Case Study of a family travelling now!

Lea & Jonathan Woodward were the first travelling small business owners to come up with a name for the concept of being “Location Independent.” They have been running a fantastic resource for those aspiring to follow in their footsteps and those of us who already do, since 2007.

Lea has written loads of inspiring and informative content on travelling with families which you can find at www.locationindependent.com She covers practical tips from home-schooling to potty training and if you have some time to put aside it’s WELL worth a browse.

But we caught up with her to get her take on a few of our own questions:

 
You’ve done a lot of travelling both before having Mali and since. What’s the most unexpected or surprising result of travelling with a little one?

The fact that it enables us to see everything with new, fresh eyes again. We’ve been – and still are – so excited to show her all the things we’ve seen and can’t wait to expand her little horizons to take in more of the world.

Of course she rarely reacts as we think she might – not delighted by the splendour of the scenery and instead enthralled by the nearest souvenir shop!! – but seeing the world through the eyes of a child again is a privilege and not something we’d ever really considered.

 
You’ve written a lot of articles which relate to travelling with a baby and toddler and we’ll look forward to reading further tips as you go through different stages and ages with her. Are there resources you refer to for guidance on travelling with a child of an age you haven’t reached with her just yet?

Google!! Also, having run the Location Independent site for so long, I’ve made lots of connections across the travel world and know of plenty of families doing the location independent thing with kids. Jenn Miller of The Edventure Project is one person I’d ask if I needed any tips on travel with kids of all ages. She’d probably be able to plug me into a world of other families doing it too.

 
What are the things you find most difficult (or impossible!) to do when you are travelling or settling overseas
with a child?

Work! Or more specifically grow the business. We can run it quite comfortably in maintenance mode but we usually try and avoid travelling if we have specific business growth plans we want to implement as we just can’t divide our time and energy to do it all when travelling.

Also, making new friends who share our mindset and values when we’re moving around a lot can be tricky. It’s been simpler in some ways with a child because we tend to seek out activities for Mali to do and we’re then forced to meet new people (left to our own devices, we’ve never been the most socially active or outgoing couple!) but that doesn’t mean they’re “our” kind of people who get the lives we live and the way we do things.

 
Is there anything you wished you had known before you started a family in relation to location independence?

How easy travel is with a baby versus a toddler! More specifically the actual transport and getting to places. So much easier with a baby who can’t move than with a toddler who wants to move all the time :)

Also, as your family and your own emotional needs change your definition and way of being and living location independent can also change. I’ve known this all along but many people have a very fixed definition of what location independence is i.e. nomadism and tend to forget that it’s your lifestyle to create whichever way you want it. Make up your own definition of what being location independent means to you and your family and make it work for you.
 
www.inspiringventures.com
 
www.startuptrainingschool.com
 
www.leawoodward.com