Tales and Fails of Traveling the World with Kids - Margaret Sullivan : 150

What happens when you leave the hustle and bustle of New York City—the career, the comforts, the chaos—and embark on a year-long journey around the globe? For Margaret and her family, this was not just a dream but a life-changing decision.
Margaret shares her story of how that extraordinary experience ignited their adventure, the lessons they learned along the way, and the tales that made it all worthwhile. Their journey took them to 29 countries across 6 continents, where they embraced cultural hospitality and formed unexpected friendships.

Margaret Bensfield Sullivan is the author of "Following the Sun: Tales (and Fails) From a Year Around the World With Our Kids." After nearly 15 years in communications and brand marketing, including as a partner at WPP's Group SJR, she left her corporate career to travel with her family. A Washington, DC native, Margaret graduated from Vanderbilt University and holds a Master's in French from Middlebury College.
Margaret discusses the challenges and joys of "world schooling," the homeschooling approach they adopted while travelling. Transitioning from a settled routine to a more unpredictable lifestyle, they learned flexibility and resilience.
As Margaret moved from a corporate career to exploring her creative passions, she highlighted the value of storytelling. By documenting her family's travels, she created a personal record and an inspiration for others. She hopes to offer insights through sharing these stories, whether considering big changes or seeking escapist adventures.

Let's enjoy her story!
https://www.margaretbensfieldsullivan.com/
https://www.margaretbensfieldsullivan.com/followingthesun

Chapters

• 13:03 Exploring Travel With Local Connections
• 26:02 Transitioning to a New Normal
• 35:58 Creative Path After Pandemic
• 39:27 Discovering Unconventional Family Adventures

Transcript

DanielaSM : 0:04

Hi, I'm Daniela. Welcome to my podcast. Because Everyone has a Story, the place to give ordinary people's stories the chance to be shared and preserved. Our stories become the language of connections. Let's enjoy it, connect and relate because everyone has a story and relate because everyone has a story. Welcome.

DanielaSM : 0:25

My guest is Margaret Benfield Sullivan, the author of Following the Sound Tales and Fails from. A year around the world with our kids, and after nearly 15 years in communication and brand marketing, she left her corporate career and traveled with her family. So imagine leaving the hustle and bustle of New York City for a year-long trip around the world. That's what Margaret and her family did. I was super excited to meet Margaret, as, at the time of this recording, my husband and I were planning to leave our comfort zone to travel for six months. Now, as I post this episode, we are already two months into our journey. We didn't plan to travel around the world. Instead, we aim to visit lesser known countries that fit our budget.

DanielaSM : 1:14

It has been incredible to meet other nomadic individuals along the way, people who live a different kind of life, breaking free from routine, traditional institutions and the accumulation of possessions in favor of rich and meaningful experiences. What's fascinating is that, even with this shared way of living, everyone brings the unique style to it. There is no one-way fit. All the commonality is, of course, a willingness to be open, to respect others and to embrace each moment as it comes. Margaret and her husband had that experience, and not only. They traveled the world for a year. They did it with two adorable little kids and nothing but carry-on bags, which is quite a challenge. She's here to share unforgettable moments from their incredible adventures and discuss how life changes when they return home.

DanielaSM : 2:10

Margaret's story is about stepping far beyond their comfort zone, discovering the world as a family and finding inspiration in everyday experiences. So let's enjoy her story. Welcome, margaret, to the show. Thank you for having me. I am very excited that you're here. I know you have a story and you have written a book, so why do you want to share your story? I?

Margaret Bensfield Sullivan: 2:32

think the reason I want to share our story, my family's story, is because we did something that at the time felt very scary and it felt like a big departure from our conventional lives and we took a big risk and we were not the kind of people you would expect to do something like that, or at least I felt that way about myself. And then when we did it, which was take a big trip around the world, it's something that we can say we accomplished. We did hard things, we are able to do that and it's a point of pride for our family, and I just feel like it's exciting to get to tell other people who may be wondering what it might be like or asking what if, if we took an adventure, if we took a risk in life, what might happen. So if we can do it, anyone can, and I feel like that's a story worth sharing.

DanielaSM : 3:16

Yes, you're right. I love that you're sharing that. It's true. We all need to share stories like that, and so, before we get into this story, have you done anything else as scary as that since you did that?

Margaret Bensfield Sullivan: 3:29

That was our big, big moment. But you know, we can measure our lives in like before and after that moment, and ever since then we've always said, well, if we could do that, then we can definitely do fill in the blank. So it's given us a bravery and confidence that we did not have before. We travel a lot still, so this was a travel story and we have incorporated travel into every possible moment of our lives since.

DanielaSM : 3:53

Wonderful. So when does your story start For the purposes of this podcast.

Margaret Bensfield Sullivan: 3:59

The story begins in 2017, when my husband and I are happily married. We have two small children, three and five years old. We live in New York City. Things are humming along. We've got great jobs, great careers. He has started a software company and I'm a partner at a marketing and PR agency where I've been for a long time. The kids are in a great school, we have a lovely home, we have a wonderful group of friends, we have a dog, we have a car. Life is exactly where we thought we needed to be, and we didn't ask any questions about whether or not we should be doing anything differently.

Margaret Bensfield Sullivan: 4:38

Traveled a lot for my job in these days, and so it wasn't unusual for me to take such a long trip, far away trip. But what was different about this trip was that I had one of these epiphanies, an aha moment in my travels, because I stepped off the treadmill, because I got out of my bubble and away from my children, away from my desk at work in New York City, and kind of looked up and around at Tanzania. I was surrounded by different people. It was a conference. Everyone was bringing some new, interesting ideas to the table and discussion about world politics or developments in science. This was a TED conference that I went to that was one of my clients at the time and there was something about being there in that moment where I just thought wait a second.

Margaret Bensfield Sullivan: 5:22

There is so much happening out here in the world that I am just I've had my head down in New York and been so focused on my little life and my little job. Everything seemed little. All of a sudden when I realized there's so much out here going on and suddenly I thought to myself what do we need to do as a family to take advantage of it, to see it all. And I came home from that adventure I mean, it was only four days, but it really changed my whole perspective on what our family needed to be doing. I just felt like we needed to open our eyes to what was out there. So I pitched an idea to my husband that I cooked up on the flight home, and it was basically let's quit our jobs, take our kids out of school, give up our apartment, pack our bags and hit the road for a year traveling and learning as much about the world as we possibly can, while we still have the chance.

DanielaSM : 6:09

Wow, what an incredible situation. You were four days only to Tanzania from New York.

Margaret Bensfield Sullivan: 6:15

Oh, maybe it was five. I mean a very long way to go. Wow, I know that Three flights to get there and back, but actually I credit those long flights with helping me sit with the idea. A funny story actually is that one of those flights home the first one really had a very specific moment that helped trigger this and inspire this idea, which is that the plane from Arusha, tanzania, to Dar es Salaam that was making a stopover in Zanzibar.

Margaret Bensfield Sullivan: 6:44

I sat down in my seat and on the plane boarded an American family that looked a lot like mine, with kids a little bit older. At the time and I thought, hmm, that's interesting. They're here in the middle of the school year, they're traveling, it seems like they're on vacation. They came and they sat behind me and I eavesdropped on them the whole flight as they were doing their math workbooks and talking about where they were going next. And they got off at Zanzibar and I watched them out the window walk across the tarmac and I just thought this feels like a sign. You know this American family in the middle of the school year. How are they pulling this off? People are doing this. And then it just inspired me to think, oh, maybe we could do something similar. Maybe these people are taking a sabbatical or a family gap year?

DanielaSM : 7:24

do something similar. Maybe these people are taking a sabbatical or a family gap year. Wow, interesting part of the story. Yes, I'm glad I asked that. When you say that you went to Tanzania and you saw, oh my God, my life is little, so you know, like expecting compared with everything, traveling it changed that perspective.

Margaret Bensfield Sullivan: 7:40

In some ways, travel makes you feel even smaller. Yeah, exactly that's what I was saying. It's not a bad thing. I think it's a wonderful thing. I think, from a parenting perspective alone, you realize the things that you thought were so important to do. As a parent, you know get your kid into the right school or doing the right activities, or befriending these people. None of that, when you take into consideration all the people that you met and the millions of people who are clearly doing life differently than we think we need to be doing it at home. All of that puts everything in perspective and allowed us to come home and look at our own priorities and think, oh, none of those things that we cared about before actually matter, because you can do life in countless, infinite numbers of ways and still have the opportunity to be fulfilled or happy or lead a meaningful life. It doesn't have to be the way we thought we needed to do it.

DanielaSM : 8:32

Wow, you kids were little, so three and five.

Margaret Bensfield Sullivan: 8:34

That's when the idea happened and then. So I came home, pitched the idea to my husband and we say it took us about eight months to work up the courage to say yes to the idea and another eight months to work up the courage to say yes to the idea and another eight months to get out the door. So by the time we left, the children were four and six, and they turned five and seven during the course of the travel year.

DanielaSM : 8:53

And do you see that they change from the beginning to when they came back with their friends and the attitude?

Margaret Bensfield Sullivan: 8:59

Absolutely. I mean they were, of course, young, but we joked that my son, who started the year with hiding under my skirt and with a buzz cut, ended the year with shaggy hair, wearing tropical shirts and like a man of the world who had the confidence to go up and talk to anybody. So we always joke that he went from stroller to swagger in one year. But yeah, they came back with a lot of new traits. I would say they were very chatty, very comfortable with new people, especially grownups. I mean it was a year where they met new grownups every day and they perfected their small talk in some ways what their names are, where they're from, where they're traveling, what their favorite countries are. They had their whole shtick down and I think that that confidence and comfort level it's still there.

Margaret Bensfield Sullivan: 9:47

But it's hard to say now. They're older. They're, you know, they're 10 and 12 today. So it's hard to say what it was about the trip that shaped them, or what's nature versus nurture. I think that there are a lot of ways. I mean it's impossible for this experience not to have shaped them into who they are.

DanielaSM : 10:06

Yeah, that's amazing, that's great, Wonderful. Then you pitched the idea, you took off and you travel for a year. I know you wrote a book, but before we go to the book, the book calls Following the Sun. Because you're following the sun, that's where you chose to go to places.

Margaret Bensfield Sullivan: 10:22

It was. I mean, the title has multiple meanings, but really that is the way that we organized our itinerary, and it was when it was overwhelming to look at a world map and think we have a year, where could we go? How are we going to do this? Where do we start? The first concept was okay, let's stick to warm weather or seasonal warm weather, and that way we plotted our general path around the world. So we left in January of 2019. And so we headed straight down to South America. We hit the summer there, and then we went over to Africa still summer there and then up to the Middle East and then Europe for the European summer, and that's when we spent the second half of the year. We left there for Asia and then Europe for the European summer, and that's when we spent the second half of the year. We left there for Asia, and then Australia, new Zealand and home via Japan and Hawaii. So it was one year following the sun. Our only real cold weather was winter in Japan. We spent Christmas in Tokyo.

DanielaSM : 11:18

That's cool. Wow, that's amazing. What happened when you were going to nearly finish the year? Were you sad about it?

Margaret Bensfield Sullivan: 11:49

Would you want it to continue or were you like, okay, we really started savoring our lasts.

Margaret Bensfield Sullivan: 11:55

You know, last beach, last hotel, last rental car, last, you know, we just every last last Monday morning.

Margaret Bensfield Sullivan: 12:04

And Monday mornings were really special for us that year because, as people who had worked really hard to have a free Monday morning where you just wake up and all you have on the schedule that day is to spend it with your family adventuring and exploring a new part of the world, that was exciting. So we, we savored everything and by the time we got to the end, we were ready and I would say an important tip here is that we actually changed our itinerary to have we were going to be skiing our last week and we decided, no, we need a soft landing, we need a last week where we're together as a family, chill, rehashing the memories, recounting our inside jokes and our favorite moments and discussing what we're going to be looking forward to most about home. So we changed it to Hawaii and we had a wonderful week just as a family, with that really peaceful wind down week of discussion and reflection and preparing to go back into our old lives Wonderful, and were you staying in Airbnbs?

DanielaSM : 13:03

We?

Margaret Bensfield Sullivan: 13:04

did do a lot of Airbnbs.

Margaret Bensfield Sullivan: 13:05

When we first pictured the year, we imagined mostly Airbnbs, you know, kind of living like locals everywhere we went, and what ended up happening is because we had so many stops we did 29 countries across six continents we ended up staying in a lot of hotels and I was worried about that at first.

Margaret Bensfield Sullivan: 13:22

We'd booked a lot of hotels. I thought this isn't a very authentic experience, but it turns out that for us at least, the experience wasn't made authentic or not by where we stayed. It was more about the people that we met in the moment, like going out of our way to befriend strangers and talk to people during our day led to so many exciting, you know invitations to a barbecue at somebody's house or a recommendation for a restaurant we never would have found on our own. Those kinds of moments were what made it authentic for us. And then to be able to come home to a maid bed and you know we just had somewhere to sleep that night that a lot of the hotels that we did pick were actually independently owned, and so we got to know the owners and you know there was a. There was a bit of local contact there as well, but we stayed in more hotels than I thought we would.

DanielaSM : 14:13

But so so you went to strangers, or let's talk to him and ask them questions.

Margaret Bensfield Sullivan: 14:18

We did and we are. So that's not our nature. Our nature, you know, we're New Yorkers, you keep your head down and we're a bit introverted too, so that's not our inclination at all to talk to strangers. But we recognize that if we were going to do this, we were going to do it the right way and we knew that meant getting to know local people. So not only did we just put aside our fears of an embarrassment and self-consciousness about talking to people, so yes, we would talk to somebody on the bus. We'd ask someone for directions, We'd say we don't know anything in this neighborhood.

Margaret Bensfield Sullivan: 14:50

Do you know a place where we could get breakfast? We did that a lot. But we'd also put out a call on social media or to our friends and say does anyone know anybody in Santiago, Chile or Shanghai? And people would my cousin lives there, my nephew's Nobody in Santiago, Chile or Shanghai, and people would my cousin lives there, my nephew's friend's hairdresser. And we would seize on those answers. We'd track the people down and we were always surprised that the people we looked up were like, yeah, sure, come over or let's meet up or let's have a play date with our kids at the playground. Sometimes I wondered if we would be so gracious to other people visiting New York, but of course we are now and always will be, because we're eternally grateful for those encounters. That's what gave us the real feeling of a place.

DanielaSM : 15:34

Of course, yes, you see, that's the way I am always. Our house is always open for people. If we travel, I would love people to help me. I know that's wonderful open for people. If we travel, I would love people to help me. I know that's wonderful, wonderful that you have that experience. And which country or continent do you feel that they welcome your kids more than others?

Margaret Bensfield Sullivan: 15:52

That's a great question. I would say there's no doubt that the South American countries we went to were South America and Spain were the most kid obsessed places we went and, really interestingly, the only places we went where there were special lines for families, special lines and discounts and perks and all the things. If you had little kids with you, and not only that, but you could just feel the love. Everything was easier because we had these little adorable people with us, and my son in particular, who was four. He would get his hair ruffled everywhere we went. Men would pick him up and throw him in the air. We'd walk by the fruit stand and people would just hand out fruit to us.

Margaret Bensfield Sullivan: 16:35

I mean, it was like this very loving experience, I would say there and Southeast Asia, especially with men, because I think that the culture in a lot of countries we went to is where the retired grandpa is finally getting to experience like the joy of being a grandfather and having his own grandkids around. We saw a lot of love from grandpas around the world, I would say, and which was really like heartening and funny to see. It's as if we always joke that. It's as if grown men have been standing around waiting to play all day, like they just want to kick a soccer ball. They want to throw a stuffed animal back and forth in the air, which was something we saw with a guy in Egypt, and he and my son were just having the best time throwing this. You just never know, but having kids along certainly made everything easier.

DanielaSM : 17:21

Yes, I feel like, especially when we went to Mexico, it was always like people were in love with your kids and they were also friendly. So, yes, that's awesome. Let's talk about your book. How did that come about?

Margaret Bensfield Sullivan: 17:33

Naturally, people have a lot of questions about what we did, our friends and then people. We kept a little Instagram account throughout the year and the more people who started following, the more curious they became, and it was really interesting to see how people were. They wanted to understand how, how do you do laundry? What happens when you get sick? How are you only carrying travel size? Carry on bags? How are you staying with your kids around all the time? What about homeschooling? It was like a lot of the same questions over and over, and then people wanting to know about the places we went. You went to Mongolia. What was that like?

Margaret Bensfield Sullivan: 18:07

So we took very meticulous notes. I had a daily blog that my husband and I alternated days writing funny quotes where we went, little observations about the places we visited. And when I reviewed all of that and then consider the number of questions we were getting, I just thought I wonder if there's a book here. I wonder if I could put all this together and if it's just for me and my family, then I will have created a lovely record, but if it can be useful to someone else, like I would have killed for this book when we were in the planning stages of our year, then all the better, and so I spent the pandemic writing the book. And it turns out writing a book is hard. I'd never done that before. I thought it would be like a couple of months I got this, but it took several years and but it was such a joy and I love the response that it's getting.

DanielaSM : 18:54

Going back to the luggage thing, I saw some pictures and you only had hand luggage. How do you manage that for a year? I?

Margaret Bensfield Sullivan: 19:01

know. Well, it helped that we were in warm weather only. I would say that we had about a week's worth of clothing, at all times with extra underwear. That was somebody's advice and it was the right advice have lots of underwear. But really, just from speaking for myself, I only needed one dress. I only needed one bathing suit, one workout outfit, one nightgown. I only needed one bathing suit, one workout outfit, one nightgown. You think you need a bunch of looks. Why? This was the year of suspending vanity. I like to say this was not the year to look beautiful. I had no one to impress.

Margaret Bensfield Sullivan: 19:32

We were going to a new place every three days. I could wear the same thing all the time, and same with the kids. They were small too, so their clothes fit nicely in a carry-on bag and, believe it or not, when we came home, our bags were lighter than when we left. We just really discovered how little we need, and that has translated into our life today, where we are pretty minimalist. We got rid of a lot of clutter, both figuratively and literally speaking. So now when we travel, we only travel with carry-on bags. We love our Briggs and Riley bags. We got two new ones and they're even smaller than the ones we had before, and my son, daughter and I just took a trip for a week and all three of us went in one of those carry-on roller bags. So we like to pack light.

DanielaSM : 20:17

So who gave you the advice? Why the most underwear?

Margaret Bensfield Sullivan: 20:23

It's like, if you're going to overpack anything, just make sure you have enough underwear. And it's like, oh, you know, if we couldn't get to the laundromat that day, the one thing you really, really want is clean underwear, so we always had extra.

DanielaSM : 20:34

Yes, I wonder because you know we are going to travel soon, in only six months, but I keep thinking, oh, I need these and I need that. And I'm like, oh my God, the day that I'm going to have to pack is going to be major. We didn't think that we need to do hand luggage. We thought like we're going to bring a whole bag, but then I'm starting to think, oh my God, what if it gets lost?

Margaret Bensfield Sullivan: 20:54

Yeah, I think for us it depends on the itinerary. We were going to so many places that the concept of lugging around huge suitcases felt so daunting. The trip itself was hard enough. Like, let's not add to that challenge and the difficulty level by having a bunch of junk with us as well. Keep it simple.

DanielaSM : 21:12

I know. But then the concept of you immediately thinking I need one dress, one exercise, you know like it's just really not easy, not easy.

Margaret Bensfield Sullivan: 21:21

And so for me, even though we had this concept, I still had three dresses, three bathing suits, and I crammed it all in there, and it only took a couple of weeks for me to realize this was ridiculous and I don't need this stuff. And so that's when I was able to totally let go. I didn't totally start there, but I realized pretty quickly that I did not need it and it was just more trouble than it was worth.

DanielaSM : 21:46

You were holding yourself from buying anything when you were traveling. Oh, that's cute, but we don't need it.

Margaret Bensfield Sullivan: 21:51

We only bought things if we felt like we could never find it at home. It was truly special and it was something that we wanted as a memory for our trip. As a memory for our trip, and an example would be we were in Copenhagen and I didn't do a lot of shopping that year unless it was to replace t-shirts or whatever. But I saw a beautiful dress by a Danish designer and it fit perfectly and beautiful colors, and I just thought I'm going to get this. It's a treat and I'll always remember Copenhagen and this designer. I still have it. It's in my closet.

Margaret Bensfield Sullivan: 22:22

So when we came across things like that, a piece of art, when we were in the Amazon rainforest, our guide whittled a blow gun and darts for my children and we saved that and we have it hanging on our wall. Things like that that were really special. We would collect them. We had a little extra tote bag for our souvenirs like that. When the tote was full, we knew it was time to go to a DHL. We'd pack up a bag, ship it to my parents' house and when we came home at the end of the year we had a nice little pile of treasures that were like this exciting little mountain of things that were waiting for us at home, that decorate our apartment now.

Margaret Bensfield Sullivan: 23:00

And one of the reasons we did this is because I spoke to a family that was traveling similarly to the way we did. They had done it a few years before and they said their biggest regret was that they didn't buy souvenirs because they thought it would be too much of a burden, too expensive, to ship and all of this. They didn't need it. And then they said you know, all these years later, we don't have anything tangible for our memories. We just don't have anything. We regret that. So I just thought we're not going to buy anything and everything, but if it's really special, we'll get it.

DanielaSM : 23:28

Interesting, because you know, I feel like you always do things like this oh, this is really special, and at the end you bring it home, but it's not. It's the same as taking a lot of pictures. I mean, I do think that we need to take pictures because you forget things, but sometimes you waste time taking a picture you forgot to look with your own eyes. Sometimes it will be in your head way better than when you take the picture. That's true.

Margaret Bensfield Sullivan: 23:52

That's true, Although maybe it's because we have kids, but I feel like our photos keep it all alive. If we didn't have these photos, I'm not sure they would remember nearly as much. I know they don't remember nearly as much as we do my husband and I do. So the photos. There's a balance. You've got to get the great photo and then stop, put it all away and just savor the moment, Absolutely.

DanielaSM : 24:14

Yes, you're right, the balance we have to Google home and so every time Google show pictures and I'm like, oh, when we went there? Oh, we went there, you know. So it is really good. The other part is to see them little, and now they're 24 and 21 and I'm always like, oh, I miss that time. So in a way it makes me sad most of the time because I'm like they're never going to be little again and that's so cute. I'm glad we have these pictures.

Margaret Bensfield Sullivan: 24:41

Pictures are important, especially when the kids are in them, because I feel like my kids now know this story of our family very well, like this is who we are, this is what we did, this is the family narrative and so those photos even if they don't remember the details of the trip, they know that this is what we stand for and, like they have they, they've totally internalized that thanks to the pictures.

DanielaSM : 25:05

Yes, and so how was it coming back after a year?

Margaret Bensfield Sullivan: 25:10

I would say the immediate return was tricky because, especially for my children they were, you know the trip represented such a large portion of their lives that they barely remembered what it was like before. So they went from a year where every day was new. They staying somewhere, new, new languages, new this, where are we going tomorrow? What's happening tomorrow? And there was always a different answer to coming back to New York, going back to their school, and they stopped asking what are we doing tomorrow? Because every day was the same and that did not sit well with them at first. Not only was the routine something they weren't used to, but they were separated from their parents, they were separated from each other, and that was very hard, I would say. For that first two weeks back at school, when they went into kindergarten and second grade, they cried every morning and it was really hard on us too.

Margaret Bensfield Sullivan: 26:01

We took a few weeks. It was like this confusing, nowhere of in-betweenness is how somebody described this moment of transition and change. But like anything, you know, we settled and we got back into our habits, we got to see our friends and things started to feel good again. And then the pandemic happened. So we went pretty much from our return, with a little moment of normal, into the pandemic and then we were like everyone else. You know questions about pandemic and having the moment to be home together, just the four of us, was like an extended pause and way to keep the traditions of our trip going and continue to reflect on everything that we learned and make a decision to write a book. It was that it was not what we expected, but it was okay.

DanielaSM : 27:02

Well, I can see the perfect timing to decide to go from January to January, Otherwise I'm going to return. And secondly, that, yes, you were separated and then you come back and you already knew how to be together for so long that for you, maybe during the pandemic you didn't have the options of what are we doing tomorrow, but you still knew how to work together, the four of you, which maybe some of your friends wouldn't have had.

Margaret Bensfield Sullivan: 27:28

That yeah, where people were going crazy and cooped up with their family around all the time. That was our preferred state at that point, you know, we were fine with it. We joked that people would say, oh, you're already used to homeschooling. Well, you know, the kids doing school with their teacher on Zoom was a lot easier than mommy and daddy creating a curriculum and forcing them to do their schoolwork. I mean, it was more like proctoring during COVID, and so your friends.

DanielaSM : 27:57

They were calling you for advice in that moment, when you already knew how to be with your family at all times.

Margaret Bensfield Sullivan: 28:03

Yes for sure, and especially with the school. You know just. People always said how did you do this? My kid doesn't want to learn from me. They don't want to listen to me when I'm printing out the worksheets. And, of course, homeschooling was one of the big struggles of our year. You'd asked six months into the year how it was going for us. We would have said terrible. But it turns out that with repetition and consistency the kids just got with the program and we eventually learned how to do it. What was helpful and the lesson that we passed on to our friends during the pandemic is that a school day when really boiled down to the academics is quite short compared to the six hours they're in the building. There's a lot of transition and recess and lunch and whatever Academics. For their age it was 30 minutes math, 30 minutes writing, 30 minutes reading every day. Done so with knowing that it's just 90 minutes and you can bang it out in the morning and be done, was reassuring to people and effective.

DanielaSM : 28:58

Yes, so you were doing that. You had a routine where you were traveling.

Margaret Bensfield Sullivan: 29:07

Yes, wake up in the morning, have breakfast, knock out our schooling first thing. I would teach my daughter, my husband taught my son. At first we tried to do it everyone together and that did not work. So we learned separate rooms, separate paths. We would do our 90 minutes with little stretching breaks in between, and then it was lunchtime and that would be the end of school. So we would have our lunch and set out for the afternoon on some adventure, to explore wherever we were visiting, and sometimes that meant a playground, sometimes that meant a market, other times it was a tour or, you know, a museum. But every day it looked different. But that was more or less how we did it and we did school every day that we were not flying somewhere. So, even if it was Sunday, even if it was Easter, even, you know, we did not stop for a weekend. We didn't know the difference between Monday and Sunday anyway on the road. So we, if we were not flying, we were doing school that day.

DanielaSM : 29:59

And they learned to give in to that. So it wasn't really five days a week, because you could have been seven in a row.

Margaret Bensfield Sullivan: 30:04

Right, right, okay, okay yes, yeah, um, it rarely was, because we did fly so much. Um. And then there were times when we were in the middle east where we had back-to-back touring, you know, we were seeing luxor and aswan and cairo and we had temple tours starting at dawn. You had to wake up first thing because the heat was so bad. So on days like that we just said you know, this is school and um, it is cool that is the best school they can have, really.

DanielaSM : 30:33

Yeah, there's a term.

Margaret Bensfield Sullivan: 30:34

It's world schooling and, believe it or not, there's a whole community out there of world schoolers, people who do what we did, but in a permanent state. There are nomadic families that are just traveling the world and, yes, they do some math and, yes, they have their reading requirements, but it's really about being out in the world and learning and I'm fascinated by this niche of people. They're really their kids are fascinating. They're doing something right.

DanielaSM : 31:02

Yes, that is something that I'm fascinated about too. I will say that the only disadvantage is that, if you ever settle, or if you ever be in one place, that you will always feel a stranger, like you don't belong to anywhere because you belong everywhere. You don't have to be a nomad, and that happens. People who are mixed cultures live in different countries, and I will be one of those, because we all need a sense of belonging and that sometimes is missing. I think that's one of the disadvantages, I agree.

Margaret Bensfield Sullivan: 31:31

In fact, when we thought we have a year to do something, what should it be? One of the thoughts was should we move abroad and live somewhere for a year? And I had done that. I lived in France for three years before I had kids and I just thought I don't love that because you're never going to be fully accepted in a place and then you feel disconnected to where, accepted in a place and then you feel disconnected to where. So I've done that. It can be great, but I was ready to just go, go, go.

Margaret Bensfield Sullivan: 31:54

Another thing I'll say about the disadvantage of the world. Schooling constant, nomadic is a theme that I see all the time in these online discussion groups of families is it's great until the kids are about 13, 14, 15 and suddenly you see parents saying my kids really want to come home and be settled and go to a school and make friends. What do I do? And oh yeah, me too. That happened when my daughter turned 13. So there is like that middle school age where kids are craving community and in one place, and I see it with my own kids.

DanielaSM : 32:24

And also a reason why going to high school is not really necessarily to learn, or even universities for the connections that you make. My husband for him, was like the most important, that the kids will have the school years in one place. Well, interesting. And so you met a lot of nomadic families then.

Margaret Bensfield Sullivan: 32:41

I have met them in writing this book. Well, I was connected to a number of people in the lead up to the book because and which? What helped inspire it? Just oh, I know a family that's thinking of doing what you did. Could I put you in touch with them? And I started to write that same email over and over for different people. I just thought this might be a book. But yeah, there is a community out there and it fascinates me. It really does. We think we were brave doing it for one year. People who are doing it for five, 10 years and up is incredible.

DanielaSM : 33:10

But it doesn't fascinate. Is it like making you think about the future?

Margaret Bensfield Sullivan: 33:15

I mean, if it were up to me, we probably would still be out there, but I get that we needed to come home, see some family and settle back into a new, very different version of a life that we decided that we wanted to try to lead when we were traveling. We thought we have an opportunity to design a new kind of life when we return, so that we don't go back into the same habits and fall into the same routines where you're just on this treadmill and you look up one day and your kids are going to college. Let's not do that. Let's be more purposeful with our time. Claim our time only, spend that time doing the things that we love, with the people that we love, preferably outside, and doing new things all the time. So we just there were so many lessons that we learned from the trip that we have now incorporated into our daily lives, which is why, like I said, we just can measure our lives in the before and after of that experience.

DanielaSM : 34:11

Did you lose friends when you came back? Or did you lose it in the sense that you'll say, okay, maybe I don't want to hang around with them. You're more selective.

Margaret Bensfield Sullivan: 34:21

No, but I would say that we've really focused on the connections that we want to nurture and grow and those are the ones where we've put all of our effort and we spend more time. I would say if there's an opportunity to oh, maybe we could go see the grandparents for this, or not. We're kind of busy that weekend. We always say let's just go do it. We are always making the most of time with the people we really do want to spend time with, like family and, of course, our dear friends, who, many of them, don't live in New York anymore post-pandemic but we will always make an effort to go visit and we're those people who are going to say don't invite us, because we will show up, we're going to find you.

DanielaSM : 35:03

And I agree with that, and I wonder sometimes if that makes you kind of close-minded in the sense that, okay, you are saying these are the people that I value the most and then you're not letting people in. Do you feel that that could be the case?

Margaret Bensfield Sullivan: 35:18

No, I think that we have had a complete shift in the way that we view the people that we meet, and so new people are like, are so excited about. We are more outgoing than we've ever been in our lives. Our kids started a new school last year. We jumped right in. We've met everyone in the community. We've gotten to know all kinds of people through different activities and interests that have taken hold in the time after our trip. So we are more open to people than we ever ever were before. And you know, we're also the first people to walk up to anyone on the street who seems a little bit lost or like they need help. You know we're going to be those friendly, outgoing people always, so I think it changed us in a huge way in that regard.

DanielaSM : 35:58

Wonderful and it was not difficult to come back and find jobs. Did you change what you're doing? Besides that, you wrote a book.

Margaret Bensfield Sullivan: 36:06

Like I said, the book took a long time. So I did spend most of my time during the pandemic writing the book. My husband took his time finding a job. He had a software company before that got acquired. He was like I'm not going to jump right into something that is going to suck all my time up and where I'm just constantly traveling or constantly at the office. And he did. He found a job that where he feels like he gets to be creative, he owns his time, he is building something new, but without the pressure of the job that he had before.

Margaret Bensfield Sullivan: 36:36

And as for me, and once I finished this book, I've been focusing on a far more creative path, maybe in some ways what I should have been doing all along, which is illustrating and photography. So I'm very excited. I mean, that does feel scary. You talked about things that are scary or risky. That we've done since we've returned, and to me, not going back to a corporate job was like can I do this? And I'm trying. So it's been you know the next adventure. But no, we didn't necessarily go back to the same kinds of jobs.

DanielaSM : 37:03

Yes, I saw your illustrations on your website. They're very cute, so, but there was not a lot, so what is it that you're doing exactly with them?

Margaret Bensfield Sullivan: 37:09

Well, I have a lot of private commissions and I've been working on book illustrations and editorial work for again like in a private capacity, so that's been humming along. But I spent the last. The book came out a couple months ago and I've just spent the spring and summer talking about the book, giving talks, doing publicity, and so that has taken up a lot of time.

DanielaSM : 37:29

Interesting. So when do you learn this illustration?

Margaret Bensfield Sullivan: 37:32

I feel like I was always the kid in class who could draw when I was little, and then I've just taken classes for many, many years and it's always been my passion and hobby. But this is a chance. Now I'm getting pieces published and people are contacting me for work, which is exciting and scary, but continuing to take the classes and do the work and see where it takes me.

DanielaSM : 37:56

Yeah, super creative, it's really beautiful. So, going back to your book, I want to know. You said that your book title has a lot of meaning, so we got the one, the first one, which is you know you're traveling around the sun. And what are the other ones?

Margaret Bensfield Sullivan: 38:10

Well, there's this great moment in our year where I was sitting in Indonesia. My son had just gotten out of the pool, it was the end of the day, he was wrapped in a towel and I was cooking dinner. We were at an Airbnb, the sun was setting and the Beatles song Follow the Sun came on. We were listening to some music. I'm not going to get the lyrics totally right, but they're quite poignant, they're. You know, tomorrow may rain, so for now I'll follow the sun while we're listening to it. You know it's already kind of a moving and meaningful song.

Margaret Bensfield Sullivan: 38:40

But my son, who was five at the time, said we're following the sun, and I just like immediately got tears in my eyes because I thought yeah, we are. And not only are we. You know, he's just repeating what he's heard his parents say a million times about our itinerary. But for me it was like yes, we're following the sun. There may be rain tomorrow. There may be pain, there may be, you know, hard times ahead, but like, this is our moment where we are taking absolute advantage of the time that we have with our family to take an adventure while we still have the chance. And so we're following the sun and we're doing what we can today, because who knows what tomorrow holds.

DanielaSM : 39:16

How beautiful I feel like going with your kids. It makes it like a way more memorable. You know that when you don't have the kids. So that's amazing that you did that. It will happen again. You said, you know, we now, our kids are 21 and 24 and Ben and I and I was me like five years ago I started to think what if we could do this? And it took me a while to look at the finances and then I presented to my husband, I think like about 19 months ago, you know, I didn't know how to present it because I did mention it before and he will be like you're crazy, that's not going to happen. And then I spoke to some friends who said well, to present it to your husband, you have to talk this way. So I did it.

DanielaSM : 39:57

It didn't take me very long. I thought I have to prepare a meeting. This is what's like talking to the boss. You have to have a presentation and a slideshow and everything. And no, it was like I show a few numbers. And he was like, oh, it's possible. And I was like, ok, we're doing this. So we have had the countdown and now we are at two months. Ok, what's the plan? The plan is we have a one way ticket and we're going to start in Europe. We're going to see family first my husband has family in England, I have family in Spain and then we're going to Germany, to the Balkan countries. We'll see from there. We don't have a plan, no, we just have six months for sure. So yes, it will happen again for you.

Margaret Bensfield Sullivan: 40:40

That's great Winging. It was not the recipe for success for us, but I can see how it would be super exciting and especially without kids to do it that way. And my advice would be just to everywhere you go, when you're deciding where to go, next is to talk to the local people, like where do you go on vacation or what you know? I was just.

Margaret Bensfield Sullivan: 40:59

We went to Stockholm on our trip and we had a wonderful time. But then I just went again this summer with my daughter to visit some Swedish American friends. We didn't know before, and when we were there he pointed to a ship and he said oh, that's the ferry that goes to Finland for 48 hours. You just hop on and the ride is beautiful. You get there, you spend the night in Helsinki and then you come back and that's the trip. And I never would have known that if he hadn't pointed out, but apparently it's a thing that the Swedes like to do for a weekend and I feel like you find those little moments of like, oh, we could pop over to Finland for the day or wherever you know. So talking to locals is great.

DanielaSM : 41:34

Yeah, yeah, we want to do slow travel and also we are on a budget. That's why we're picking countries that are not. Yeah, don't go to Scandinavia. I know, I know we know that already, so that's why we're picking countries. Also, I don't want to be where everybody goes all the time. So you are advising, not doing it.

Margaret Bensfield Sullivan: 41:58

It was not for us, but we know people who've done a year like we did, exactly as you just described, like get to one country and then start researching where to next. That adds an element of excitement, for sure. And, like you, don't know and don't? We all want to have that adventure. That's like a real adventure. That's a lot of fun. You had a budget. Yeah, we had a budget. We just back of the envelope at the outset just said what do we roughly think we need per day If we're staying in a hotel or an Airbnb? And we wanted to account for flights and tours. Obviously, the fewer stops on the itinerary, the less expensive it's going to be. We wanted to see a lot, so it grew and grew.

Margaret Bensfield Sullivan: 42:35

There was a funny moment in New Zealand when my son was five. We were sitting at a pizzeria and he had just learned the concept of a pro-con list and he wrote pro in his big cray with a big scrolling letters. He said pros and cons of being a grown up. And in the pro column it said get to do whatever you want. And in the con column it said have to pay. And we framed it because it's like it's so funny.

Margaret Bensfield Sullivan: 43:02

It's pretty much summed up our year. It was not our most fiscally responsible decision, but it was the best investment in our family we ever could have possibly made, whenever we had little panics about oh God, are we spending too much? This is crazy. What are we doing? We just remembered. You know, unlike a lot of things like a mortgage or tuition or whatever, this was finite. This spending ended when we got home and that was very reassuring to us. This was not something we'd shackled ourselves with until we died. This was like we're going to spend it, we're going to do it, we're going to come home and get back to reality.

DanielaSM : 43:41

Yes, yes, and you know it's a risk, but the risk is greater to stay in a place that you always wonder if we have done it right. I think so, yeah, yes, and for me and my husband is also thinking that intellectually we're not stimulated and that is a bigger risk than staying in a consistency. You're getting a salary and you're getting extended health, and it's true. I think that's right. Yeah, so I'm glad that you went and discovered all your strengths and then illustration and writing a book and all the things that you're doing, and you value all the things as well. There was, you will be in the rat race.

Margaret Bensfield Sullivan: 44:17

Never I'd still be sitting at that desk.

DanielaSM : 44:20

I want to be this time to reflect on what is it that I want to do with the next 45.

Margaret Bensfield Sullivan: 44:36

I know that's in. My advice would be then to to, while you're away, write down as much as possible, like every thought, every idea, every just keep, keep it all in one place, and that those notes that I accumulated over that year you start reading through them again and you're connecting dots and you're thinking, oh, that actually is a pattern I'm seeing with the things that I care about, or the things that resonated with me, and you start to notice like, oh, this is what I care about. Those notes, those reflections, when gathered, I mean you're going to forget about them if you don't write them down. So for me, that was so important having those notes. I treasure them.

DanielaSM : 45:02

Yes, and also I think it's wonderful the idea that you said that you start connecting the dots. I wouldn't have thought of that.

Margaret Bensfield Sullivan: 45:16

But yes, you're right. Well, I'll give you two like tactical examples. One for the, for the journal that he and I kept, we had a Google doc that was open on both of our phones during the day, like if it was his day to write the journal. He'd just sort of jot down some like a funny quote or an interesting fact that we learned, or and just like, or the name of the restaurant or something, and then at the end of the day it was super easy for him to just go in and crank out like a couple of paragraphs about the day, and I would do the same. So we had it all in this one Google doc that we shared, okay.

Margaret Bensfield Sullivan: 45:42

And then for the connecting dots, I started keeping lists because I realized, oh, you know, funny coincidences that happen, amazing trees that we encountered, or like there were these themes and motifs that started to lend themselves really well to lists. Like times we were a hero. You know, there was the time my kids chased a hat down the beach that was blowing away, or that we helped a lady in Shanghai undo her dress from a bicycle. Like there were all these little moments that started to accumulate into patterns and themes that were some big, some tiny. It was really interesting. So if you keep lists, running lists, that would be my other advice.

DanielaSM : 46:18

Interesting that you said do Google Docs? I would have thought the old way, like taking a notebook and writing, but I think this year it's much lighter.

Margaret Bensfield Sullivan: 46:27

I like the Google Docs because it's searchable. You know, you can always go back and say, well, didn't we see something? Or what happened in Cartagena, or whatever.

DanielaSM : 46:34

Okay, great advice, great advice, thank you. And do you think that, because I have learned with the time, now I am somebody who loves learning and I realize that there is no really one formula and that really the advice from everyone not necessarily helps you have you feel that? Do you have the same feeling that, yes, you can learn from other people, but the truth, or people can learn from you, but the truth is that everybody has their own formula they have to figure out?

Margaret Bensfield Sullivan: 47:04

Absolutely.

Margaret Bensfield Sullivan: 47:05

And one of the like mantras that I had when I was writing this book was don't be prescriptive, don't tell people to do what you did. This is not a how-to book. You are just sharing your story and if people want to take from it what they need, then they can. But this isn't a how-to. This isn't a prescriptive reference book. It is just our family's story, and so constantly keeping that in mind was really helpful. In telling the story. I'm not like imposing on anyone. This is the one and only way to do it, because this looks very, very different for everybody.

DanielaSM : 47:43

Yes, and I'm glad that you mentioned that, because I always notice that, too, people like to say you should do these or you know the typical thing tell your story and then at the end, have a call to action, which I hope is gone, this concept of that.

Margaret Bensfield Sullivan: 47:57

I agree, because often what the lesson at the end is not at all what I took away from the talk. It's like that's not what resonated. You know, for me what I wrote down in my notebook had absolutely nothing to do with your call to action.

DanielaSM : 48:11

Exactly, and so that's why I love people sharing their story Not, you know, to necessarily change people the way they think, but something, a little, one nugget, that will change the way you think or add to your life. That's the whole purpose of each story that we hear. I love that. So is there anything else that can do with this podcast, anything else you want to share?

Margaret Bensfield Sullivan: 48:34

No, I just hope that anyone who is either thinking about taking a risk or a departure from their lives picks up this story and sees how one family approached it, or if there is somebody who is just looking for a little armchair escape while they're sitting in their home cozy with no passport and no need to schlep their bags everywhere, that they enjoy it as well. I just really, you know, it's a book I wrote for my family, and the fact that other people are enjoying it just is wonderful.

DanielaSM : 49:05

Yes, wonderful. So I would like everybody to follow you on social media, get your book and read it, because it's just really amazing. We will put that in the show notes, thank you Well, margaret, thank you so much for your story. I really enjoy our conversation.

Margaret Bensfield Sullivan: 49:19

Thank you very much for having me. Best of luck with the travels and it's going to be great.

DanielaSM : 49:24

Yes, I wonder how I'm going to be when I come back, so thank you again for your time. Thank, I'm going to be when I come back, so thank you again for your time. Thank you so much. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. I am Daniela and you are listening to, because Everyone has a Story. Please take five seconds right now and think of somebody in your life that may enjoy what you just heard, or someone that has a story to be shared and preserved. When you think of that person, shoot them a text with the link of this podcast. This will allow the ordinary magic to go further. Join me next time for another story conversation. Thank you for listening. Hasta pronto you. Thank you.