Euro Family

Hi, first post here in a long time

We are a family of 6, there's myself (the captain) the wife and our 4 teen and tween kids not forgetting our 5yr old lab.

We plan to get the house sold next summer 2015 then buy a big van and go for it lock stock and barrel, no get out clause, no safety net just us and our maps of Europe.

We plan on home schooling, travelling extensively over the next few years around Europe and seeing the world with our own eyes and hopefully enriching the lives of our children.

This is the start.......

Anyway this is just an introduction, hope to speak soon.

Gordon Barlow

Well, all the very best of British luck, Euro. I imagine you've been agonising over the decision for many moons, and are prepared for anything. It's very brave of you and the wife. My wife and I set out to do that with a newborn baby (several decades ago, now), and failed utterly. We still bear the scars.

May your experience be entirely different!

Jerseygirl

Welcome to BE.

As you are planning to travel around Europe I will move your thread over to our Europe forum. The Lounge forum is for general chit chat...so please drop by and see us again.

gioppino

As a plan I think it's dead on arrival. In the continent if you don't have a fixed abode (No camper van, but solid brick) you basically don't exist. How can you do home schooling, how would you have access to health services, social security, welfare, national insurance, tax and so on?

I could understand if it was you alone but you have kids, I think it's a bit irresponsible.

Gordon Barlow

I don't think it's irresponsible at all. Gioppino, you presumably aren't living in the place you grew up - and good for you. All expats take some risk when they move away from the security of their own homes - just as all mountain-climbers take some risk when they go climbing mountains. I congratulate Euro and his wife on being brave enough to become a PT (Permanent Traveller) - to shuck off the wretched bonds of safety and take a chance. They may fail, but so what? As someone once said: if you never risk making a mistake, you'll never make anything.

gioppino

And what has it got to do with living on a campervan?

Of course I live far away from where I grew up but I live in rented accommodation, not in a caravan. And by the way I myself would rather live in a caravan but I had to abandon this project a few times in my life because I wouldn't have had access to employment, health services, social security and so on.

Continental Europe is not like the USA, where you can live a nomadic life. It's many states, each with their own regulations, each with their own councils whose bureaucracy doesn't communicate with the neighbouring council.

Nice idea, but mission impossible.

dmu

Have to agree with all this, but if you're adamant about uprooting your children from the rest of their family and friends and living the lives of marginals "for the next few years", then go ahead, but do keep a safety net back "home" for when the adventure becomes an unpleasant one. If the children don't speak any other languages, you may find that the disillusionment comes sooner than you expected... You may be a close-knit family, but how could they make their own friends, with constant movement and the language barrier? At best they'd be considered as Brits (?) on holiday, therefore not worth cultivating long-term, at worst, as migrants, therefore beware.
All the best with your decision, but do your homework for each country you intend to pass through.
(And I wouldn't recommend spending too long in France, you wouldn't survive the various forms of bureaucracy that you'd inevitably encounter...)

mikelincs

My fears for the Euro Family are about health care, the EHIC won't hack it, and getting an Europe wide private health sceme would be mega expensive. They will not have a permanent base address for anything, all telephone will have to be mobile, with all the attending problems of signal availability, they will need to change sim cards for every country or face horrendous roaming charges. Home schooling will rely a lot on the internet, and thereby hangs another problem, in many countries getting a decent internet connection via mobile will be difficult. I wouldn't recommend it until the kids are finished school completely. Travelling by camper van in the summer, busy camp sites, extremely hot conditions in many countries, and camper vans just don't suit this, in the winter, a huge number of sites will be closed, and campervans can get very cold in winter, even in regions of the Med. I would say travel for the summer school holidays, but stay in your safe UK home for the rest of the year, do not run the risk of ruining your kids future for an idea.

Gordon Barlow

Well, it all comes down to whether one wants to take chances or not. I take the view that Euro's risk-taking on behalf of his children is really little worse than letting them cross a busy street on their own. However... here's an extract from a blog of mine from last January, called "On a seventy-foot yacht":

The most diligent of plans and hopes will never get it 100% right, though. I recall reading a comment made by some English woman in a newspaper interview, about how she and her husband had been forced to pull in their horns financially, after they both stopped working. “He always dreamt of spending his old age on a seventy-foot yacht with a seventeen-year-old companion,” she said. “Instead, the poor old chap has had to settle for a seventeen-foot boat with a seventy-year-old companion. Hah!”

dmu

Six people and one dog won't stay in good health (or avoid accidents) for that long and even if they have private healthcare coverage and/or the EHIC, which would only last one year, any consultations/hospital treatment/dentist/pharmacy... would have to be paid up-front and reimbursed afterwards. Likewise for vet's fees, you send the paid bill for injury or sickness to the Insurance for reimbursement.
Good point about internet connection for home schooling - they can't just walk into a McDo or the like for "free internet" and stay to work. One person might be tolerated, but 4 children taking turns on the laptop?
I'm basing my comments on France, of course, but suspect that the OP would encounter the same problems in southern Europe, if not everywhere.

fuchs01

Not impossible..already done it, before borders opened.
, and internet and emails. So did many more, adventureres from various countries. Like the saying...'Fear is fear itself '

Schooling possibilties are easier attainable.
Plus the family will come across other such travellers from other countries, with young and
Older children.
Plus all will learn that you dont need to read or b elieve the negatives from such posts as your own.

fuchs01

Amazing, the negatives. This is an expats site, how many of you had to go through....other peoples
Negative vibes, on education, policing, health, irresponsible jibes, and what about kids safety..blah, blah

Ira bombings in the past, terrorist attacks in britain, kids being ripped off the streets 10 meters from home,
poor hospitals and care.Below avg education, Kids being run over, school outings in bus crashes, and god knows how many other negs, on the streets, plus lifes 'accidents waiting to happen' at home, in school,
on short trips, visiting, gran, aunty, uncle john cobbly.These are everyday, walks of life possibilities, and
ARE NOT quadrupled because one emmigrates or decides to travel far and wide.

My 4 kids survived Asia, Africa, and Europe. 3 went afterwards to Higher Education,and good jobs,
the other taking the abiture in Germany ( A-level equivilant) ages now...30,28,23, and 18.
2 older ones already took on adventure travels to new climates, and new lands.

Life is theirs for the taking, ....giving, swapping, exchanging, crying, laughing, beating and cheating the
Impossible. People are born to conquer their own fears, and not those of others.

Gordon Barlow

An inspiration, Fuchs. I hope our man Euro is inspired by it. I can't boast of that kind of success with my only child, because he is barely reformed hippy. BUT... he is fluent in two languages besides his native one, and has proven he can "get by" in pretty much any place he wants to. His story might inspire any of Euro's kids who aren't either academically clever or financially ambitious. (One of them might fit that bill!) I blogged about the turning-point of his life last March, in a short item called "Turning left at Galveston".

fuchs01

I hope I wasnt boasting, just trying to point out travelling, is not a disadvantage.
My kids are special to me obviously, but they are nothing out of the ordinary, they have all
had their difficulties, my kids call me the wayward hippy, but I have tried to give them travel
Feet and travelling common sense , my wife passes on her language skills,both of us supported and encouraged, but we are simple folk still fighting the fight.

Your sons ,that getting by in any place and situ, and using his language skills to communicate to other persons of another culture opens up the world far more reaching than the , financials or academics do, they have their place, but is not the education or knowledge of all things.
Just look at the various characters and peoples on britexpats.
A bit more financial awareness in my past wouldnt have gone a miss, still owing and surviving .Travelling seeing, meeting, other lands and cultures and people are not up for
Soul selling, best education I know, but then again, with my miserable education.........

Gordon Barlow

No, no, you weren't bragging. I know that. We're on the same page, man. I'm interested to know what languages your children can speak - or at least get by in. For me, that's the most pleasing thing, when my son speaks a foreign language. I used to struggle along in bits of pidgin in my day, but nothing more. I have a vivid memory of visiting him in Mexico, after I hadn't seen him for six months. He'd told me he could speak Spanish, but it surprised the hell out of me when on the Metro one day he ticked off some man for not giving up his seat to a pregnant woman. I remember thinking, Wow! Now that's confidence! I would have hesitated to do that to anybody in English!