Homeschooling families often turn the impossible into reality. For many families, the dream of turning the learning into a tangible reality often however seems too far out of reach. Imagine, after studying the life of Leonardo De Vinci, traveling to his birthplace in the small Tuscan town of Vinci or visit Clos Luce Manor in France, his home in the Loire Valley. In 1516 King Francois I gave this home to Leonardo along with 700 golden crowns per year and asked only for the pleasure of listening to Leonardo converse. See first hand the underground passage connecting the manor to the Royal Castle Amboise which gave the King direct access to the home of De Vinci. Leonardo De Vinci is buried in the small chapel at Amboise, and much of his work can be viewed in the museum which is on the grounds of his former manor. The problem is who has the thousands of dollars to take their family to such destinations? Not us. However, we have spent summer after summer doing just this. How do we do it? How do you turn what should be an $18,000.00 vacation into a $3800.00 experience of a lifetime?
For many families their yearly vacation is one of fun, but for our family it is an adventure of learning and fun, exploring this entire world, both new and old, and all it has to offer. We began five years ago researching how we could travel cheap. The interesting thing was, the more we researched the more we discovered that much of our travel could be free. After spending several summers in Europe many asked us to share our tricks with them so they too might be able to have similar adventures. We eventually wrote a book entitled Have Kids - Will Travel which has changed the way many families travel, opening the doors of the world and creating adventures families could only dream of before.
Our family consisting of my wife and I, our four children, ages 8, 14, 16 and 18 have visited such places as England, France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Italy. We have also traveled extensively throughout the United States including a two and a half week Revolutionary War self guided tour of the East Coast which cost us just over $700.00 for the entire family, including air, car, places to stay, food etc.
Traveling cheap and free isn’t something you can do next week. It takes both time and planning. We usually plan our trips one to two years in advance. After deciding where we want to go we start the planning process of gathering our frequent flyer points, free accommodations, car etc. The free flights take the longest to accumulate. The great thing about frequent flyer points these days is that you don’t have fly to get them. There are so many companies that will give them to you for doing business with them. The great thing is, you are probably already doing business with many of them already. They include credit cards, internet providers, cell phone and long distance phone companies along with many more. The first trick is to learn how to create an accumulative effect with your points so you are not collecting a few points in different programs, but that they all go into one big pot. The second trick is to collect enough points without buying things you don’t need and or going into debt. This is simply a matter of changing the way you purchase the every day items we are already buying.
Getting free accommodations for your trip can be accomplished by using the same methods the Kings of old did. They contacted a Duke, Earl, or someone else who had a castle and asked if they wanted to exchange castles for a time. There are hundreds of thousands of families just like yours, living all over the world who would love to exchange homes with your family. This is very popular among the upper middle and upper classes in Europe. We usually get around ten offers from families all over the world and many of them include the use of their cars which takes care of an additional cost.
In our book we talk about other ways to get free airfare, free hotel, very cheap car rentals, how to save on food and much more. We go through the safety aspects of traveling abroad with children and how to see sites both free and cheap. Using these methods we have spent over three weeks in Europe for less than it would cost a family of four to visit Disneyland. Yes the kids have had to trade Mickey Mouse for the Eiffel Tower, or swimming in a hotel pool for swimming in a crystal clear lake of the Swiss Alps. Or maybe you will have to trade a long hot car ride for an airplane ride with TV’s and movies in front of every seat. Maybe you will have to substitute a tour of the studio where they filmed Jaws for the beautiful city of Salzburg where they filmed Sound of Music, creating memories and adventures which will change the way our children look at history and the world.
