Keeping Adventures Alive During the School Season

In this episode of TravelEssary, we share how families can keep the joy of travel alive even during the busy back-to-school season. Just because schedules get packed with homework, sports, and activities doesn’t mean the adventure has to stop!

We talk about practical tips for family adventures during the school year, including:

• Embracing micro-adventures like local day trips, short hikes, and weekend getaways.
• Finding creative ways to bring the travel mindset home through global meals, travel-inspired movie nights, and pen pal connections.
• Balancing school routines with meaningful family experiences that spark curiosity and keep kids excited about exploring the world around them.

Whether you’re a full-time traveler, RV family, or just looking to make everyday life feel more adventurous, this episode will inspire you to see opportunities for exploration all year long.

Tune in to discover how to nurture a spirit of adventure even when travel slows down, and how to make memories that last well beyond the school season.

Kara and Nate on YouTube. 

Transcript

  We are the Essary family and we're exploring America one destination at a time. On today's episode of TravelEssary, we are going to share some ideas of how you can keep the travel adventure alive during school season. We know school is coming up and your options are getting smaller and smaller when it comes to travel, so stay tuned and see just what you can do about that.

Let's chat. Welcome and thank you for joining us on this episode as we talk about keeping the adventure alive during the awful dreadful school season. Now school season is different for everyone across the nation. Yeah. We're so fortunate that this isn't really an issue with us as our kids are homeschooled.

We actually prefer traveling during the school season, but growing up it was an issue for us as children because we were in the public school system for most of our lives and we. Did not vacation whenever it was school time. It was a huge issue for us during school season. We did not get the vacation, the time's off that kids getting now.

Oh, no. Especially , in our area, in our region that we're at, they get tons of days off for just. In my opinion, really no reason. They just get them off. Either it's a teacher's work day or it's , a bad weather day that they have to use because they plan for it , but there's so many opportunities that we want to make sure that you're aware of because I don't think our parents were aware of them.

. But it's something that has definitely opened up our eyes as being homeschoolers of all the different opportunities that you can take while your kid is in that school season. If you are travel bugs like us, . The off season does not sound very nice to you. The school season, it just like it throws a damper on that travel bug on that adventure that's just inside of you and your family.

So we're going to share with you guys how to keep that adventure alive because traveling adventuring, having new experiences, it doesn't have to stop just because school has started. Now, there are times that we understand school is busy, depending on the extracurricular activities that your children do.

School can be sometimes overwhelming and you taking a break as a parent. Mm-hmm. Better yet, taking your kids away for an adventure can be refreshing. Yeah. Now, I am not gonna advocate for taking your kids outta school and going on an adventure. Oh, no. Absolutely not. I think school is super important.

Yes. If you're choosing, you know, a school that has set days, then unless your child is sick, make sure they're in there. Am I gonna say, hey, if you take. Your kids out so they can go to Disney World for a few days. You're a terrible parent. No, I probably applaud you for that too. I think every family has their own needs and expectations that they need to follow.

Just right off the bat, I wanna make sure everyone knows we're not advocating for just pulling your kids outta school all the time. I also wanna make sure that you understand we're not trying to put pressure on you to like keep yourselves busy and to do more, do more, do more. This is not a. Do more podcast.

It's more of a keep an open mind and keep a creative mindset podcast. So the first thing I wanna talk about is what does it mean to travel? What does it mean to adventure? What does it mean to have , a new experience? It doesn't mean you have to go on a two week vacation. No. It doesn't mean that you have to fly across the nation either, right?

It doesn't have to be big. It doesn't have to be expensive. That's not what any of that means. It can be a weekend getaway, it could be a day trip, it could be a local experience. When I tell you some of the best memories we have as a family are things that were a quick one or two day trip. I absolutely mean that.

, When we went to New Mexico and it was like a three day trip. Super quick trip. It was like a Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and we came back and it was such a great time. It didn't have to be big, it wasn't expensive, but you know, we planned thoughtfully and we had an amazing time. So traveling adventuring doesn't mean big.

It doesn't mean it has to be Disney World, it doesn't mean it has to be overseas. You don't have to make a. Trip to Hawaii. That's not what adventuring means. It means having that adventuring mindset and being open to new ideas. I mean, I have, and I'm gonna quickly talk about the parents or for the adults real quick.

I have adult friends, parent friends that. It's just , the point of getting away. . Get, getting out of the mundane, getting away, trying to get, just getting out of your little bubble, trying to get refreshed, you know, trying to get a little bit, but they're always going and doing something, whether it's, you know, going to the next town over mm-hmm.

And getting a Airbnb or a bed and breakfast , I know some people that will travel to the next largest city next to us just for one night. Just so they can get away from Yeah. Oh yeah. From , their normal livelihood because they just need a break. And I think mentally and even physically on most occasions.

That is so true to That's great. Yeah. You need to, you need to get away, you need to do that because sometimes the everyday can run us down. , It can get us into a mental exhaustion trip that we don't think that. We can break unless we take the big vacations. Yeah. I think that's why weekend camping is so popular, especially in the fall because the fall is such a busy time for parents.

Especially. You have school that is starting up. You have all of these extracurricular activities that starting up. , And then your days are getting shorter to do it all in. I feel like the fall is one of the busiest times for families of children of any age, basically. . And fall camping is so popular on the weekends, and I can absolutely see why, just to go and disconnect yourself from what's happening in your life and in the world around you, to go and have that refreshing.

Mindset, and that's a great getaway. It's an adventure and it's , a new experience. And by new experience, we don't necessarily mean something you've never done before. We mean something that brings you out of your. Everyday life. Your mundane day to day school job slash activities. Yeah. Doing those activities that , can be anywhere from the big and the massive to the small, the micro adventures, you know, even , just taking a day hike.

Yeah. There's a local place that's not too far from us. , it's called Enchanted Rock. Yes. Super easy hike. Don't wanna go in the summer. Don't go in the summer. It's extremely hot. But you know, talking about the fall, even into the winter months, if you can get the right temperature on the weekend, absolutely beautiful.

And it just gets you away for a small vacation. , And another thing, events, festivities that happen in your community. Festivals, markets. Being a part of those. Yes. Doing something that doesn't come around every single day. Or maybe it's not , your community, maybe it's the community next to you.

Yeah. And I'm not talking about. Our weekend Walmart trip. I'm not talking about that. Walmart's always gonna be there. I'm talking about going to those, festivals that happen once a year, or those markets that happen, you know, maybe two or three times a year. Yeah. We have a peach and Melon festival that happens about an hour down the road from us.

I believe we've talked about it before, maybe in our small town. Attractions, small town attractions we talked about, or central Texas attractions, I can't remember. But we absolutely love it. I grew up going to it as a child. It's a fantastic thing to experience. It's small, it's simple. It's that country.

Small town atmosphere. Yeah, but it's something that only comes around for one week, once a year. It brings us out of our mundane. Again, it's in the fall. I feel like there's so much in the fall that is scheduled and planned around here, but I really feel like that's because when people like have that need to do something different Yes.

, They're already getting worn down from their day to day tasks. Yeah. I mean, 'cause fall brings on, kids are going into new grades. Mm-hmm. They're starting new activities. Activities that they've been doing for years are now starting back up. Especially central Texas. It is what it is. Fall season's all about two aday football season, but then you actually have all the other stuff that goes along with those activities.

You have , the girls sports that are happening with volleyball, and then you have the band that's happening and then school and then oh my goodness, , the list goes on and on and on. And it seems like every year more and more gets added on. Yeah. Having just these small micro breaks can bring life back to you.

Yeah, and don't be afraid to, you know, experience your local. Community, try to look at it with fresh eyes. I highly suggest even in our small town, what's the population of entire county is a little over 30,000. Okay. So in the largest town in our county,. I've taken several days where me and the girls have just went downtown.

We explored new shops, new bakeries, you know, bookshops, whatever we could find downtown. There's a theater downtown, and we just spent a few hours on a Saturday. You know, once every two or three months I would take the girls and we would go downtown and we would just explore the downtown because there's always new things opening, there's always new things to experience, and in our day-to-day life, I don't have time for that.

I don't have time just to go wander around downtown and go eat at the, you know, the handcrafted ice cream shops in the. Trust Leche Bakery or go to the bookshop that's absolutely beautiful and amazing. That's downtown. I don't have time for that in my day today, but whenever I take meaningful, purposeful time to go and explore the downtown, it really truly feels like I just went on an adventure.

Was just not taking adventures to things that you see on tv. Right, do the adventures that you see on Facebook, the local stuff that is gonna be super small that doesn't have, you know, six, 7 million followers, but those activities that have two 3000 followers because it's super unique just to that particular store.

And so you definitely want to do , some micro traveling. And the great thing about micro traveling or learning that information is you can bring it home with you, right? And I highly suggest that you bring travel into your home during the school season, especially if it's in a time when you are .

Incredibly busy with all of these new activities that we're talking about that you don't even have time for those day trips. Your itinerary is just absolutely packed, especially if you have three or more children of similar age and they all have different activities. Different, sometimes even at the same times, but on different days.

And it's like every single winky moment of your day is packed. And if you just can't get out, if it's a season of your life where you just can't, you just absolutely can't then bring travel into your home. One way to do that is with a themed travel family. And this can be different things. This can be an individual theme

or what I suggest that you do is most of the time, if you're a good planner and , you know what you want to do next summer. The big vacation coming up is start bringing that into the family. Start letting that kind of bleed into the activities that happen on the weekend or a movie night, especially for us.

Of course, the Disney world is really simple to do. Almost every Saturday night we were watching a different type of movie. Right. A different Disney movie. Different Disney movie, because we were bringing that experience in because when we were gonna go there, you were gonna see these things.

Mm-hmm. And we didn't want to , our kids to be like, well, what is this? I've never heard of that. Mostly like with the older movies. Right. The ones that you know, have been out for quite some time that a lot of people don't think about anymore. Um. I could name off a entire list of them, but I'm not going to, yeah.

, Have a themed family night, whether it's something you are wanting to visit or maybe it's somewhere you have already visited and you want to relive that, then bring that into your home through food, music, games, movies, something that incorporates that theme.

So, real quick, the one thing that comes to mind, is rati , you know, figure out whatever kind of food , that, you know, he's cooking and then cook that food, have the family help prepare that food, and then you're, eating that food while you're watching the movie and that whole night mm-hmm.

All in one becomes one inclusive adventure. Yeah. If you're. Wanting to take a adventure to a national park coming up. Then there are plenty of documentaries you can watch about those national parks. There are dishes you can look up for the region. There's wildlife you can talk about. You can absolutely bring in that travel.

, Let the kids help plan your next big trip, even if it's months away. So we did this with Disney World. Again, I keep bringing up Disney World because I feel like those are our biggest trips. Those are the ones that take the longest planning. , Mostly because they're the most expensive ones that we have to plan the longest 'cause we have to budget it for a long time.

But we let the kids in on the planning, even though it was. So far away from us, and we would ask them, okay, , you know, we get three fast passes for this one day. What three rides or shows do you guys want to see? Like, we want you to be a part of this, , experience. And it brings in a little bit of that anticipation of the adventure without having the full on adventure.

But hey, when you have a travel bug in your family, like we do, any little bit of that adventure, you will take.  . It's also good to, , if you have an anxious child, like we have an anxious child, and if we prepare for her ahead of time through food, through movies, through documentaries of what she's going to experience when we're doing something new, it helps lessen that anxiety when we actually do go and travel because she is able to, you know, get a grasp on what to expect.

And so not only are we bringing in that. Planning and that, you know, travel adventure in for the whole family. We're bringing it into the home. We're also helping an anxious child. If you're gonna go someplace and you know there's gonna be a lot of lights, there's gonna be a lot of sound, and your child may not.

Like to be inside that atmosphere. Then preparing them for what they're about to see and what they're about to experience by YouTube going on and letting them watch little tidbits and getting them excited and getting them kind of used to seeing and hearing the things that are gonna go on around them.

Right. We'll just, it eases their mind a whole lot easier when then of course, whenever your kids are having a good time, guess what? Parents, you're having a good time, right? Isn't that so true? Another way to keep the adventure alive during school season when you can't really travel is to stay. Connected to the travel community.

You can do that by listening to travel podcasts together, such as this one that you're listening to right now. You can watch Travel vlogs together. Now this is a big one for our family. We have a few people that we love to follow on YouTube. , Some that are, you know, just us travelers like ourself and some that travel the world.

We do have a favorite. I am gonna give them a shout out. It's Kara and Nate on YouTube if you like traveling at all. I highly suggest that you go and watch some of their videos. , They have a playlist called Watch from the beginning. I think it's at almost a thousand videos now.

And we've rewatched them from the beginning multiple times. They're absolutely wonderful people. And I will leave a link to their stuff in the show notes. So they do a great job of just keeping it real because I mean, they travel all over the world.

They've hit, over a hundred countries, which is phenomenal within itself. And. They're very positive. Yeah. And we, we have, but they'll keep it real. No connection to Karen, Nate, or their channel. We're just never met 'em before.

We're just really huge fans., We use their videos a lot actually for our homeschooling. When we were learning about cultures or geography or things like that, , there are a few episodes of them traveling even in America. So. Lots of really great travel videos. , Go check out our travel vlog if you have not done so yet.

Again, that link will be in the show notes., Keep in mind, we're new. At this, um, we're very real people, as you can probably hear from the kids splashing in the pool in the background, where while we sit outside and podcast, it's very real and very raw. But yeah, another great way to bring that travel community into your home is through pen pals.

Especially for your little ones, whether it's friends that they met while traveling, which I think is gonna become something, you know, really big in our family as we're full-time traveling, that , we keep connected . Or , there are lots of pen pal forums on Facebook.

A bunch of moms from all over the world and all over America who. Find pen pals for their children. And we did this for many, many years with our kids and it's really great because they would send each other, , pictures of, you know, what their local community looked like or their favorite places where they lived, or postcards from areas around them.

They would , talk about their favorite dishes. It was a great way for them to learn each other's, , . Cultures and communities without actually having to travel. Now, I will put caution to this because yes, there are forms out there that are not gonna be legit, right? , And there's different ways of doing it because we all know that the postal system, especially here in America, is getting more expensive to use.

And what our wonderful technology that we have now, emails are so simple, but even. To a child to receive something in the mail, or even if they're old enough to have an email address, , it's a connection that they've made with someone. And if you get to meet them in person or you've met them and you just wanna keep in contact, that makes it that much more meaningful.

, It keeps them connected because, you know, while they're not gonna be at that location or in that community, they're gonna be able to hear about all the adventures that someone else , is going on.

Right. Another way to stay connected to the travel community is by staying connected to your travels. Put on those old home videos of your old vacations. And I know that you're not gonna wanna look at 'em and you're gonna be like, oh my God, I actually had that hairdo. Oh my God. Goodness. Oh, I love watching our old videos.

How did I get that big? Or, you're not gonna like something about yourself during that time, but the nostalgia that you bring back, the memories. The stories that you can tell at that point in time. That's where it all comes from. Yeah. There have been many times where I have showed the kids pictures or videos of, , experiences and travels we have had in our past, and they have no memory of them now as teenagers and that makes me think, oh, you know what, I need to replan that.

They don't remember that. It was so long ago. That's something we can experience again. And , it gives me ideas for new trips and new adventures. But it's also a great way to relive those memories or to keep those memories alive, is by letting them see themselves in old videos, old pictures. Pull out that old album if that's what you have.

And we do have some of those. 'cause yes, we are that old. Or the old VHSs, right? , That aren't digitized yet. We have some of those, we have some of the old Polaroids, , it just, it floods your memory with not only the memories.

The particular vacation that you're watching, but other places as well that you've been Yeah, I know we have said this on pretty much every podcast that we have put out in the last like month, but. It's so important to capture those memories. You can't relive those memories without capturing those memories.

And it's so important to do pictures, videos, and , I'm not saying stay on your phone or your camera the entire time, but capture those important moments to you . You're witnessing your kid experience something amazing and you can just see it on their faces. Pull out that phone, get that candid picture that you as a parent will always relish and remember, absolutely create those memories so that you are able to relive them.

. Remember, adventure is a mindset. Not a mileage count. It's not a competition with yourself. Yeah. It doesn't matter how far that you go to have an adventure. Right. That's, that's not what an adventure is all about. Honestly. My kids find the smallest thing adventurous and I'm so grateful for that.

You know, especially since we have traveled with them so much and they have seen so much, it's still the small things that they love and appreciate. If I was to randomly get them up one day and say, Hey. We're going on a picnic at the park today, and then we're gonna hit up this ice cream shop and then y'all can go downtown to the bookshop and pick out a book, and I have this whole family adventure plan today and not even leave our community.

They would absolutely love that. And that's something that , you just can't pass up on. That's something that is super important, not only to your family, but also to that community because now that community , is having memories, that community is being supported locally, which is one of our biggest pushes that we ever do.

You don't have to stop adventuring during school season. Yeah. Adventure is basically just breaking up your everyday life. It's something out of the ordinary from what you're experiencing. , To me, that's what an adventure is. It's not always going to the tourist traps to the high destinations, amusement parks, and zoos.

There is so much more to do out there and to venture and to really experience. Besides those traps. Now, real quick before we wrap up, let's talk about holidays. Holidays. So this is a blessing and a curse all rolled up into one. Yeah, so the blessing part is , it is a time during the school season that gives you an ample amount.

Vacation days to actually plan a bigger vacation and a bigger trip. And it allows you that time that is needed to go and have those experiences that helps break up your, you know, mundane everyday life that we've talked about. And they're scheduled months into advance. , We know when our school system, when their Thanksgiving, Christmas, and spring break are last year.

Right, so that, I mean, it's something that's scheduled that we can schedule out into an advance. Here's the bad part to it. Here's the reality. Here's something that we have to understand. Everyone is taking the exact same days off. Yeah. So there's a reason why they're called peak times. Peak times Thanksgiving.

You take the whole week of Thanksgiving. Our school system gets the whole week of Thanksgiving. So they're not the only school system that does that. Mm-hmm. Colleges are doing that. Yeah. They get the whole week, if not more than that, off for Thanksgiving. And then you get Christmas and then you get spring break.

You get Christmas, you're gonna get two weeks for Christmas. You're gonna get an entire week for spring break. Now, spring breaks don't always match up across the board for everyone, but they do usually coincide within the same like three weeks of each other. Three weeks. They're all in the same area for like all of America and everyone is trying to take a vacation.

Mm-hmm. Everyone is trying to hit those destinations. We've had family members, as much as we've tried to tell them and tried to explain to them, you do not go to Disney World. During the school season, Christmas vacation. Not for your first trip. if you go during those two weeks, you're gonna be swamped with people. I don't suggest visiting Disney World as a first timer during the Christmas holiday at all. But if it's not your first time, then you know what to expect. But yes, there have been several family members who the first time they ever went to Disney was during Christmas, and we've talked about this before, and then they hated it because it's just so incredibly crowded and expensive.

So that is something to stay mindful about. There are other places, theme parks are gonna be your biggest ones. If you're snowbirding and you're trying to get somewhere where it's warm, so you're, you're coming down to Florida, south Texas. Mm-hmm. Everyone is coming for, everyone's gonna Florida, it's spring break time.

Beaches are gonna be packed, beach is gonna be packed. So just be mindful that whenever you have those big schedule holidays. During the school season, there are other people that are trying to do the same thing. So you may not have the greatest experiences if you go to the tourist destination places, but if you have kept everything in mind that we've talked about, keeping the adventure alive, even during the school season, you may not feel the need to have to go and do those big experiences during the heavily.

Busy seasons because you have already kept that adventure and you've  already given yourself those breaks and that refresher, you know, throughout the school year. , Just be mindful. Do your due diligence. Look up on YouTube, Google do the research. But just because you have those opportunities at certain times during the season, that's not the only time that you can keep the adventure alive during the school season. Yeah, stay open to wonder and new experiences, even those that are close to home.