How We Afford Family Travel for Three Months

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When someone is brave enough to ask, “How can your family afford to travel for three months?” I am happy to share the truth: with advance planning, extended family travel can be as affordable as a shorter vacation. Honestly, I know of friends who spend the same costs on five days at Walt Disney World as our family spends on three months in France! Because I get asked fairly often about how we can pay for such a long trip, I want to share three tips that have helped us afford the cost of our three-month stays in France:

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Visiting France as a Family in 2021: Le Début

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Bonjour de la France. It moves me to be able to type those words. We had planned to visit France as a family in 2020, but 2020 dashed a lot of plans and taught us to appreciate what matters, didn’t it? I shifted course and decided to begin a medical assistant program this summer since I did not foresee that we would be able to go abroad. And yet in early June 2021, despite only recently easing some rigid lockdowns, the government of France announced that American visitors would be allowed in again. After discussing this with my husband, we decided that returning to France was a priority. I don’t know if I will re-enroll in the medical assistant program next year, but I do know that this timing is right. So here we are, having arrived this week, grateful and amazed that amid this global context we have been allowed to come.

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The Best History Theme Park in the World: France's Best-Kept Secret

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In Northwest France, one hour from Nantes, there's a history-oriented theme park that puts on the most amazing and original shows you can imagine. Le Puy du Fou has been voted the best theme park in the world several times (Thea Awards, given in the USA), plus it attracts more than 2.3 million visitors per year and has top ratings on TripAdvisor. So why have you never heard of it?

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Hawaii's Aquarium: Why Maui Ocean Center is Worth a Family Visit

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If we lived on Maui, or visited frequently, an annual family pass to the Maui Ocean Center would definitely be on our wish list. Two years ago we visited the Newport Aquarium here in Oregon, and while it was fantastic to view creatures of the northern (colder) Pacific, it's a pleasantly different experience in Maui to admire the incredible creatures of the tropical Pacific.

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Family Must Do's on Maui: Our Favorite Hawaii Activities

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Bonjour and Aloha! One month ago a acquaintance asked me, "So when can your family go to Hawaii this summer?" The only correct answer to that question is "Anytime!" Thanks to their offer of a place to stay, we've just gotten back from a week on Maui and a week on Molokai. The last time we visited Maui our baby was a year old, so it was a wonderful family experience to visit now with our 2 year old, 5 year old, and 8 year old. Here's what we loved during our week on Maui, and what I'd highly recommend you do if you get the opportunity to visit:

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Joyeux Noël & A Podcast about Our Family Language Trip

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Joyeux Noël, les amis! Yes, Feliz Navidad and Merry Christmas! I have a little gift for you if you listen to podcasts and are interested in traveling as a family to help you or your children improve your bilingual skills! You see, Marianna DuBosq at Bilingual Avenue has just released the 100th episode of the Bilingual Avenue podcast, and in this episode, Polish mama & translator Hanna Cheda and I share about how we took our families overseas for amazing language immersion experiences. I give details about how we saved money for the trip, how my children handled the experience, and how I enrolled my daughter in a French school. Hanna shares about locating affordable family housing and finding free immersion experiences for children. I hope you love what you learn!

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5 Brief Lessons Learned for Planning a Family Trip Abroad

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Here's a short summary of the top lessons I learned for taking our family abroad. So many parents would love to take their children abroad but haven't yet made it happen, so I thought I'd share the basic tips that I learned during this first stay overseas. I learned one of these tips the hard way, but thankfully you won't have to!

1. Open a separate savings account for the trip. We did this about eighteen months before we left on our trip, and the separate savings account was essential in helping us to be financially savvy and to visualize our progress towards our overseas stay. It was so encouraging to make our planned monthly deposits to this account.

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Meal Planning and Grocery Shopping in Lyon & Paris, France

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Bonjour again from Lyon! This is my family's first extended stay in France, so it's also the first time I've had the role of preparing meals for my children here. Living here has improved my meal planning skills and expanded our palates, I'm glad to say! I've consistently tried to plan French meals so my children can enjoy one of the best aspects of living in France--the food and the culture surrounding it. Here's what I'm doing differently here:


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