Getting The Most Out of Traveling With Kids

Kody: Hey guys, and welcome to this week’s episode of The Homestead Education. Whew, what a week. So many of you that have followed me on social media know that we’ve experienced a lot of wildfires around us, and I’ve kind of been on my own with the kids, and life has just been really overwhelming. But great news is I have finally finished introduction to Homestead Science, the newest in the series of Homestead Science curriculums. I shipped out 94 orders this week, many of which were double orders, and I’m so excited to get this to families and have them start using the curriculum because it’s an incredible, multifaceted, hands-on learning experience. If you want more information, check out the link in the show notes. So, as my family gets ready for our cross country adventure to attend the Homesteaders of America Conference and Front Royal, next week, I started thinking about all the other homeschool and homestead families that value their freedoms and live life and learn in their own ways. This led me to finding today’s guest, Erica Forrest. Hi, Erica.

Erica: Hi, Kody. How are you?

Kody: I’m good. And yourself?

Erica: I’m great. Thank you. I am so happy to be here on your podcast. I love visiting with other homeschool parents, and I know we’ve got lots of great things to talk about today.

Kody: Definitely. I’m super excited to have you. So, for all my listeners, Erica is the founder of a travel company called Trip Scholars. She’s a homeschool mom for 16 years, a former director of Hawaii Montessori schools, a travel expert and enjoys expanding people’s excitement into travel into a deeper understanding and joyful experience. I just, I love that last line that you sent me. Can you tell me a little bit more about what you do and what a travel education specialist is? Cause I just love the sound of it.

Erica: Thank you. Yeah. Well in truth, I have crafted it myself. It isn’t as far as I can tell something anybody else is doing. 

Kody: Yeah, I love that even more.

Erica: But after all of these years, homeschooling and working in education and realizing that people really do learn best when they’re learning something that’s relevant, something that’s exciting and something that they are passionate about that’s when some of the deepest learning takes place. I think as homeschoolers, we already see that quite a bit. Most definitely. And I see that with travel a lot. But also as a homeschool parent, you know, it can take a lot of time to find the best resources and find the best ways to match that up with your kids and your family. So when we were doing this, I imagine, what if I could, what if there was a place where I could go and this was already kind of done for me, and then as we were brainstorming about, you know, what we wanted to do after our kids are grown, our youngest is 17. Ooh. Almost,

Kody: Almost there.

Erica: Yeah. It was a perfect opportunity to create a business around something that I had already seen a need for because it was my need and something that I just love and am passionate about. So yeah, I help people use their excitement about upcoming trips to learn more about their destinations, and then ultimately about themselves. I do it through my website, trip scholars.com. I’ve got loads and loads of articles about all kinds of interesting and engaging things that you can do before and after you travel. Articles about particular destinations and traveling with kids and teenagers unique ways to travel. Then I also have a resource library. So I write a lot of the articles, but I also invite guest authors who have background in a particular place or approach to travel. And then when they write their articles, we also share some of their favorite resources so that they’re easier for families and people to find. And then I also offer personal travel education coaching. So I have two different programs. One’s where I help people craft a learning plan, an exploration plan for a particular trip, and then another one where I work with people for months to really explore their travel dreams and how they can reach ’em.

Kody: So oh my gosh, that’s awesome. I just, I’m getting so excited because I’m a lifelong learner, so everything that I do, I wanna include education in it.

Erica: Exactly.

Kody: Luckily a couple of my kids are that way too, so they don’t totally think I’m a nerd, but,

Erica: I don’t know. Nerds are most of my favorite people, so,

Kody: Right and I love that you just found a niche for something and created something out of it. I mean, that’s kind of what I did with my homeschool curriculum. I saw a need for, you know, a more hands-on home studying type curriculum, and I put it together for all ages, and I just made it, you know, the homestead science was not a real thing.

Erica: So I love that you did that. I have listened to some of your EP episodes, earlier episodes, and I was really wowed that that was what you chose to do. It’s the same kind of thing, that you, you see this need, you know, that it can be really impactful for people learning, and then you find your best way to communicate it. So we’re definitely on the same page.

Kody: I love that. So, you know, as a homeschool parent with a Montessori background, I’d love to get a little bit more of your take on, you know, homeschooling and unschooling and just kind of that, bringing that all together.

Erica: Sure. well, that one obviously, we could probably talk for years about.

Kody: Oh, I know.

Erica: So I guess I’ll just in a nutshell say that I started as a public school science teacher, high school. Love it. And then I did get to serve as the director of Hawaii Montessori schools on the big island of Hawaii. That was a fantastic experience. And all along we were, you know, kind of keeping in mind what if, what if we homeschooled our kids? What would that be like? But our kids are, we have three children, they’re all five years apart. And by the time we, our oldest was thinking about it, I had this, you know, more traditional background, and I was really imagining a more traditional schooling. And I wasn’t quite sure how I was going to do that. You have six kids, so I’m really amazed with parents who do it with littles.

Kody: But, you know, I totally get that because I was completely a traditional schooler. I loved my school and college experiences.

Kody: And it was a big step to go into that homeschool, you know, it was less about the education and more about everything else that comes with public schooling.

Erica: Yeah, yeah. So we didn’t start until our oldest started middle school, and a couple weeks in, we went ahead and made the change. And we’ve just loved it more and more as the years have gone on. And then as things unfolded, you know, I really realized I was sometimes getting in their way. You know, at first we had a, you, we were doing math at a certain time and history at a certain time. And the further they got into it and got excited about particular projects, I realized my role was probably I could serve them better, working more as a facilitator. And so as the years went by,

Kody:I had to learn that as a control freak.

Erica: Yes, yes. Definitely. so in the end, we really did our version of unschooling where it was really child led. And my role became that of finding them a lot of resources, mentors, activities. We did a lot of travel. We went to a lot of museums. They served as, you know, volunteers, and we found naturalists.They did it. And then I just helped, helped get them places and find them resources. So that’s how Trip Scholars also kind of evolved. I love finding resources.

Kody: That’s great. I mean, that’s, I totally get that. I have some special needs kids, so we can’t totally go the unschooling route. They do need a little structure. So we try to do a little bit of each, like we do more traditional school three days a week where they have to hit their core subjects.

Erica: Smart.

Kody: And then after that, we spend the rest of our week learning hands-on, like, you know, we’re farmers and I run a business. My kids help me run my business. And, you know, my daughter wanted to start me being able to do graphic design on Canva. So I signed her up for Canva and under my account and told her, take all the classes. And that’s what she does for fun. She like just sits there on the couch and takes her classes, you know.

Erica: And we all know that as a very in need profession. Right. I spend plenty of time on Canva, myself. Oh, I’m impressed. Yeah. well, you know,

Kody: I just created 800 pages in Canva. 

Erica: Oh my goodness. I hope she helped you out.

Kody: She did. Very much. My son does a lot of my website work too, so.

Erica: Oh my gosh. That’s great. Yeah, we did something similar. Our kids, our two oldest loved programming, one loved digital art, they built a video game, they won an award. And so we helped them launch a company. And even though they didn’t eventually bring the game to market, they learned a lot of the things that you were just talking about. And then back to the structure piece, we did incorporate varying levels of that over the years too. I think, well, as a mom of six, I’m sure you really know this, every kid kind of needs a different homeschool approach. And every kid every year can need a different homeschool approach. So when people who are homeschool curious, first ask me questions, I basically say, there are as many ways to homeschool as there are homeschoolers.

Kody: Yes.

Erica: There’s just

Kody: So true.

Erica: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So adapting to where our kids are and where we are is a really important part of it.

Kody: It really is. I had to take a step back myself. My first couple years. I really did try to create that school at home. Yep. And there’s days where, you know, we still have to have school at home. I mean, we’re doing algebra this year. You don’t really unschool algebra, you know,

Kody: Although I wish, maybe I should figure out a way to do homestead algebra or something. 

Erica: I love it. Make it more fun.

Kody: But I love it. I think I look at each one like a puzzle game.

Erica: Very good. Yeah. That’s a great way to do it.

Kody: My son is fully on board for that. He loves it. And my daughter, she’s really good at math, but she can’t see the puzzle and the fun part of it. And I kinda have to sit there with her and do every problem. It’s not that I have to tell her how to do it, she just wants me there with her while she does every single problem.

Erica: Well, that is one of the other great parts of homeschooling, is that we do get to spend so much more time with our kids. I’m sure homesteading is that way in a big way.

Kody: Oh, big time. And you learn how to work together in a completely different way.

Erica: Yeah. almost all the homeschooling families I know, because now our kids are older. Our oldest is 28, so I’ve gotten to be in these communities for a long time. And the it’s just beautiful to see how close the kids are that they really are oftentimes, even with big age differences one another’s closest friends.

Kody: Oh, I see that so much with my crew. Cuz we have a gap. We have an 18 year old, a 17 year old, and two 13 year old. So they were kind of all pretty close, you know? Yeah. And then we have a five year old and a two-year old.

Erica: Oh my gosh. Really? Cody? Yeah. You busy mama. Oh my goodness.

Kody: And my two year old is like no other creature I have ever met in my life. He is, he’s exhausting. I mean, you know, everybody has advice on how to raise a toddler and I’m like, he’s my sixth, but I’ve had great toddlers. This kid is like…

Erica: I think parenting is so humbling. I remember our first was so easy and you know, I didn’t wanna be judging, but I would see other kids or parenting styles and think, Hmm. And then I had two more. It was like, oh, my kid is the one having the meltdown in the grocery store and it is really, really hard.

Kody: Yeah. Like I had my two year old on a leash at co-op the other day, and I’m kind of feeling a little embarrassed as he’s looking like a cat on a leash, like flopping around in between pews and the sanctuary.

Kody: I’m like, well, maybe I’ll let him off for a little bit. He ran around and ate all the tissues and then tried to kick open the door

Erica: <Laugh>

Kody: I was just like, oh, nevermind. Back on the leash.

Erica: Back on the leash. Yeah. we certainly become much more humble the longer we parent. Yes.

Kody: Like, my family just kind of accepts that our youngest is a full-time job. Like Yeah. You took your eyes off of him for a minute and he’s gone. 

Kody: I mean, he just, he gets, we have to put like alarms on all of our doors cuz he gets out of bed in the middle of the night and just leaves, like heads to the barn.

Erica: So he definitely keeps you on your toes.

Kody: Yeah. He’ll just like, get up in the middle of the night and I guess decide he wants to go see a pig or something. And like, heads to the barn.

Kody: We found him one time just, you know, walking up the driveway with our great Pyrenees, like trotting along next to him. It’s like three in the morning.

Kody: Like, I don’t know what I’m gonna do with this kid.

Erica: Well, you’re gonna keep learning from him. I bet that he’ll be your best teacher.

Kody: Yes. So, I mean, like you said, we could talk about homeschooling all day long, but you know, these podcasts can only go for so long.

Erica: Right.

Kody: So I would love to hear more about this education, like while you’re traveling and like how this could tie into homeschooling.

Erica: Sure. Yeah. I’d love to get to talk with you for a little while about that. So I thought maybe we could talk about it in a couple ways. Both what you can do beforehand Yeah. And then also while you’re on the road. So one of the big pieces of what I do at Trip Scholars is spend a lot of time encouraging people to really research their destinations. Most of us don’t get to travel as much as we want to. We don’t have enough time. We’ve got too many responsibilities and it costs a lot of money.

Kody: So by taking that as a homesteader, it is hard to leave.

Erica: I can’t imagine how hard it is to find people who can care for all of your animals. 

Kody: Yeah. Our upcoming trip is, actually our 17 year old decided he’s too cool to travel with the family. So

Erica: He’s gonna care for everything. 

Kody: Yes. 

Erica: Ah, well that is really nice. Really nice. And we have the neighbors on watch.

Erica: Okay. And how long are you going for on this trip? You guys have two weeks. Oh, I love it. That’s wonderful. Two weeks is great. Well, yeah, so I, I know that we didn’t get to travel as much as we wanted to, but that you can really take that excitement that you have and weave it into a lot of what you do. So as a homeschooler, I bet a lot of your listeners already, you know, pay attention to what their kids are interested in and what they’re passionate about. And have been noticing what learning styles match up best with their kids. And so that might not be new information for your listeners, but for some people it kind of is. And that if you can,

Kody: You know, I have a lot of listeners that are striving to get to that freedom of homeschooling and just haven’t taken that step yet.

Erica: Okay. So, well then this could be a really fun transitional thing that they could start to do. Yeah. And just start to incorporate because you certainly don’t have to homeschool to do these things. But if you are in conversation with your kids and you know, or you are just watching your kids and you notice that they love cooking, say, and you’re planning a trip to a particular area, well this is an awesome opportunity to help them find recipes help them find different dishes. Some, there’s a fun website that I share at Trip Scholars. It’s called Food Timeline. And it’s full of all of these different resources about the history of cooking and culinary arts. I love it. Right. And so you can learn about regional cuisine, you can learn about the history. You could you know, next time you’re in a big city go to a particular ethnic restaurant or grocery store. So your kids are becoming more and more curious and you are helping them. I’d

Kody: Love to try more ethnic foods. My husband is just really excited to eat Southern Foods,

Erica: Oh yeah. You guys will have an opportunity on this trip. Yes. So just finding ways to overlap their interests with the destination and then amplifying that so that now they’re learning, learning that, and they’re now they’re becoming more curious about the history of the place that you’re going to. So then you get to find documentaries or books related to the history. Maybe you’re going somewhere, maybe you’re taking a foreign trip or trip to a foreign country. And now they are interested in the cooking that they’re gonna actually are motivated to start learning the language. I think, you know, as homeschoolers we learn that there can be a lot of budding of heads. If, if you’re trying to force your kids to it, and they wanna know about it, that doesn’t happen. They, they find the motivation and you’re there to, you know fuel that fire.

Erica: and you can use their excitement about a trip that’s coming up to do that really naturally. So I’ve got loads and loads of recommendations on the site. Like really we’re big fans of using games- board games and video games can, there’s such a wide range right now that you can really enjoy your family game night, but have it be about the place that you’re going. Or if your family watches movies, you can have your Friday night movie night be about the place that you’re going to. And then it just opens up all these conversation opportunities while you’re eating dinner or driving in the car or whatever it is. There’s so many books on tape if you’re doing long drives. And, you know, you can think far outside of travel guides, you can really think about fairy tales from a particular place.

Erica: Myths history. You guys might use Story of the World. They’ve got some great CDs that are nice for listening to while you’re driving. You can find novels and field guides biographies. Coffee table books are often really fun because they can serve as a, you know, opportunity just for a lot, lot of inspiration while you’re sitting around. There’s online classes, but you really wanna find something that’s a good match for the learning style of your kids. Like I love great courses. You’ve got older kids, maybe you guys use some of those and you can get them often at the library or use a free trial. It’s called Onem. Now. They have a lot of courses on particular places and history or engineering about a particular place. But they aren’t necessarily going to be a good match for a seven or eight year old. You might wanna instead you know, watch videos, crash course videos, those are real fast-pacedeight-year-old, animated, but you can get a lot of information into five or 10 minutes that you can then kind of build out. I also encourage, you know, if you’ve got a kid who loves Legos, you can do a lot with architecture.

Kody: Oh, fun.

Erica: Yeah. either building historic sites Minecraft even has different things that you can do related to particular destinations. There’s obviously art activities that you can tie in related to where you’re headed. If you’ve got kids who play an instrument or love to listen to music, help them craft a playlist related to the area. Or

Kody: I’m taking so many notes right now because we are, my daughter and I have been putting together this whole like, almost like a two week curriculum.

Erica: Oh, well that’s perfect. That’s exactly what I do.

Kody: Yes. I’m like, you know, we have our first, like, so Okay. We’re doing, I’ll tell you a little bit about what we’re doing for our trip. Yeah, I do.

Erica: I’d that you constructed.

Kody: So far, so we’re gonna do smash books.

Erica: Oh, tell me about that.

Kody: So just big binders that I’ve put whole punched card stock in and I got a little mini photo printer so that when the kids take pictures with their cell phones, they can come right back in and print like one or two photos of each destination and make like a scrapbook as they go.

Erica: Perfect.

Kody: And like brochures and just whatever they grab, they can put in there.

Erica: I do the same thing. I talk with my hands and get all excited. Exactly.

Kody: So yeah, we’re gonna do the smash books as we go through everywhere. And you know, even my little guy, he has one, which, you know, even if he can just color a picture. Okay. I brought a little notebook for my two year old so he can scribble and feel part of it, you know,

Erica: That’s a good idea.

Kody: I mean, they’re so excited. They’ve designed their covers and all that stuff. And double-sided tape and I mean, they’re on it. And like, our first day we’re driving all the way across Montana, so we’re gonna listen to that book, it’s called Crazy Horse.

Erica: Kody I love it.

Kody: Which we read that about five years ago. But we’re gonna listen to the book on as we’re going across Montana, so that when we go to Little Bighorn and Crazy Horse the next day that everybody knows what we’re,

Erica: Oh, that’s just perfect. That’s exactly what I recommend to people. You’re taking it even further. It just sounds wonderful and your kids will remember it. They’ll have things to remember it by and the learning will be natural and exciting. Interesting.

Kody: Yeah. And then my oldest, he is high functioning autistic. Uh not my oldest, my oldest boy that’s going with us, our 13 year old. And he is obsessed with US History.That’s kind of his big thing. So we’re gonna do like the driving audio tour at Gettysburg and we’re gonna go to Mount Vernon. He is George Washington is his thing, so

Erica: Oh, really wonderful.

Kody: We’re Excited for that.

Erica: I just think you’ve already planned a really tremendous trip. I’m excited. I wanna know all about it. 

Kody: There’s just a few, you know, we have all of our stops planned, but I wanted to get the most out of each stop, so Yeah. This is giving me some really great ideas. We’ve really planned that first part with the crazy horse thing and stuff because of my son’s obsession with the US history, where like our next stop is gonna be in Iowa where we’re hoping to catch like a corn maze or something.

Erica: Oh, well you’re there for the perfect time of year. It

Kody: but then my daughter’s really into, you know, the more agriculture she wants to be a vet and that type of thing. So I thought it’d be really cool to tie in something with all the, you know, corn fields and things that are in Iowa. I lived there for a couple years when my mom was in taxidermy school, so.

Erica: Okay. Yeah, my mom my mom was from Iowa. It’s a beautiful Oh, her, she was in Ames.

Kody: Oh, okay. My whole family was from Mount Air.

Erica: Oh, nice. All right.

Kody: But then my mom went to taxidermy school in Spirit Lake.

Erica: Okay. I had grandparents who lived in Spirit Lake.

Kody: Oh wow. And then I met a friend there when I was five. And we have been pen pals ever since.

Erica: Aw, that’s great. Yeah,

Kody: So she’s actually a homeschool mom of twins now, so we’re gonna go see her while we’re going through Iowa.

Erica: Oh, that’s gonna be a special trip. That’ll be really nice. You know when I was listening to a couple of your podcast episodes, I got to hear the one where you did interview your twins. They are such thoughtful, interesting, articulate young people and

Kody: Oh, thank you.

Erica: Really enjoyed their interviews.

Kody: They were pretty proud of themselves and they’d been begging me to be on the podcast since I started it. So I thought that was a perfect one to bring them on board cuz they just spent a week practicing their speeches.

Erica: Oh. Like at Fair. They sounded very polished.

Kody: They get lots of it, they have to do lots of interviews at fair. So they

Erica: That’s healthy to go through. 

Kody: Oh, big time. Yeah. That’s actually the one thing in my curriculum, my husband and I were talking about it yesterday. I have the kids, you know, call the county health department and find out what a law on something is. And I put in there like, don’t let your students just look it up online. Make them call and have that conversation with an official.

Erica: That’s great. Yeah. We we are in the city, so we we’re not doing it quite like that. But we have had, one of our kids did a presentation in front of city hall and and just making phone calls to, you know, if you’re in charge of the garbage and we need a new recycling can right. You can be the one to make the call. Although now that’s online, but in the past things like that, working out a bill or something because it can be intimidating as an adult if you don’t know how to do those things. You haven’t had experience. And it’s a super opportunity as homeschoolers,

Kody: I’ve started doing a lot more of that. Like, you know, even we were going to town for dinner the other night and my husband had was on fire and wanted a pizza. And so I said, well, we’re gonna go to dinner. And I handed the phone to my son and said, you call and order out a pizza. Right. And he was like, how do I do it? And I was like, you’ve seen me do it. Figure it out.

Erica: So yeah. Well especially living on the homestead, your kids are going to step into adulthood with so many valuable skills. I have a nephew who is a rancher in Wyoming and he or ranch hand, and he ever since he was, you know, the age of your kids. Like 12 years old, he has been helping with so many adult activities that he’s incredibly mature and kind and just really aware so it

Kody: Builds character in a different way.

Erica: Yeah.

Kody: Yeah. It’s, yeah, I was actually, I was talking to, I was on a podcast last week and we were talking about that where just the, the character and the maturity that comes from like, even just homeschooled kids in general. And then when you add in the responsibility of a farm and the interactions that they have

Erica: Right. So yeah. It is really, you can always tell homeschool her because they’re just as comfortable talking to, you know, an elder or another parent as they are to a three-year-old, or someone who’s their own chronological age.  

Kody: I always love it. We do homeschool dances here and kids of all ages are there and you know, they’ll, you know, they’ll, a song will come on that there’s a special dance and a kid doesn’t know it and the other kids go get that a kid sitting on the side and make sure they know how to do that dance too. You know, the older teenage boys, they’ll see, you know, a girl sitting there with no one to dance with. And they’ll make sure that everybody takes turns and gets a chance to dance and stuff. And it’s, you know, 18 year old boy comes and dance with my 13 year old daughter. But in that scenario with these kids that we work with, it’s such a special experience. 

Erica: Yeah. Yeah exactly. Yeah. Here we’ve had plenty of programs where older kids you know, naturally and just without guidance, but also organize things where the older kids are mentoring the younger kids or teaching the younger kids. Like when we started our program here in Seattle, the family learning program, it’s a place where, you know, we all congregate in one place and have classes that the kids can choose from a couple days a week. And our oldest at the time was 16 and they had, they loved computer programming and so they were able to teach a class to the younger kids. And it was such a, such a great experience both for them and the kids to see, you know, someone just a few years older than them.

Kody: Right.

Erica: Yeah. Yeah. There’s

Kody: Just another one I love

Erica: Opportunities.

Kody: They don’t have peer pressures.

Erica: Yeah. Like

Kody: Our last homeschool dance was, it was a sock hop.

Erica: Oh, sweet.

Kody: And the kids went all out, like boys, girls, you know, 13 year olds, 18 year olds, they were all dressed up like rockabilly and greasers and poodle skirts. There was no embarrassment. They were just so excited to see each other and compliment each other’s outfits and get pictures and it was really fun. Yeah. Cause I remember when I was in school, something like that, you’d be really embarrassed to show up even if it was themed because like, the fear of being made fun of or something. I just think that gives them another experience in life too.

Erica: Yes. Yeah. I think so too. We’ve been really grateful that we were able to homeschool and it’s definitely a gift.

Kody: It really is.

Erica: Yeah.

Kody: It’s not necessarily for everybody, but for those of us, I never thought it would be for me either. I was joking on an interview a couple weeks ago. I was, you know, even my toddlers, they run to me with the sticky hands and I keep wet wipes by my chair. Cause I’m like, Ew. I’m like, how did I turn into this homeschool mom of six? But I don’t even like sticky

Erica: Oh, that’s funny. 

Kody: I just was a career woman. Like, I had this amazing job after college. And that was, 

Erica: What were you doing?

Kody: I did compliance and food plants.

Erica: Oh, all right

Kody: Like the big food plants. I made sure they were FDA compliant and  USDA and they had, you know, huge third party audits. That was what I did. And that was a dream job for me, you know.

Kody: Like when I was a kid.

Erica: And then how did you make the transition to homesteading and homeschooling? That’s a big jump.

Kody: Well, I mean, I grew up on a ranch and my degree is in agriculture. Which is how I ended up in the food plants. I worked more with commodities than like processed foods. I did work in a couple more processed food plants, but it was mainly nuts and meat were the things I worked with a lot.

Erica: Okay.

Kody: And I was a single mom and I met my husband who was a widower with kids.

Erica: Wow.

Kody: And we were like, how can we make this life better? We moved out of California and where we needed, my income and we moved to a place where we could live off his veteran income cuz he’s a disabled vet. And we were in Oregon at the time, and it was like, we just wanna have fun. We just wanna have fun with our kids. We wanna spend more time with them, we wanna learn with them. And they were having some problems in school and we’re like, we’re done. 

Kody:Just, it was more stress to send our kids to school every day than it was uhhuh to have them home and teach them.

Erica: Yeah.

Kody: Yeah. And I mean, there’s some days we didn’t feel the same way. <Laugh>.

Erica: No, it is not all bliss every single day as homeschoolers. But,

Kody: You know, after, I think it’s, we’ve been doing about seven years now, and now we have a groove and homeschool most days is actually pretty mellow and an enjoyable time.

Erica: Nice.

Kody: You know, the older kids, they know their routine. They only need me for questions. My five year old- he comes and gets in my lap and we read books and go through his little workbooks and it’s like a special time for us. And yeah. We have our coffee and my husband is there to correct math assignments and I’m there to teach the math assignments. 

Erica: You guys have really found your groove

Kody: We really have. That’s wonderful. And our oldest who hated school, he works as an electrician’s apprentice and is working on his GED, so that’s right on. It’s what works for him. And like you were saying earlier, every kid needs something different.

Erica: Yeah. Yeah. And to really honor that and respect, respect them as individuals. Instead of trying to push them into the boxes that are there.

Kody: Yeah. My five year old, he’s very sensitive- he needs a softer approach.

Erica: Right. Right. Exactly. Yeah. I I just love your story though. Thank you.

Erica: You know, It was about everybody who homeschools. They’re very intentional people. They realize that we can craft our own lives and manifest our own dreams to the best of our ability. And they don’t just go through the motions that are kind of the normal. Yeah. So the fact that you guys did that much self-reflection and made those brave, brave choices and now, now you’re reaping the benefits.

Kody: We really are. We have a great group of kids that we moved to a very small community in northern Idaho and our kids are sought after for working businesses. You know, our 17 year old, he could have any job he wanted in town and people know him and know what a hard worker he is. Our 13 year old daughter has so many babysitting jobs. I had to cut her off because you know, I’m like, you’re my babysitter. But, you know, people know how responsible she is and how great she is with the kids and she brings craft projects and, you know, they just love her. And, you know, it’s a really, it, you know, my 13 year old, he trains dairy heifers Uhhuh, which they’re heifers are snotty,

Erica: and big.

Kody: Yes. And he just handles ’em just fine to the point where there is a purebred farm that we work with that does not sell heifers, would like to put their genetics out there, and they are selling him a heifer this year so that he can show her.

Erica: Wow.

Kody: Yeah. So it’s, you know, he’s really, he’s made a name for himself too. Yep. And he’s the autistic one,

Erica: But he’s finding how autism can, can also be a gift and work for him. 

Kody: I’m really working with him on advocating for himself because I will not always be there to do it for him.

Erica: Yeah.

Kody: Yeah. So I put him in a lot of situations where he has to handle it himself.

Erica: Yeah, that’s great. Yeah because we are not just here to enjoy them right now. We’re here to help them be the adults. 

Kody: Yeah. I always say I’m raising men, not boys, because when they leave my house, they need to be men, not boys. My daughter, she’s already like, she’s good

Erica: she’s already good.

Kody: She’s kinda an old soul, like really mature. I have to actually like you are a kid, stop. Like stop trying to run the house. She’s good at it though. Like, I mean, if I could have cloned myself, I think she’s about the closest.

Erica: Aw.

Kody: Yeah. Her brain works just like mine, so that’s really nice.

Erica: Yeah. it’s fascinating. I mean, you have more than one how they all have different parts of both parents are, you know, the people raising them. It’s just fascinating.

Kody: Yeah. My boys are all over the place. I have five of ’em and they are five incredibly different people. 

Erica: Right. We that’s another place to be humbled. It is not all in the parenting. 

Kody: Yeah. And, you know, and then my veteran husband just mixed into that. 

Kody: Sometimes my daughter and I just leave. We’re like, we’re done just

Erica: There’s a lot of energy.

Kody: Yeah. We’re going to town, we’re gonna have a coffee and we’ll be back.

Erica: Aw. Yeah. Well, we are all are both very lucky to get to have these lifestyles. To homeschool our kids. Yeah. As ours was coming, as you know, I saw it coming to a close five years ago when we were really watching how other people go through this transition. If you’ve been homeschooling all along and you have these really super intimate close relationships with your kids and this is the focus of what you do, what, what do you wanna do when, when you’re done. And it’s, it’s a big change. Homeschooling is all encompassing. It’s certainly not a particular kind of curriculum or anything like that. It is a whole lifestyle choice. So Yeah. I’m glad you’re in the thick of it. 

Kody: My twins are actually plotting being roommates in college so that they don’t have to separate even when they drive each other crazy, they still don’t wanna take that first step into life. Completely on their own.

Erica: Right.

Kody: So I’m pretty excited for them when that time comes. That they’ll have each other.

Erica: Very good.

Kody: Yeah. Cause they’re looking at going a college about five hours away from here, so

Erica: Okay. 

Kody: But there really isn’t anything closer, especially in the fields they want to pursue. 

Erica: So what state would that be in?

Kody: We’re in Idaho and the college is in Idaho as well.

Erica: Okay. Yeah.

Kody: It’s my daughter’s agriculture all the way.

Erica: Yeah. Well, I love the part of Idaho that you guys live in. Our family has, well my husband’s family for generations has been vacationing up in Priest Lake. So we’ve been together 30 years, and so I’ve been getting to go up there off and on during that. It’s  just gorgeous where you are. So beautiful. 

Kody: Oh yeah. It’s, I don’t know, there’s something special up here.

Erica: Yeah. And that was interesting. You said you also lived in Oregon and California. Yeah, I have lived there too. 

Kody: Yeah. We tend to navigate towards the tiniest towns possible, but we lived in Le Pine, Oregon, which is a dot on the map. 

Erica: Is that an eastern Oregon?

Kody:  It’s kind of central Oregon.  It’s just south.

Erica: Right. South of Bend. Okay. Yeah. I’ve spent quite a bit of time in the Bend area.

Kody: Oh, that’s a beautiful area too. We really loved it there. It’s just, yeah. When we decided we wanted to be more self-sufficient, it is a giant frozen sandbox.

Erica: So you can’t grow anything.

Kody: But in California, we lived in a few different places in northern California where both grew up pretty rurally, so.

Erica: Okay. Yeah. Well, we can always learn a lot about the world no matter where we are.

Kody: Right. We decided to pick one big city to drive through on our trip. Other than that, like we, we’ve actually made our plan where we don’t drive through any big cities,

Erica: Oh, all right. Well

Kody: That’s kind of our, most people head to those big cities, we’re like, no, just skirt right around them

Erica: That’s really important. That is actually one of the things I encourage people to do when they’re planning trips, is to spend a lot of time being reflective about, you know, what are your intentions- what’s gonna be the best match for the people who are traveling with you? Whether that’s for you know, what do they like- big cities? But also, you know, what are the health limitations or health concerns you need to take into account? And with intentions, you know, are you traveling, like, as homeschoolers, we’re often traveling to help our kids learn or, you know, nurture that wonder and excitement about learning but also in a big way to connect more with our family members. And so it can be really helpful. Like I, my, I’m guilty of this myself.

Erica: When we take big trips, like what  you guys are doing, I often have so many things that I want to share with them and experience with them that sometimes you know, we’ve had meltdowns or cranky people because we’re just trying to do too much. So really being clear on we’re also doing this to connect with each other. And we’re not gonna be connecting very well if people are cranky. So that can really help you build a value-based foundation for your trip so that you are getting the most out of it. And it might not be hitting as many sites as I might wanna hit. Right. But people are happier and, you know, it’s a, it’s a more joyful experience. So

Kody: Yeah. And luckily our kids really embrace that with us. You know, like, I love that you take into consideration like the medical and stuff like that is, you know, some people don’t understand that all the time like I have.

Erica: Yeah. 

Kody: Which is anxiety induced. 

Erica: Yeah. And the last thing you need.

Kody: Yeah, having a full Tourettes attack while trying to go through this museum with a hundred other people, which is gonna make it worse. Cause then I think everyone’s looking at me, and then I get sweaty and then I, you know, like it’s

Erica: Well, I don’t know if there are some sites in museums now that are offering special times when their place is only open to people who are looking for lower stimulation.

Kody: Oh, that is good to know.

Erica: Yeah. So there are some places where you can go and they’re not gonna have as many, you know, they might not have this music blaring or the lights doing different things. It’s a smaller number of people in there so that anybody with any kind of sensory or you know, anything that might trigger can have a better experience. And there’s even in some airports now, like here in Seattle, they have a low-stem room so that you folks who would like, I mean, an airport can be really overwhelming. 

Kody: Our trip last year, we flew into Seattle and then we were gonna fly to Spokane. And I said, I’m not getting back on another plane. 

Erica: A car

Kody: Car and drove home.

Erica: I don’t, don’t think you’re alone. You are not alone. A lot of people, airports produce a great deal of anxiety. There’s just so much stimulation there. So it’s just nice to know that, that there’s a proper response.

Kody: Yeah.

Erica: There’s more and more people who are finally being diagnosed correctly. Autism and or anything like that. And, and places are responding,

Kody: Which yeah, that’s my son with the autism, me with my tourettes. My husband with his PTSD. And just the fact that there’s six of us. Yeah. There’ll be six of us on this trip. Just trying to navigate any area is not easy.

Erica: No, it isn’t.

Kody: So yeah, like I said, we picked- we wanna drive past Chicago so that we can see it. 

Erica: You’re skirting it, you’ll see it

Kody: In the distance. Yeah. And we wanna, we’re gonna come up around the other side of whatever Great lake is there, I can’t remember right now, and just kind of experience the Great Lakes and get to see it, but then after that we’re, you know, we’re gonna do DC but that’s a whole nother, we just, you have to, you know. But after that, we were looking at cutting from South Carolina to Nashville and it said to go through Atlanta. And I was like, Nope, nope. Not doing it. I changed my route where we go up through Knoxville.

Erica: Well, you’re really smart to make those adaptations because they will make the difference between it being an unpleasant trip and a pleasant trip. So everything from, you know, when like we, we’ve done some museums where we say I need you to see five things here. And then if you are old enough, you can sit there and play your DS. Well, we go see the rest of it. It’s a shame you didn’t get to see everything at the Louvre, but nobody’s going to see everything at the Louv. This is true. So that, that’s a choice that or you know, we’re only going to spend X amount of time in the Natural History Museum in DC, which is so amazing. But you know, if you spend all day there, you might have melting down people. We’re gonna go get ice cream, we’ve got granola bars and lunch in the backpack or whatever. 

Kody: Yeah. We’re gonna try to hit up the Smithsonian and we kinda like did a vote, like, which one do we wanna go see this year? Because we’re gonna come back. And so this year the vote was the US history one. So, which kind of goes on the theme of our trip. So oh, we lost connection. Give it a second. Oh yeah.

Erica: I bet for your son gonna sit.

Kody: He’s gonna be excited. 

Erica: Well,  You also are, you do one of the things that I recommend the most, and that is to really try to get as much buy-in and investment from your kids when you’re traveling. So the fact that you have already, everybody’s already been able to participate in kind of planning what you’re doing is super valuable and you’re probably going to have a much more pleasant trip because of it. And, you know, often people like to have somebody in the family plan the trip, but if you can be getting the buy-in and you know, everybody gets to pick one top thing.

Kody: We did a laminated map on the wall six months ago.

Erica: I love it.

Kody: With a list next to it, where you could write down everywhere you wanted to go. And then we had the wet erase markers where they would number that on the map, and then I was able to do our, you know, run the road in between all those to try to as many as we could.

Erica: Oh, that’s just fantastic. Love that.

Kody: And then we had a calendar where they got to mark off a day for six months.

Erica: Okay. Oh, so they’ve been pretty excited. My gosh. I think you could have trip scholars too. You’ve had all kinds of great ideas. 

Kody: I’m just overly organized. I’m a control freak.

Erica: Well there’s actually studies that show people enjoy planning that there’s more happiness in the planning part of a trip oftentimes than during or after.

Kody: I could see that

Erica: Right? Because you do have the meltdowns and you know, you get lost and all of that. But if you know that those things are going to happen, that they’re kind of inevitable, then you’re prepared for it and not wrapped up in it. But that you guys have taken six months to use that excitement to really foster their curiosity and their learning and all the fun things you guys have done together, it’s perfect. Yeah.

Kody: They’re excited. And I wish I would’ve found your site when we started our plan.

Erica: Well, you’ve got more trips ahead and I’m gonna wanna stay in touch. 

Kody: Yeah, that’ll be awesome.

Erica:I know that you had asked about things to do while you’re traveling. Yeah.

Kody: Do you have any gems? 

Erica: Just have a few, but I think you have already shared some of the ones you guys are doing that are things that I do recommend. And so yeah, I do recommend loading up your playlist with audio books related to where you’re going. So I love that you’re doing that. You can also put movies in there related to where you’re going or music. And then some people use treats on long road trips or plane flights, you know little goody bags or snacks. And you can have those be related to where you’re going. If you’re heading to Yellowstone, you can get- where you guys, that might be silly, but for us city folk you know, even the little plastic animals for little kids in the backseat. But you can get game books.

Kody: You know, like my son, he wants a bison burger that’s like, okay, that’s all he’s talked about. And I told him, well, you have to wait till we go to Cody, Wyoming, and you can have a bison burger before we go into Yellowstone, and then you’ll get to see the bison, you know,

Erica: Yeah.

Kody: I definitely can relate to that one

Erica: Yeah. And you know it can be a long time to sit in a car for a kid, so to break it up is fun. And then I love that you’ve got your smash books, because I also recommend people can go to the websites of the places that they’re going. Now Yellowstone has got tons of resources. But a lot of smaller sites have some resources and you often can find free printables on their websites so that you can put together your own little workbook.

Kody: I wanted to take my extra printer and my husband’s like, how many things are you gonna try to- we’re we’re going in a motor home, so we’re gonna, you know, have room for kids.

Erica: Oh, I’m glad you’ve got all that space.

Kody: And he’s like, you don’t need your printer. I’m like, I might need my printer.

Erica: but do you need the laminator?

Kody: I think I laminated everything I need to laminate already.

Erica: That’s so funny. That you actually use these things.

Kody: My daughter, she’s getting all mad at my son. They were laminating stuff to do their posters for fair. She’s like, you have to cut ’em out first and then laminate them. If you laminate ’em first and then cut ’em out, they just fall apart. And she was so mad at him. She’s an expert. Laminator. 

Erica: That’s awesome. Well, one of the things I really like about visiting websites before you go somewhere, even if you aren’t printing anything up, a lot of times they’ll have a teacher or parent or combo section of the site. And sometimes just looking at the questions that they recommend can get your gears turning about what kinds of conversations or kinds of questions I could be asking.

Kody: I love that because like with the smash books, rather than me going, well write about your experience and then, you know, having to like force them to write sentences. Like, have specific questions that’ll get their gears going.

Erica: Yeah. Or, you know asking a lot of open-ended questions and then helping them notice which things are the key things that they wanna put in there. Those are, they’re, it’s just so open-ended. I know we’re getting close to the end. I could talk with you about these things all day.

Kody: I know, I, I keep forgetting what time it is and I look and I’m like, oh man, we gotta go get our motor home down in Spokane. So Right.

Erica: Well, it was great to get to visit with you, Kody, are we wrapping up?

Kody: Yeah, I think let’s go ahead and, you know, I just wanna, one thing I really like to do on my podcast is work. My tagline is, grow your own food and grow as a person with a homestead education. So I like to ask everybody how they plan to keep growing.

Erica: Oh, that is a fantastic question. And I love that you’re asking grownups, not just kids.

Kody: Right. I think that’s where all of this sparked for me is I realized that I wasn’t growing anymore.

Erica: Yeah. I think again, as homeschoolers, a lot of us are lifelong learners. And so part of why I created Trip Scholars is I just have an insatiable curiosity. And so this gives me an opportunity to learn more about people. The people I work with, people in the places I’m sharing on my site. I get to learn all about the world and all of these different ways. And then I also as a small business owner am always learning things that are far outside of my comfort zone. All about websites, marketing, photography, and writing…

Kody: You’re a jack of all trades.

Erica: Yeah. So I think as homeschoolers we’re always questioning who we are and how can we be really intentional about our lives and how we want to live them. And so my husband and I, a few years ago when we knew we were getting ready for this next transition we realized we wanted to, he’s a sailor and has always wanted to live aboard a boat. So our plan is to sell everything and buy a boat, start in the Mediterranean and go see the world. And then I’ll be doing Trip Scholars to supplement what we’re doing. And so I’m looking forward to continuing to just learn voraciously and hopefully make learning more exciting and easier for everybody who, who finds me over at Trip Scholars

Kody: Oh, wow. That, that just sounds so exciting. And I’m definitely gonna be continuing to follow you and send more people your way. Cause I think what you have to offer is really great. 

Erica: Thanks. I really appreciate it. Well I am going to be sharing your homesteading curriculum with people too, because I think that’s fantastic. Thank you. I love that you put that all together and used your passions and your vast amount of knowledge to find a way to communicate that.

Kody: Thanks. I think my brain’s learners now though,

Erica: can’t only imagine. How big did you say your textbook is?

Kody: The textbook? 300 pages. Oh my gosh. It has a 200 page workbook and wow. There’s a lot of resources online that I put together too to supplement it.

Erica: That’s just a fantastic resource to share with people. Thank you. And that hands-on real learning is one of the great gifts of homeschooling.

Kody: I think it’s something that a lot of kids miss out on, just on the hands-on understanding where their food comes from, understanding how life works and I really encompassed a lot of that into the curriculum, so.

Erica: Fantastic. I love it.

Kody: Well where can everybody find you?

Erica: Thanks. I would, you can find me over on Facebook and Instagram and Pinterest at Trip Scholars and then I’d love it if you came and visited me@tripscholars.com. And I’ve got at the top of the site, under gift you can sign up to get a list of 24 different things that you could start doing today that are sure to make your next trip much better. So all kinds of ideas, I’ve got 24 of them there, thinking that if you started a year before a trip, if you wanted to incorporate two a month you would have this rich understanding of place.

Kody: Oh man, that’s awesome.

Erica: Yeah. And then when you sign up, you’re also automatically entered, every month I do a drawing for a hundred dollars towards travel education coaching, and I mentioned I’ve got two programs, but my single session is only a hundred dollars. So I’ll basically help you plan a learning package for your next trip for free, if that’s the version you choose. 

Kody: Everybody head over and check her out because I think she is just a wealth of information and I’m excited to go check out more of her site myself once we get on the road.

Erica: Thanks so much Kody.

Kody: Thank you so much for joining me.

Erica: I loved our conversation.

Kody: Well, thank you for joining me today at The Homestead Education, and I hope that I have given you something to think about this week to help others find me. Please comment and leave a review on your favorite podcast player. You can also follow me on Facebook and Instagram at homemade revelation. Do you have questions that you’d like answered or just want to say hi? Please email me at hello@thehomesteadeducation.com. Until next time, keep growing. This episode of The Homestead Education is brought to you by Lehman’s Hardware, your one-stop home setting supply store that ships all over the United States. If you follow the link in the show notes and use code, take 20, that’s take20. You can get $20 off any purchase of 150 or more.