In this edition of Author Talks, McKinsey Global Publishing’s Daniella Seiler chats with Andi Almond about her new book, The Everywhere Classroom: How One Family Turned Wanderlust into Worldschooling and How You Can Too (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, March 2025). After Almond and her family spent a year living and learning in more than 20 countries, she documented their adventures and the many “worldschooling” tips they gleaned along the way. In the book, Almond reflects on the trip’s biggest joys, surprises, and moments of growth—both in and out of the proverbial classroom—and the importance of traveling with purpose. An edited version of the conversation follows, and you can watch the full video at the end of this page.
Why did you write this book?
This is the book that I wish my family had when we embarked on our journey a couple of years ago. While preparing for our trip, we read tons of books on budget travel, travel logs from different parts of the world, and every family-travel memoir we could find. But the authors were vague about how they maintained their children’s education on the road. When we first started thinking about a trip like this in 2017, “worldschooling” wasn’t really a term. It was still in its infancy when we set off in 2022.
As the COVID-19 pandemic normalized remote work and the digital nomad economy has grown, more families are considering alternate ways of living without feeling tethered to one place. As we talked to friends and family we met on the road, it became obvious that if there were a clearer way to determine the children’s educational component, more families would consider worldschooling.
As the COVID-19 pandemic normalized remote work and the digital economy has grown, more families are considering alternate ways of living without feeling tethered to one place.
Were there any surprising thoughts or new perspectives that arose when writing the book?
Over the course of the year abroad, I wrote as we traveled. It was my way of journaling and processing our experiences. In the moment, I was primarily capturing scenes. Yet it’s only when I stepped back and pulled together the threads across time that I could see the full tapestry. One of the things that became really clear with distance and somewhat surprised me was how palpably the kids grew and matured over the trip.
In Morocco, our first stop, you could really feel their trepidation because the experience was so overwhelming. It was such a different culture—motorbikes whizzing close and touts crowding in and new sights, smells, and cuisines—than the one they’d grown up in.
Initially they stayed close to us and deferred to us. They weren’t as talkative with strangers or with new people who we met, and they were tentative in trying new things. Within three, six, and nine months into our experiences in the Middle East, South America, and Asia, they were different kids. They became much more comfortable with ambiguity, navigating new experiences, and not speaking the language but still figuring out how to communicate with locals. Perspectives like that were easier to glean over time.
What specific skills did you develop or strengthen most during your year abroad?
Resilience and adaptability were definitely skills that we all got better at. Those are muscles that you learn to flex. We didn’t tend to plan very far ahead intentionally. That gave great flexibility to listen to locals, determine how we were feeling and where we wanted to go, or what we wanted to do.
When you’re traveling for a long period and on a budget, there will be things that go awry. Rolling with the punches and having a good sense of humor are critical. Canceled flights, nights of sleeping on the airport floor, and a disaster in rural Egypt, and a scorpion sting in Jordan were all part of our experience. You figure it out and build that resilience muscle, which serves you well in any situation.
Resilience and adaptability were definitely skills that we all got better at. Those are muscles that you learn to flex.
What changed most from your initial vision of the educational aspects of worldschooling during its actual application?
We went into the trip with a fairly well-mapped-out vision and plan for how we would approach the educational aspect for our kids. Our plan included a mix of content very tailored to our travels and material that we knew we would follow verbatim with online materials. We also divvied up the subjects that we would teach.
Yet the specifics of how we proceeded evolved as we went along. We learned a lot about the kids’ learning styles and what worked for them. Finn, for example, is a strong auditory learner. So after the first few months, we began incorporating audiobooks with reading, and that worked really well for him. Initially both kids struggled with fitting in time for their journaling or assignments because we were on the go so much. To make it easier for our children, we learned as a family that we needed to carve out dedicated blocks of time for schoolwork. It also became clear that the kids needed weekly goals to keep them on track—to have a concrete sense of, “OK, this is what you need to accomplish by the end of the week to stay on track for the year.”
For people who are thinking of embarking on an experience like this, I’d tell them to remain in communication. Talk regularly about what’s working, what’s not working, and what improvements can be made. Be willing to flex. You might start with one approach and find that it needs adjusting, and that’s fine. Ultimately you’ll find what works for you.
The notion of purposeful travel encourages a shift from extractive tourism, where it’s all about, “What do I get out of it?” to a more thoughtful and intentional way of exploring the world.
What does it mean, or look like, to travel with purpose?
As a family, early in the trip, we watched a great documentary called The Last Tourist, which examines the impact of mass tourism on local communities, wildlife, and the environment. The film explores exploitative tourism practices, which often harm the very places that travelers are seeking to experience, unfortunately. It also examines how responsible travel can be a force for good. It emphasizes the importance of supporting local economies, respecting cultures, and minimizing environmental impact. That was a really powerful notion and one that resonated with us a lot.
To me, that’s the heart of traveling with purpose. It’s about seeking authentic and meaningful experiences, not just checking off bucket list spots. It’s about engaging with local cultures and communities, choosing ethical tour operators—which is something we were always really mindful of—staying in locally owned accommodations, and just ensuring overall that our presence leaves a positive impact rather than contributing harm.
The notion of purposeful travel encourages a shift from extractive tourism, where it’s all about, “What do I get out of it?” to a more thoughtful and intentional way of exploring the world that hopefully fosters real connection, friendships, and learning and a shared sense of responsibility for the places and people we encounter.
It seems that getting the buy-in of the two young adult stakeholders on the trip—before and during the year abroad—was critical. How did you include their perspectives?
Part of what worked really well for us in the lead-up to the trip was having a long “runway.” We spent five years actively saving to be able to take a year to travel. We talked to the kids about our plans here and there, so they could process on their own time and be part of the planning and ideation—to feel ownership of this big trip. At a certain point, it became so ingrained in our family narrative that it never really occurred to our kids that we wouldn’t do it. Throughout, they were a large part of the brainstorming and planning processes.
Roughly six months before we left, we bought a big world map and began to place pins on the destinations that we were excited to visit. A pin didn’t necessarily mean that we were headed there; it just gave us a collective sense of our interests. Then we chose three places that each of us really wanted to visit. Everyone had to research something about those destinations and make a pitch over dinner about why we should visit that place. We did travel to at least one place on each person’s wish list.
On the trip, we spent a lot of time trying to make sure that the kids’ decisions and input were taken into account. We had many family meetings to determine what was working, what wasn’t working, and how we might adjust to take into account everyone’s perspectives and interests. One of the fun things that we did every so often was to let the kids plan a day, which they loved doing.
They had to research what they wanted to do in a given place. They had to determine how it fit into a budget that we gave them for the day and to navigate and how we would use public transportation to get from point A to B. That ownership gave them a sense of deep buy-in and an appreciation of how much work and effort goes into planning, even when they weren’t taking the reins, they were more excited to go with the flow and say, “Thank you. It is a lot of work to plan those kinds of things.”
Reflection was a central part of your family’s experience. Could you share a bit about the role that reflection plays in your life now?
One of the important touchstones for us has always been to sit down together as a family for dinner. We always start by sharing something that has made us thankful that day. It can’t be vague; it must be something specific, which is the same feedback I gave the kids on their journal entries during the trip. It’s such a small practice, but it really centers all of us and helps us reflect on the day and be appreciative of the little things or the moments of joy each day.
Another thing that I’ve done since coming back from the trip is to ensure that I check in with myself every few months or so to make sure that the ways that I spend my time align with my priorities. My husband, Randy, and I both do that. While on the road, we wrote down things that were important to us and that we wanted to continue to make time for when we returned to the daily grind. Some of them are pretty banal, like making sure to carve out time for exercise or to get outside for regular walks.
Yet some of them are more fundamental, like ensuring that we make time for the efforts that align with our purpose—like volunteering or continual learning in areas of passion. When things become chaotic, we can recalibrate to just stay aligned and focus on what’s important to us.
Is there anything you wish you had known three years ago, before you took the trip?
Yes. I’d have told myself to allow for more downtime. I think we have a tendency to be so on the go, and all the places we visit have so much richness to see and do. We tended to pack our days, especially early on, but that’s not sustainable—especially on an extended trip.
It definitely led to some tension for us as a family. The kids revolted a couple of times and let us know that they needed more concerted time to work on journaling or on their assignments. They also asked for some mornings when they could sleep in or nights when they could relax, connect with friends back home, and have more quiet time. While we definitely became better about doing that over time, it would’ve been great to do that from the start.
Watch the full interview
Andi Almond on lessons from a year of learning everywhere
