Have you ever felt that standard vacations, while fun diversions, lack that deeper edge of authenticity and meaning? Yet when you read stories of families traveling the globe for years who make those deeper cultural connections, know you have no plans to totally detach from the life you’ve built?
Well, in between a two week long vacation, and perpetual world travel, there is an expanding travel trend. Many travel- loving parents who dream of taking their kids to another country not just to hit all the tourist hot spots, but to live in a new culture, are making it happen. No need to become a permanent global nomad, summer sabbaticals include all the immersion perks, with no uprooting and minimal planning. We did our first summer sabbatical in 2002 and have done many since. Here’s what makes them amazing.
1. You only press pause on your ongoing life.
Unlike a longer trip commitment, you’re only gone for the summer. Drop the dog off at a friend’s, arrange for the neighbor to check on the house, grab your passport stack and go.
Exta perk: No school changes, job changes, putting the house in storage.
2. It’s more than a vacation, it’s a mini parallel life.
A summer is long enough to get dug in and plant some roots. You can easily rent a great house, find schools for language immersion, make friends, do an internship. By summer’s end you’ll have a favorite new movie theater, grocery store, restaurants, and extra curricular interests.
Extra perk: Kids get to have a second home in a place very different from their usual digs.
3. Learn a second or third language.
Whether you take family lessons at a language school, enroll the kids in a local school, arrange an internship, kids could be bilingual at the end of the summer. Kids are language sponges so the most accelerated version is done through immersion. Don’t assume that your kids won’t want to go to school in the summer. Make a deal that they don’t have to do the extra homework or exams. Talk to the local school. Many allow for foreign kids to be observers, who simply soak up the language, but don’t give their teachers any additional work such as grading. Our experiences doing this have been amazing, we have fluent bi/trilingual kids.
Extra perk: Kids who make friends in a new culture will greatly accelerate their language acquisition. It’s bookless and effortless, and they’ll understand and speak the language in very little time.
4. Secret family fitness program, shhhh.
We live in a largely immobile society. A common 24-hour cycle goes from bed to car to desk to car to couch to bed, repeat. I have zero discipline when it comes to exercise. When selecting summer sabbatical locations, we opt for smaller towns or cities where we can walk or use public transportation. In the process of getting around, we get fit. For kids, going car-free is a good contrast to their usual chauffeured lifestyle. Ignore any initial whining, they’ll settle in just fine. We often buy a couple of bicycles and then sell them back to bike rental shops or local individuals.
Extra perk: Everyone will be more fit at the end of the summer. Your heart and your waistline will thank you.
5. Eat healthier. Eat together.
With work, friends, school, and extracurricular commitments, food is something we wolf down between activities. What’s handy isn’t always healthy. On summer sabbaticals family meals happen once a day, often twice. Effortlessly. Having time to plan deliberate meals, go to fresh markets, cook together, sit and eat, is a huge benefit. Huge. At first the kids may wonder what’s happening since it’s not Thanksgiving or Christmas, but by the end of summer, you won’t want to live without this magical connective family time.
Extra perk: As a family we all lost extra winter pounds or ponces, without trying.
6. Strengthen the fabric of your family.
More fun, more often, with your entire family. During the school year we tried to do movie nights every Friday, and
something was always interfering. When we finally had one, the adults would be transformed into trying to stay-awake bobble-heads. Overseas, none of us had anywhere else we needed to be. As a family you can do more of what you love, less of what you don’t. Every day can be an adventure or beach hammock day followed by movie night. The increased kid-camaraderie will surprise and certainly delight you.
Extra perk: You’ll have ample time and energy to improve any relational wedges between sibs or parents with teens. Be prepared that initially there will be more friction and bickering between the ones that don’t get along. But by the end there will a greater understanding and appreciation for each other. Distance will decrease in any relationship. They’ll be closer, you’ll all be closer.
7. The priceless commodity of childhood.
To kids, concentrated doses of undivided attention from a parent, are the most coveted commodities of childhood. Period. There are no shortcuts to deeper relationships. When you invest time, connections get stronger, richer. A summer away from work distractions, friend distractions, extra-curricular distractions, significant other distractions (if you have older kids), school distractions, leaves tons of time for you to interact with each other. On a sabbatical you’ve deliberately carved out a space without stress and distractions. Within that created space, relationships will evolve to new levels.
Extra perk: You won’t have to say to your kid, “Can you repeat that,” because of your wildly multi-tasking mind.
8. Dormant Strengths
Time for a parent huddle. Most of our kids are living pampered, over-entertained, well-educated, chauffeured door-to-door, privileged lives (global speaking). Living in prosperity leaves certain life skills dormant or underused. Give them the gift of boredom, discomfort, weird problems, inconvenience, alongside a global perspective of how others manage these same realities. It will stretch their creative problem solving, empathy, courage, flexibility, and patience. They will emerge from the summer more capable, resilient, creative versions of themselves.
Extra perk: Global awareness increases perspective and gratefulness to varying degrees. The girls often remind each other, when frustrated about something, that it’s still a First World Problem, meaning not on par with what many people in the world struggle with on a daily basis to simply survive.
9. Rare memories unique to your clan.
These are not the common Disney or cruise memories that everyone has (not slamming those, we have them, too). However, the unusual, hilarious memories are the best glue to strengthen the unique personality of any family. Who doesn’t want those? We have a trove of uncommon family experiences that make us howl when we relive them.
Extra perk: You’ll have stunning family pictures in spectacular settings.
10. Time-sensitive Transformative Travel.
As parents we work hard, in part, to provide great experiences for our kids. Some of us get stuck in the working hard
part, and don’t get around to the second part as often as we’d like. Be mindful of the temporary time portal for doing
travel and specifically immersion experiences with your kids. You may have to creatively juggle work to pull this off. I’ve seen some parents make these summers happen in a tag team fashion, even if they have to check into work mid-summer for week.
Extra perk: Nothing will be as transformative for you as individuals or collectively as a family than immersion travel. Don’t put this off, start planning now!
Let me distill why summer immersion sabbaticals are the hybrid of travel. During the school year we’re all swamped with commitments. Relationships need time and energy to thrive, there are no shortcuts. By stripping the family’s master schedule down to nothing, it creates a stress-free, distraction free space for your family to focus on each other. You can do this in an exotic, adventure filled location which will give you the best collective memories of your lives.
