Wouldn’t it be fun if..?

“Wouldn’t it be fun to live abroad for a couple of months?”

That is what Tom said to Nicole in early 2025 while she was cooking in the kitchen.

“Yeah, that sounds fun. Let’s do it.”

“Uh… I didn’t expect that.”

That was the beginning of the first real conversation about our world trip and what started a storm of ideas and conversations.

By nature, Tom is a bit more adventurous than Nicole and tends to come up with wild ideas more often. Usually, Nicole is the voice of reason that keeps Tom grounded. But not this time.

The first idea was actually pretty simple: continue living the same life, just in another country. Keep working remotely, send the kids to school, and truly experience another culture and language for a while.

To us, that felt like a valuable experience. Not only for ourselves, but also for our children.

Financially, it also seemed manageable. We would still have an income, and many countries are less expensive than the Netherlands.

The next question was: where would we go?

Staying in a similar time zone would make work easier. That made most of Europe an option, but also countries like South Africa.

Japan was also very high on our list. The downside was that we would probably need to take time off work. Still, the idea of experiencing a culture completely different from our own felt very appealing.

“But then we would only see a very small part of the world.”

That was true.

Not long after, the idea of traveling through Europe by camper started to grow.

Then came the practical questions.

What about deregistration?
School obligations?
Insurance?

At first, it all felt overwhelming.

Luckily, we discovered the Dutch podcast Papa Moet Mee. You can find it here: Link to spotify

A podcast with many episodes about the host’s own world trip, but also about other families who decided to travel the world.

Listening to those stories slowly made the idea feel less impossible.