explore

Exploring is one of the most fundamental human desires. Think of a child. Life is all about exploring, something that can be difficult for parents but really is very important. It is through exploring that we learn about the world around us. In the beginning, everything is new for a child, and there will be plenty of new things to explore in the immediate surrounding. As a child grows the desire to explore will drive it to go further and further to find new things to explore. For some this desire will weaken with time and I know many people that are quite content just staying in familiar places and doing familiar things. For me, it has only gotten stronger and I am blessed to have a wife who shares this desire to explore the world with me.

One of Micah's onesies appropriately says: Born to Explore!

Exploring is the key part of our motto behind our choice to travel as a lifestyle. For years we talked about different ways to incorporate exploring into our life and tried to make it a regular thing. We decided that we wanted to travel as often as we could afford and that turned into one or two trips every year each being one or a few weeks long. We were also fortunate to work for an international organization that provided opportunities to travel a few times a year for work. I think we could have been content with that life. We did just enough exploring to keep our desire in check. But a 4 month long we took in the fall of 2012 changed that forever.

We knew I would be in between jobs and that we wanted to move from where we had been living for a little over a year. We also had enough money saved to go on an extended trip. We had two small children at the time and decided to make what we thought would be the trip of a lifetime. A road trip around the USA lasting just over 3 months.

This is roughly the route we drove on our first extended US road trip.

Instead of satisfying our itch to travel and explore the world this trip lit a fire that we could not put out. It became the catalyst that helped us decide that we wanted to create a life where exploring was a central part and not something we tried to fit in just a few times a year.

Today we travel around the US in our home on wheels, a 29-foot travel trailer. We also try to make one field-trip every week where we go somewhere that we can explore. This could be a museum or a national park or any place that we think would be interesting to visit.

There are always interesting things the kids want to explore!

One of my hopes in choosing this life is that our children will keep their desire to explore and continue to be filled with curiosity about the world we live in. I believe that every child begins their life journey with a strong desire to explore and plenty of curiosity, but that many lose it on their way to adulthood.

Thanks for following the journey of me and my family
as we travel and roadschool our kids around the USA.


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