How We Decided to Take Our Four Kids to Europe for Three Months

If you had told me a few years ago that we’d take our four daughters out of their normal routine, move to Tuscany for a few months, and use Italy as our home base to explore Europe, I probably would have had a lot of questions.

Actually, I definitely would have.

School. Work. Cost. Where would we live? How would we get around? What would we pack? How do you move a family of six across the Atlantic for months instead of a week?

And maybe the biggest question:

Can we actually do this?

It turns out we can.

And once we started figuring out the details, the decision became a lot easier than we expected.

Longer Trips Weren’t Completely New to Us

We’ve always loved traveling together as a family, and over the years we’ve realized that we especially love longer trips.

In the past, we’ve taken advantage of the end of the school year by pulling the girls out about 10 days early, after most of the testing and classroom learning was finished, and heading to Hawaii for 30-plus days.

There’s something different about staying somewhere for a month instead of visiting for a week.

You stop feeling like you’re racing against the clock.

Not every day needs to be packed with activities. You can have a normal morning. Go grocery shopping. Find your favorite local places. Spend an afternoon doing absolutely nothing.

You start experiencing a destination instead of simply vacationing there.

Those trips also taught us something else.

Travel Brings Our Girls Together

We have four daughters, and one of my favorite things about traveling with them is watching their relationships with each other change when we’re away.

At home, life moves fast.

There’s school, activities, practices, friends, work, errands and all the other things that pull a family in different directions.

When we travel, a lot of that disappears.

The girls spend their days together. They explore together. They figure things out together. They laugh together.

And yes, they still argue with each other.

They’re sisters, after all.

But we’ve watched them create some of their strongest bonds and memories during the times we’ve stepped away from our normal routine.

As their dad, that’s probably one of my favorite parts of traveling.

They’re not just seeing new places.

They’re experiencing those places with each other.

Years from now, they may not remember every museum we visited, every restaurant where we ate or every little town we explored.

But I hope they’ll remember what it was like to be there together.

Then We Found Boundless Life

Until recently, our longer trips had always happened when the school calendar made them relatively easy.

We’d never seriously considered taking the girls away for several months in the middle of the school year.

And we definitely hadn’t considered doing it during winter.

Then we discovered Boundless Life.

The idea immediately caught our attention because this wasn’t simply about taking the kids out of school and going on a really long vacation.

Our girls could continue learning while we were away.

That completely changed the equation for us.

Suddenly, we started thinking about something we’d never really considered before:

What if we temporarily lived somewhere else during the winter?

Winter in the Philadelphia area can feel long, cold and dark. It’s probably the time of year when our normal routine feels the hardest.

What if, instead of simply getting through those months, we could turn them into an experience our girls might remember for the rest of their lives?

First, We Had to Figure Out School

This was obviously one of our biggest questions.

Taking a 30-day trip near summer vacation is one thing.

Leaving in the middle of the school year is something entirely different.

We didn’t want an incredible experience abroad to create a mess academically when we came home.

So before getting too far ahead of ourselves, we talked with our children’s schools.

The response was incredibly reassuring.

Our superintendent viewed studying abroad for a few months as an excellent opportunity for the girls. We were told they could be unenrolled while we’re away and then seamlessly reenrolled into their same classrooms when we return.

That conversation was huge for us.

Once we knew the school piece could work, one of the biggest reasons not to do this suddenly disappeared.

Instead of thinking about the trip as taking our girls away from their education for several months, we started looking at it differently.

They’d still be learning.

They’d just be doing some of that learning on the other side of the world.

Why Boundless Life Made Sense for Us

We did our initial cost research and then had a Zoom call with Boundless Life to learn more about how everything worked.

Between that conversation and the reassurance we received from our schools back home, it started to feel like a no-brainer.

What attracted us to Boundless wasn’t simply the opportunity to spend several months in another country.

It was the combination of travel and education.

Our girls could continue to grow academically while also learning about the world they’re living in by actually experiencing it.

Different cultures. Different foods. Different languages. Different cities. Different ways people live.

And we’d get to experience much of it together as a family.

We’re not trying to become a full-time traveling family.

We have a normal life at home that we love.

But every once in a while, we love stepping away from that routine.

Boundless gave us the opportunity to take a much bigger detour than we’d ever considered before.

Why We Chose Tuscany

Once we decided we were serious about Boundless Life, the next question was where we wanted to go.

For us, Tuscany quickly moved to the top of the list.

Our family is Italian, so there was already a connection to Italy and an excitement about giving the girls an opportunity to experience the country for more than a typical vacation.

And from a purely practical standpoint, we’re a family that could probably live on pasta, pizza and gelato without getting tired of any of them.

Although there’s a slight complication with that:

Three of us eat gluten-free.

You might think choosing the land of pizza and pasta when half your family needs to eat gluten-free is questionable planning.

We wondered about that too.

But the more research we did, the more comfortable we became with the gluten-free options available in Italy.

Food wasn’t the only thing Tuscany had going for it.

Safety was important to us.

Walkability was important.

We loved the idea of living somewhere where we wouldn’t necessarily need to get into a car every time we wanted groceries, dinner or simply to explore town.

And then there’s the location.

Pistoia Will Be Our Home Base

We’ll be living in Pistoia, Tuscany.

One thing we’re trying very hard not to do is turn these months into one giant race around Europe.

That’s not the point.

We want Pistoia to feel like home.

We’ll grocery shop. Walk around town. Find favorite restaurants. Establish routines. The girls will have school. We’ll have work.

There will probably be plenty of completely ordinary days.

And that’s exactly what we want.

But we’ll also be living in Tuscany.

Florence and the rest of Tuscany will be nearby, and we’ll have opportunities to explore other parts of Italy and Europe during weekends and breaks.

That combination really appealed to us.

We can slow down enough to experience what it’s actually like to live somewhere while still having an incredible part of the world sitting outside our front door.

This Isn’t About Escaping Our Normal Life

This part is important.

We’re not doing this because we hate our routine at home.

Quite the opposite.

We have a life at home that we love.

Our kids have their school, friends and activities. We have work and responsibilities. We have all the same normal things that most families have.

We’re also not selling everything we own and becoming full-time travelers.

That’s never really been the goal.

What we’ve learned from our longer trips is that sometimes it’s good to step away from ordinary life for a little while.

You get more time together.

You see your kids differently.

They see each other differently.

And you come home with experiences and memories that probably wouldn’t have happened if you’d stayed on the normal route.

That’s really the idea behind The Detour Family.

You don’t have to abandon your normal life to show your kids the world.

Sometimes you can just take a detour from it.

Now We Have to Figure Out How to Actually Do It

Of course, deciding to spend several months in Europe and actually moving a family of six there are two very different things.

That’s the stage we’re in now.

We’re figuring out flights.

Apartments and villas.

Transportation.

Packing.

Winter clothes.

Luggage.

School.

Gluten-free food.

Phones.

Insurance.

Weekend trips.

How we’re going to get four kids and all of our luggage through airports and train stations without losing either a suitcase or a child.

There are a lot of moving pieces.

And we definitely don’t have all the answers yet.

That’s actually one of the reasons I’m writing this site.

Rather than waiting until the trip is over and pretending we had everything figured out from the beginning, I want to document the process while we’re doing it.

What we’re researching.

What we’re buying.

What we’re worried about.

What we get right.

And I’m sure, eventually, what we get completely wrong.

Then, when we come home, we’ll be able to look back and tell you what actually worked.

The Next Detour

For now, the biggest decision has been made.

We’re going.

Four kids.

Two parents.

A few months in Europe.

And probably way too much luggage.

There are still plenty of details to figure out between now and the day we get on that plane.

But that’s part of the adventure.

And years from now, when our girls are grown, I don’t think we’ll look back and wish we’d spent those months doing exactly what we normally do.

I think we’ll be glad we took the detour.