An English couple have taken their two sons out of school to travel the world as a family, as they feel deprived of quality time together in the clutter of their old lives.
Emma Niblett, 36, said she and her husband Dan, 40, rented their home in West Yorkshire, England, and headed to Bali in August with their two sons, Noah, 8, and Issac, 5 years old.
“We recovered from the COVID pandemic and felt [like] we were repeating the same cycle,” Emma Niblett told UK-based media outlet LeedsLive.
Niblett said she and her husband decided to uproot their lives when they realized they were spending most of their time cooped up in their home, focusing on small things like chores.
They soon realized it was robbing them of quality bonding time as a family.
“We weren’t spending time together as a family,” she said.
The mother of two also noticed that her sons were slowly getting wrapped up in technology and wanted them to see that there was much more to life than what was on their screens.
“We wanted to see the boys in different cultures. They were spending more time on screens,” she told LeedsLive.
Emma and Dan started talking about the trip last Christmas, but wanted to let their sons finish the school year before they left.
Niblett, who works remotely as a technology executive, took advantage of the flexibility of her job and did “something completely different.”
“We decided to leave and go as far as we could,” she said.
The family then uprooted themselves and headed over 7,700 miles from their home to live in Bali.
She explained that the Indonesian province was “safe, cost-effective and sunny” and seemed like a great place for her family to reconnect.
“It’s 20% of what we were paying in the UK,” shared Niblett.
She said the family could eat three meals in Bali for about $40 to $50.
However, the much cheaper cost of living was not the only requirement for the couple as parents.
They still valued and wanted their sons to receive a formal education, so Niblett also found a school her sons could enroll in that followed a similar schedule to the old one in the UK.
The boys attend a pop-up school from 9am to 3pm, Monday to Friday, but she noted some differences in the way they are taught compared to England.
“The ethos is different. They are able to choose their own projects, [and] they are learning about the area and the local language,” Niblett told LeedsLive.
“It’s less academic and more about functioning in the world. When they started, the boys said, ‘Where are the tables? Why aren’t we sitting in rows?’”
She said that since her sons have attended the school, she has noticed that they have been “much more creative” and are also “surrounded by children from Singapore, Australia and America”.
However, the mother feels that what her sons are experiencing goes far beyond what they are being taught in the classroom.
“Just being with people from different backgrounds, it is [can] open your eyes to so much more,” she said.
Overall, Niblett said living in Bali has allowed her family to reconnect and create lasting memories that their old life couldn’t provide.
“Living in Bali really encourages us to slow down and live in the moment,” she said.
Niblett also said that the culture of the natives has greatly opened their eyes to what is essential in life.
“We’re used to rushing and ignoring what’s in front of us, but the Balinese culture is one of gratitude and we’re really feeling the benefits for our family,” she said.
Niblett said her family was only planning to travel for a year, but given how eye-opening their experience has been so far, it could go on much longer.
The family have traveled to Sydney, Australia and around Bail and plan to spend Christmas in New Zealand and Japan, according to LeedsLive.
They then plan to travel through Vietnam and Borneo after the holidays.
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