The digital nomad lifestyle might seem appealing, but what about if you have a family? Can you really be a digital nomad if you have school-age children?
Mauro Repacci talks about the different options digital nomad families have for education and childcare, the pros and cons of homeschooling, and the benefits of slow travel when you have small children.
He explains how to inform your children’s school that you’re taking them out for a year, the effects world travel has on young children, and the different healthcare options digital nomad families have.
Today’s guest
Mauro Repacci of Boundless Life
Website: Boundless Life
Instagram: Boundless Life
Facebook: Boundless Life
Twitter: Boundless Life
LinkedIn: Boundless Life
Email: hello@boundless.life
Mauro is a seasoned entrepreneur with a proven track record in the travel, relocation and fintech industries. He began his career at Air Canada where he played a key role in several major projects, including the 787 acquisition and the launch of a low-cost airline.
Following the completion of his MBA at Queen’s University, he went on to found the largest online relocation marketplace in Canada, which was later acquired by an immigration firm.
More recently, he founded and scaled VC-backed fintech company NestReady to 40 employees and 20 enterprise clients, before it was acquired by Alpine Investors. With three daughters, Mauro developed the idea for Boundless while seeking solutions for his family.
What you’ll learn in this episode
- [1:44] How Mauro helps families become digital nomads.
- [2:25] Why Mauro set up an educational system for digital nomad children.
- [4:07] The reasons families become long-term digital nomads.
- [6:20] Common challenges for digital nomad families.
- [8:26] Childcare options for families that are travelling long-term.
- [10:50] The pros and cons of boarding school.
- [12:44] The challenge of schooling older children while on the road.
- [14:55] The benefits slow travel has for families.
- [16:46] The different types of online schooling options.
- [18:20] How to homeschool your children.
- [21:15] The external kindergarten options for travelling families.
- [22:44] The challenges of joining a state school for a limited period of time.
- [24:05] The limited options families have for childcare in some parts of the world.
- [25:25] How much it costs to send your child to an international school.
- [27:26] How to inform your children’s school about your family’s digital nomad adventure.
- [29:17] The effects world travel has on a 7-year-old.
- [31:10] Healthcare options for digital nomad families.
- [34:11] The best aspects of being a digital nomad family.
- [37:00] How to find out if becoming a digital nomad family is right for you.
Resources mentioned in this episode
Please note that some of these are affiliate links and we may get a small commission in the event that you make a purchase. This helps us to cover our expenses and is at no additional cost to you.
Episode 156: The digital nomad family: how can you combine work and travel with looking after your kids? - with Mauro Repacci of Boundless Life
Jeremy Cline 0:00
Can you work and travel at the same time when you have kids? Is it possible to spend three months, six months, even a year away from home, travelling and working, enjoying the culture of wherever you are while still looking after children? And what are the options for you if your kids are school age? Well, that's what we're going to talk about in this week's episode. I'm Jeremy Cline, and this is Change Work Life.
Jeremy Cline 0:41
Hello, and welcome to Change Work Life, the show that's all about beating the Sunday evening blues and enjoying Mondays again. If you want to know how you can enjoy a more satisfying and fulfilling working life, you're in the right place. Work from anywhere, work and travel at the same time, a digital nomad lifestyle might be very appealing, and it's something we've talked about on the podcast before, back in episode 138. But what about if you have a family? Can you be a digital nomad when you have kids who need looking after, especially if they're school age? That's what we're talking about this week, and I'm delighted to welcome to the show Mauro Repacci. Mauro is a founder of Boundless, which helps families looking to work and travel abroad break down the common barriers that arise, whether accommodation, education or finding and being part of a community. Mauro, welcome to the podcast.
Mauro Repacci 1:33
Thank you, Jeremy, very happy to be here and talk to your audience today.
Jeremy Cline 1:37
So, why don't you start by telling us a bit more about Boundless, what it does and who's it for?
Mauro Repacci 1:42
Yeah, so Boundless was created to really enable families to become digital nomads. This market has existed for a long time, but it's mostly catering to single people. And as a parent of three daughters, I felt that we need to democratise access to a digital nomad community, beyond singles or couples without children. So, we created a new education system that enables families to travel between locations, while giving their kids a great education. And then also, with that, a community of like-minded parents that also share that lifestyle.
Jeremy Cline 2:21
And what specifically motivated you to get involved and set this up?
Mauro Repacci 2:25
It's a combination of two factors, I would say, on the side of the more individualistic is that I wanted to create this product for myself and my family. So, I have three daughters, the oldest one would be on grade two today, and if we were to follow the traditional education, us as a family would have to be pretty much in the same location for all the school year. And then, it's really hard for a family to move schools and move cities. So, we decided to create this own system for my family, so we could have this lifestyle, but also because we believe that the travel industry needs to change, the way people live and work needs to change, because we are used to living in one place, and then everyone goes at the same time on vacation to the same locations, and it's really counterproductive. And while we realise humans and most of our customers are looking for better connections to the places where they go to, so instead of going for a week vacation to the Caribbean, or Southern Europe, you will be there for three months living like a local. So, that experience is something that many of our families enjoy, but also have a better impact in their local communities where we are going to.
Jeremy Cline 3:44
So, we'll come on to talk about some of the challenges of travelling as a family, but first of all, what are you seeing motivates families, what's motivating families to spend these significant times away from home, so rather than just a week or two holiday, to spend three months, six months, even longer in a particular location?
Mauro Repacci 4:07
It's a combination of different factors. I would say the majority of our families are doing this for work and professional reasons. So, imagine you have a team in different parts of the world, or you have business relations in different parts of the world, and you want to split time between locations. So, having that opportunity to bring a family with you while doing this is something very new and unique. The second one is for family ties. So, today, in a globalised world, families have relationships or parents and relatives all over the world, and normally, the times that they could spend with those relatives are restricted to the vacation time and the school calendar. With remote work, now they have an opportunity to stay longer in those places. So, I'll give myself as an example. My parents live in Brazil. Traditionally, you would go there for the Christmas, New Year and holidays, and spend about two weeks with our family there and come back home in Canada. If you look at that, that's the busiest time of the year for you to travel, the most expensive, there are snow storms, flights are cancelled. There are a lot of things happening that make it really difficult and challenging for families to travel. But now, if I'm working remotely, I can easily go anywhere in the world where there's internet. So, why wouldn't I spend three months there, go to my family? So, the second reason is family and friends. And then, the third reason is about lifestyle. So, people like surfing, like skiing, like great weather, like sailing, so why not spend three to six months per year in locations where you can do that, instead of being restricted to one major city?
Jeremy Cline 5:59
So, I want to focus mainly on what you do with children if you're looking to do this when you've got children who are school age or younger. But just briefly, what are the other sorts of challenges that families face when looking to spend these extended periods abroad, aside from what to do with kids?
Mauro Repacci 6:21
First is about visas. So, depending on where you go, you may be restricted to a tourist visa. So, take like Southeast Asian countries, like Indonesia and Thailand, normally, you'd be only allowed to stay there for a month. Countries within Europe, normally three months. If you want to stay longer, you need a different type of visa. And the great thing is that, in the last couple of years, a number of countries have announced what you call digital nomad visas, so allowing parents and families or digital nomads to work from there long term, with a very good tax incentive. So, that is something that has been changing very rapidly. Just this week, Spain announced their own visa, there are more than 30 countries that now have this type of visa. So, it's making it very easy. But you have a sort of bureaucracy and paperwork that you have to go to, if you'd like to stay longer than a tourist in a country. The second one would be community, because, I'll give myself as an example, when I immigrated from Brazil to Canada, it took me a number of years to build a community, new friends, get to know locals, have the support network around you. But imagine if you do that every three months, you have to make all these friends again, though, having a community and travelling with other parents that are in the same boat is a way to minimise that impact. Because there are great things about being a digital nomad, but there's also a factor of being alone, and trying to get to know the new culture, a new country, more often than you're normally used to.
Jeremy Cline 8:06
So, let's say that you want to travel, you want to spend extended time away from your home country, and you've got kids who are, let's say, aged eight or younger. Can you talk through what the options are for looking after the kids when you're travelling?
Mauro Repacci 8:26
Yeah, so today, there are a number of options, depending on what the parents believe that is the best education system for their children. So, I will go to the most unschooling type of option, which is basically homeschooling or unschooling your kids. So, homeschooling is a movement that started many years ago, is very strong in countries like the United States, where about 5% of the population is homeschooling their kids. And it's challenging because you, as a parent, now have full responsibility for the education of your children. My wife and I quickly realised that that was no for us, because it's not as easy as people think, and the relationship, and that's what we're seeing with our kids, the relationship between us and our kids is parent-child, not educator and child.
Jeremy Cline 9:22
Most people who experienced lockdowns in COVID with kids probably realised that homeschooling wasn't for them.
Mauro Repacci 9:29
Exactly. And that was our first conclusion and one of the reasons why we decided to start Boundless Life. But the second option would be to sign up your kids to local schools. So, young kids, talking about below eight years old, so it's not really about academics, about socialising with other kids, it's about learning soft skills, about play time, so you can sign up your kids to different schools. The challenge there is, every school is different, so as a parent, my kid moved school within the same city, and that was a traumatic event, took them weeks to adjust. So, how you make it easy for them to adjust? Now, they are in one school, and let's say a Montessori School in Thailand, and then they go to Italy, and now they are in a regular school. So, it's really complicated for kids. So, the other one is to sign up your kids to a school within the same system. And thinking about the IB, for example, you can sign up them, or the French system. The challenge there is you're committing for a year. So, all of those three options have some downfalls. Homeschooling is the parents taking responsibilities, local alternative schools is the change, and the IB is the commitment for a year.
Jeremy Cline 10:50
And presumably, another option, and maybe that's for kids a bit older, is boarding schools. So, certainly here in the UK, we have lots of international children at private schools, where they're here for boards. So, the parents could be living in anywhere, but the kids come to here, and they live at school. Talk about that option, and particularly whether that really only starts at a certain age.
Mauro Repacci 11:17
From our perspective, boarding school is something that existed for a long time, and it comes from the principle of really delegating the education of your kids to someone else. What I believe in is actually the opposite. I think the way that the world is going, the economy's going, many parents will have now more time, AI is making our work more efficient, technology is making us more productive, so where do we spend our free time which will happen inevitably? So, I'm believing that, and this is one of the pillars of Boundless, the parents' involvement in the kids' education and being close to their kids is so crucial. So, for us, for my family, it's not even an option to consider boarding school, and most people that are part of our community also think the same way.
Jeremy Cline 11:17
You mentioned how when kids around say eight or below, then school is less about the academic achievement and more about the socialising and turning into a person, I suppose. Is there kind of like a maximum age where, if your kids are above a certain age, it becomes harder to do this kind of travelling around whilst educating them at the same time?
Mauro Repacci 11:29
Yeah, so today, in our system, we have kids from age one to 12. What I've seen is it's much easier for the younger kid to adjust and adapt. As they move, it's really the tie, the tie between a younger kid is mostly with their parents and other peers. But as you get older, you don't want anything to do with your parents, and you want to hang out with your friends. So, the challenge is, and we shouldn't have that problem yet, because the oldest kid that we had is 13 years old, but I think 14, 15, 16, you really want friends, you want to meet other people over your age, that becomes a challenge if every three months you move to a new place. So, that's something that we are aware of, and we think, down the line, there will be many families with older kids that would prefer to, say, split time between two locations, so maybe you can live in London for half of the year, and Thailand for half of the year, and your kids can still to have that group of friends that is constant. The other thing too, if you imagine, think about your personal life, how many of your friends are from kindergarten, how many of your friends are from primary years, and then as you get older, you tend to keep relationships with those friends from high school, university, and then work life. So, the older you get, that relationship is more important. Being on the road becomes a challenge.
Jeremy Cline 14:17
Okay, so let's get back to the assumption that we've got kids who are up to, say, age eight. Some people will want to stay in the same place for an extended period of time. So, maybe it's three months, six months. Other people, maybe they've got in mind, it's a yearlong world tour, and so, they don't spend more than a week, two weeks, three weeks in the same place. Can you talk through how the options for looking after your children change depending on which way you go?
Mauro Repacci 14:55
Yeah, I mean, if you're moving every two, three weeks to a new place, you're really limiting your options, because you either homeschool your kids, like we discussed before, or you hire a tutor. And as you know, it means you need to have a certain level of income to afford that. I have done six-week trips with my kids over the holidays, and it's every week, we're moving to a new country. And that's really vacation, you cannot expect your kids are going to have formal education. Obviously, they are learning, you are learning by visiting a museum, by going to a science centre, they are really growing and having great connections with the parents. But when you are in this journey, let's say a gap year, sabbatical journey, where you're going to visit a number of countries very quickly, that's really limiting your options in terms of the education, but also, it's and enriching experience. From my experience, and the experience of other people in our community, those types of short vacations is something that you're going to quickly get tired of. The difference is, when you're in a place for three to six months, you have time to settle in, to familiarise yourself to the bakery in the corner, they get to know you, and you start to live more like a local, and you really experience the location and the lifestyle of that country. And I think that is something that it's more enriching than going so quickly. But the advantage of going quickly is to find a couple of places that you're going to love and then come back to those places.
Jeremy Cline 16:41
Do online schools exist?
Mauro Repacci 16:45
Yeah, absolutely. Yes, for older kids, there is great opportunities in terms of online schools. We don't believe too much in using technology with very young kids. So, anything below seven, based on the Finnish system that we use on Boundless, we focus more on playing, focus more on real life learning. But as the kids get older, obviously, they need to learn academics, and that can be done online, and there's a number of emerging solutions, different ways, different approaches, all the way from learning everything by playing games, or learning in a very traditional way, like a class, but online. So, that is very interesting for older kids. It's been done, many, many companies doing this in a very successful manner. The challenge of online education is the social aspect, right? Because now, you're thinking, imagine you have a five-year-old, and they're learning all their skills online. So, how do you ensure that that kid is going to spend time with other kids and learn other skills that you don't learn just on a tablet or a computer?
Jeremy Cline 18:07
And gain, I think that's something which people had a lot of experience of during the pandemic, when that was the only option. And yeah, I think people realise that it wasn't ideal, and it was very challenging.
Mauro Repacci 18:19
Yeah, absolutely.
Jeremy Cline 18:20
If someone wants to go the homeschooling route, either for ideological reasons, or because they've got in mind this big trip where they're just spending a week or two in places, and I'm sure it varies, but what can homeschooling look like?
Mauro Repacci 18:40
Yes, so first of all, you need to see where you live. Because in some countries, homeschooling is illegal. So, I'm not an expert on that topic, but there are some countries where the government clearly mandated that your kids must attend school, you cannot homeschool there. So, if you're from one of those countries, then you cannot do it. But then, you take countries like United States, UK, Canada, where homeschooling is legal, then depending on the state or a province where you live, you will have to let the authorities know that you're going to be homeschooling your kids. From there, you have to define what are you going to use to teach them. And that could be an existing system, there are many different out there, and then could be either mostly doing it at home, but also you can leverage learning centre, groups, there are many solutions for homeschoolers out there. Because this is an industry that has existed for a number of years. And in the beginning, homeschooling was associated with people having religious reasons to homeschool their kids, but that quickly spread out, because people realise, well, two hours of academic, my kid is a very learning everything. Now, they have more time socialising and enjoying life or focus in sports, focus in music. So, there is a number of reasons, between athletes, musicians, religious reasons, people that live far from city centres, ideological reasons that people seek that. And today, there's tonnes of solutions there. I just don't know how many parents are actually effective schooling their kids, taking responsibility for the education of their kids, which is something that you need to really think well about, because you're now proving as an educator to your kid, right?
Jeremy Cline 20:41
Yeah, it's clearly quite a lifestyle choice, I think, if you want to go that route. So, let's talk about the family that is travelling, and they're looking to stay somewhere for, say, three months. And let's say they've got one child whose school age and one child who is a bit younger, three or four, so you're looking at kindergarten, nursery, something like that. What sorts of options are available to them in terms of external schools or kindergartens?
Mauro Repacci 21:14
So, we go back to local schools, that you have to convince them to accept you. So, actually, when I first started thinking about this lifestyle, we contacted a number of schools, and my kids were exactly those ages. And we're like, we'd like to spend six months at your place or three months, and then, we will move somewhere else. And many of them came back to us and said, 'Sure, no problem. However, you must pay for the whole year.' And then, you must also pay for the whole year in other location. So, you're basically doubling or tripling the amount of money you have to pay for education, which makes it out of reach to many people. So, that's one of the reasons that we decided to start Boundless, is because our schools function on the full school year, and we are like, wow, there's no other options, really, except for online or homeschooling, to enable you to do that. So, we decided, can we try a school system and really transform that limitation that existed up until that time?
Jeremy Cline 22:25
And what about international schools, I mean, aside from what you do at Boundless, I mean, are there schools which are set up to receive children for these more limited periods of time, rather than a whole year or even a whole six years, whatever it might be?
Mauro Repacci 22:45
To my knowledge, most international schools require you to stay for a year, for the full school year.
Jeremy Cline 22:50
And when it comes to going local, is it even possible to put a kid into a state-run school for a brief period of time?
Mauro Repacci 23:02
I don't believe that's a very easy thing to do. Imagine, if you move to Portugal or Spain, for example, for your kids to attend a local school, you need to get a local ID, tax ID, register yourself there on social services or health services. And then, you have to actually be a resident of that country, which most people that are travelling will not even have time to become a resident. And then, most of those schools are not equipped to teach kids that don't speak the local language. So, that becomes a challenge. So, most parents that are living this lifestyle are leveraging micro schools that are local, but not ran by the government.
Jeremy Cline 23:50
And what about when it comes to nurseries and kindergartens, which, I mean, certainly in the UK, they're almost universally private, they're not state-run, so you pay for those, are those things that you can dip in and out of?
Mauro Repacci 24:05
So, for those, it's much easier. So, talking about childcare, not really education. So, in this case, there are way more options. One challenge that many families face is that there is limited spaces in many parts of the world. So, there is a shortage of childcare facilities or services in many cities around the world. For example, Montreal in Canada, where I had my three kids, when your spouse finds out she's pregnant, it's the day that you need to put your name on the list. Because otherwise, by the time the kid is like one year old, you're not going to have a spot. And that's a challenge, because they're operating at capacity, and now why would they accept a young kid at their place? At the same time, you go to other parts of the world, there will be more opportunity to find spots for your kid, but mostly outside major cities.
Jeremy Cline 25:07
I'm sure it varies from country to country, but if you are looking at international schools for children aged seven, eight, nine, something like that, what sorts of fees are involved for be it six months, or if you have to pay for a year?
Mauro Repacci 25:26
Normally, you should assume that a high-quality international school, anywhere in the world, will cost pretty much the same. And if you think about this, why in Brazil or Thailand, where cost of living is much lower than London, New York, San Francisco, why I should pay the same tuition or similar tuition, it's mostly because educators that are hired by those schools are international educators. So, they have the option to work anywhere in the world, and they are hired and moved to that country. And therefore, if you look at the cost structure of a school, labour, like the salary is a major factor. So, that being said, you're looking at something, anything between 700 US dollars a month, all the way to 2000. And that's depending on the ratio of students to teachers, the quality of the school, the brand of the school, and so on and so forth. So, in many locations, think Bali, for example, you're going to have a school for 700, and you're going to have one for almost 2000. Thailand, same thing. Southern Europe, same thing. So, you're really looking at high price, it's not a low price for families, and that's the price you really pay for the quality of the education of your kids.
Jeremy Cline 26:59
When it comes to the decision to go travelling, so take your experience, maybe you've got a seven-year-old who's at school, they've been at the same school for two or three years, how would you approach the conversation with the school to say to them, 'Look, we're planning on going travelling, I'd like to take my daughter out for a year and then bring her back again'?
Mauro Repacci 27:25
That's a great question. So, normally, we actually did that, first we told the school that we wanted to take our kids away three months a year. And in Canada, obviously, those three months will be the winter. Like right now, looking at the weather in Montreal, minus 40 degrees, no one wants to be there. And so, we've told the school, 'Can we take our kids away for three months during the school year?' And first, they said yes, because she was in kindergarten. And then, second time, she was in grade one, and they said no, that's not allowed, you need to attend the full year here. And then, we said okay, no problem. So, she attended that year, and then come September, when she's supposed to enrol again, so we let the school know, it really depends on the school and how competitive it is to get in, so if you're looking at very competitive schools, what they will do is just say, 'No problem, but when your child comes back here, we'll have to do a test', to ensure that they meet the criteria that that school is looking for. If it's a public school, and you're in the attendance zone, or the area that that school must accept your kid, so that's no problem whatsoever. But most of the time, if you're talking about a private school, they have an admission process, they're going to apply the same process they would apply to a kid that immigrated there, which happens all the time, people move, families move to a different city, a different country, and they need to look into that, to see if the kid is suitable for that specific year or not.
Jeremy Cline 29:07
So, you've got to make sure that, when they're away for that year, that they're getting suitably educated, that they can do and succeed in that test when they come back.
Mauro Repacci 29:16
Yeah, absolutely. And I think this is something that is overstated by many parents. The reality is, if you take a seven-year-old for a year and travel the world, and you're together more than you would be at home, because you're working less or you're working different hours, and your kid is seeing all these different cultures, they're listening to all the different languages and visiting all these amazing museums and science centres, when your child comes back, it's likely that, at that specific age, your kid will be way ahead than you ever imagined, because you can see that on a vacation, you take your kids for a month, and they've learned so much, and they go so much within that short period, the reality is, the school system that we have is so outdated that kids are bored. They're spending one or two hours a day actually learning, and the rest, they're just there because parents have to be at their job, and the kids have to be somewhere else. But the reality is, the amount of learning that is happening is very limited.
Jeremy Cline 30:29
We've spoken a lot about schools and education, which is going to be very up in people's minds. But something else, I guess, people are going to be worried about is the availability of healthcare. So, what happens if your child gets sick? And I guess in some countries, that's perhaps going to be of lesser concern in terms of facilities, but then there's going to be other countries which perhaps don't have such developed healthcare systems. So, again, what are the options available to make sure that something is in place, if something should happen?
Mauro Repacci 31:09
Yeah, absolutely. So, one of the things that we forgot when we started thinking about this journey was to sign up for an international healthcare system, or international healthcare plan. It's different than a travel insurance. So, that's what people don't understand. You need to make sure that what you have is really healthcare, not an emergency travel insurance. So, when you travel for a week, and let's say you go to a resort, when you book your flight, most credit cards will offer a million dollars or whatever of emergency travel insurance. But that doesn't cover vaccine check-ups, routine things that you need to do with your kids, even as adults you need to do when you're travelling. So, today, there are a number of providers that cover global health insurance. And that's an industry that is growing really fast, because millions of people are seeking this lifestyle now. And then, ensuring that you have that, that's the first part. The second one, as a family, obviously, as a parent, I'm more concerned about where I go. Right? So, I will check what is the quality of the healthcare in that specific country. And you'll be surprised that most countries, there will be international hospitals, they are to the level that you see in developed countries. The difference is, they will take care of basic and say mid-level cases. If it's a very extreme, serious case, then you'd have to be relocated to another place. But most of the places that we've been to, we encountered a few things like, we were in Brazil, and very remote place on the beach, our second daughter started getting mosquito bites, so she had an allergic reaction. So, we had to call an emergency doctor, came in, gave some injections, made sure she got better. That's like, obviously, as a parent, in a very isolated place, it's a quite stressful situation, you're not even living as a digital nomad, you're on vacation there. And then also, you need to watch for different types of vaccines that are required to different places that you travel to. But there's a number of things that, as a parent, you need to watch for. But today, there is more quality in terms of international healthcare, as long as you have either insurance or budget to pay for it.
Jeremy Cline 33:47
Okay, so we've talked a lot about the practicalities. Where I'd like to finish up is first talking about just the general pros and cons of doing this. So, what would you say is the biggest upside to spending a year travelling, maybe spending that year in two or three different locations as a family?
Mauro Repacci 34:13
Yeah, I'd say, the first is to have the freedom to be where you want to be when you want to be. And that's really a game changer when you start thinking about it. And stop thinking about like, I live here, and I think occasionally there's other spots. That's a very limiting thinking that has been in our mind for so long. Now, with remote work, we don't really need to be in those places. So, I would say the advantage is this feeling of being free and being able to make your own decisions. The other one is how enriching that experience is to everyone, to the parents and the children. So, new cultures, new food, new connection, experiencing all of this together as a family is something that you will never forget, and will stay with you for a long time. The other one would be the connection and the relationship that you build along the way. The challenge is, when you come back home, you may not feel you belong there anymore, and you have this bug that you need to be out and travelling, and continue that journey. And what I noticed, when we first started this project, we thought our customers would be people going on a year, gap year, sabbatical, and I'm tired of living in London or New York, or I want to go around the world for a year and come back home and continue with my life. After doing this, and having hundreds of people as part of the community, we realised that not many people are thinking like this, they are not thinking about a temporary solution, they are thinking, 'Can I have flexibility to be in my hometown for a large part of the year, and then be somewhere else for the other part of the year?' So, for example, Canadians, there's this no border concept, right? So, when you're retired, you don't stay in Canada for the winter months. So, every Canadian that can, will go to Florida, will go to Phoenix, will go to Mexico. Why wait until you're retiring to do that, if you can work remotely, and you can find great education for your kids? So, now, people are moving that lifestyle early on to their adult life, and really enjoying to the fullest.
Jeremy Cline 36:39
Someone who's listening to this and thinking this kind of sounds interesting, but I have absolutely no idea where to start, what's the first thing that someone can do, or the first things that they can think about before deciding whether or not this is something that they want to do?
Mauro Repacci 37:01
There are a number of tools out there that were created over the last year or so to help families make that decision. So, for families, obviously, health insurance is quite important. So, one company I recommend is SafetyWing, which has not only health insurance for families, but also a lot of content to help families decide on great locations for them to go, how to navigate this change. Now, they're working also on other types of insurances. So, really, to make sure that when you're travelling, the health part of your family is really covered. And the other one is a new tool called Citizen Remote, which is a database of visas and places to stay and information for a family that wants to pursue that lifestyle. And it's great, it's a great app with lots of content, can make that visa part very easy, simplify that. But the other thing is, if you go to YouTube or Instagram, you see a lot of other family doing it. So, if you follow their content and see how are they living around the world with four kids, and one being a one-year-old, and then every three months or two months, they are moving to a new place, it's really looking so easy, that people will wonder, wow, why I can't even go for a weekend somewhere, where these families are living around the world with their kids.
Jeremy Cline 38:35
The second resource, it was called Citizen Remote, was it?
Mauro Repacci 38:38
Yeah, it's correct.
Jeremy Cline 38:40
Well, brilliant, Mauro, you've given us an awful lot of content here and a lot to think about. And clearly, this is something which is doable, but on the other hand, there's clearly quite a lot to think about. If people want to find out more about you and about Boundless, where would you like them to go?
Mauro Repacci 38:57
You can take a look at our website boundless.life, or just search for Boundless Life on social media. And you can find how families are living this lifestyle.
Jeremy Cline 39:07
Brilliant. I'll put links to those in the show notes. Mauro, thank you so much for coming on the podcast.
Mauro Repacci 39:13
My pleasure. Thanks for having me.
Jeremy Cline 39:16
Okay, hope you enjoyed that interview with Mauro Repacci of Boundless Life. My big takeaway from this conversation with Mauro was that it's definitely possible to travel when you have school-aged children and take them with you. But you've got to be quite clear as to what you're looking to get out of the trip. If you're looking to spend most of your time on the road, laptop in your bag, bringing it out when you get to an internet cafe and working as you travel, well, yes, you can do that with kids, but the option for educating them is basically just going to be homeschooling or looking after them as you go. From what Mauro was saying, realistically, you can't expect to put them in any kind of school or educational setting. The longer you're planning to stay in just one location, then the greater the number of options available to you. I also thought he made a really interesting point that, under the age of eight, children, well, it doesn't really matter what they learn as such, it's much more about the socialising and just learning whatever it is they learn. If any of you listening to this are teachers, I'd love to hear whether that's something that you agree with. There's links to the resources Mauro mentioned, a copy of the transcript and a summary of everything we talked about on the show notes page for this episode, which is at changeworklife.com/156, that's changeworklife.com/156. And whilst you're there, I'd love to hear from you. Is this sort of topic for podcast episodes helpful for you? If not, what's the sort of thing that you'd like to hear? I've said it before, and I'll say it again, I want to make this podcast the most useful thing that you can listen to, and the only way I can really do that is by finding out from you what it is you'd like to hear. If you get to changeworklife.com/contact, that's changeworklife.com/contact, then you can send me a message there. So, please go ahead and do that, and let me know your thoughts. I'm really looking forward to the episode in two weeks' time. It's all about productivity tools and hacks, specifically, what sort of tools are available to help you get more out of your work. There's a tonne of productivity apps out there. So, how do you choose which one is going to be the most impactful and useful for you? That's what we're going to be talking about in two weeks' time, so subscribe to the show if you haven't already, and I can't wait to see you in two weeks' time. Cheers. Bye.
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