Five Tickets To Roam

09/04/2026

Travel Stories is finally here!

Many of you followed along as Francesca and I took our three kids out of traditional school and spent a year worldschooling them as we traveled around the world. Along the way, I started writing stories about some of our adventures and misadventures and posting them on Five Tickets to Roam (www.fiveticketstoroam.com).

Many of you encouraged me to bring those stories together into a book, and somewhere along the way I decided to take your advice.
And now "Travel Stories: From a Family’s Year of Worldschooling" is officially available on Amazon in hardcover and eBook formats:

amazon.com/dp/B0HCMZFN5B

It’s a collection of mostly humorous stories from our year on the road. Some of you have already read a few of them, but the book brings all the stories together, including several I haven’t shared before.

There are stories of celebrating Holi in Nepal, vampire hunting in Transylvania, searching for Shangri-La in Thailand, working on a Muslim farm in Morocco, being chased by a rampaging spider monkey at an animal rescue center in the Amazon rainforest, and finding ourselves in more than a few situations there was no way we could have seen coming.

I’m pretty darn excited to finally have the finished book in my hands and to be able to share it with all of you.

If you followed our travels, read some of my stories along the way, or just want to find out what happens when two parents decide it’s a good idea to take three kids out of school and make the world their classroom for a year, I hope you’ll check it out.

And if you’re looking for one last summer read over Labor Day weekend, the eBook can be in your hands (or technically on your screen) in about 30 seconds. 🙂

If you do read it and enjoy it, I’d be incredibly grateful if you’d leave a review or share it with someone who loves travel. That will go a long way toward helping Travel Stories find its way beyond the people who already know us.

06/27/2026

One year ago today, we returned home after 378 days of worldschooling across 20 countries.

What started as a crazy idea became the adventure of a lifetime. We explored ancient ruins, hiked mountains, crossed deserts, met incredible people, made lifelong friends, and learned far more than we ever could have from a textbook.

Looking back, we don't remember the flights, the logistics, or the challenges nearly as much as the moments: the conversations, the laughter, the cultures, and the memories we created together as a family.

Here's to taking the leap.

12/26/2025

H A P P Y H O L I D A Y S friends!

10/12/2025

It’s been three months since we returned from our year-long worldschool adventure, and I’ve been reflecting on what reentry has felt like.

Rather than writing another travel story (my Travel Stories ebook is coming soon!), I wanted to try something different to capture this transition home. A friend recently introduced me to Claude (an AI writing assistant like ChatGPT) and Suno, an incredible AI music platform. When I heard the songs he created, I was blown away — and inspired to make one of my own.

So, with a little help from technology and a lot of heart, I “wrote” and “produced” a song about our journey. It’s called The Longest Way Home.

The song reflects on all the challenges, lessons, and unforgettable moments we experienced traveling the world — and the bittersweet joy of coming home. Over these past few months, I’ve watched our kids reconnect with friends, sports, teachers, and community. Seeing them so happy reminded me that having a place to return to, where you’re accepted and belong, is one of life’s greatest blessings.

Here is the link to the song.

https://suno.com/s/kzXonoqlMLrIozcE

I think the lyrics are on there as well, but just in case here they are.

Verse 1
We packed our dreams in weathered bags
Traded roots for open roads
Watched the sunrise paint a thousand skies
In places we'd never known
Little hands held tight through cobblestone nights
Learning courage isn't taught in books
Every stranger's smile, every winding mile
Changed the way we looked

Pre-Chorus
We were pilgrims, we were wanderers
Finding pieces of ourselves
In the spaces between the maps

Chorus
But every border that we crossed
Every language that we learned
Every mountain climbed, every path we'd find
Led us back to what we'd known all along
Sometimes you have to lose your way
To find where you belong
We took the longest way home

Verse 2
They grew wild beneath foreign stars
Found their voices in the unknown
Learned that home isn't walls or familiar shores
But the strength they'd always owned
The world became their classroom floor
And we watched them come alive
In the beauty and the struggle
They learned how to survive

Pre-Chorus
We were searchers, we were storytellers
Collecting moments like seashells
From shores we'll never see again

Chorus
But every border that we crossed
Every language that we learned
Every mountain climbed, every path we'd find
Led us back to what we'd known all along
Sometimes you have to lose your way
To find where you belong
We took the longest way home

Bridge
And now the door we left behind
Feels like a treasure we had to find
Through the tears and the triumph
The goodbyes and the growing
We were always coming back
We just didn't know it

Final Chorus
Every border that we crossed
Every lesson that we learned
Every fear we faced, every page we turned
Brought us back to what we'd known all along
Sometimes you have to chase the world
To hear your own heart's song
We took the longest way
The longest way
We took the longest way home

Outro
The longest way home

08/04/2025

I finally got around to putting together a retrospective video from our year of worldschooling. It’s mostly just for us—for the memories—but I figured I’d share it in case anyone’s curious.

https://youtu.be/ZOWZEtyD22A

A note on the song choice, “Caffeinated Warriors”: My kids pushed for something more upbeat, but I wanted to capture the bittersweet nostalgia of an adventure that already feels like it happened a lifetime ago. The hauntingly beautiful lyrics by Antje Duvekot—about a touring musician paying homage to famous travelers and explorers—really resonated with me. They reminded me of many of the friends we made while traveling: digital nomads with no home to return to.

So this is a goodbye to those friends we met along the way—and, in a way, a farewell to our own traveler selves, now that we’re back on terra firma.

A retrospective look at our year of Worldschooling

07/25/2025

Some people were curious about our spend on our trip so here is an infographic of the various spending categories with % of our total spend. And yes, we actually kept a super detailed spreadsheet of ALL of our spending no matter how small for the entire year. The top 5 categories aren't too surprising. Loding would typically have been the hightest, but we had some home exchanges and some volunteer work where accommodations were included.

07/20/2025

I created an infographic with stats from our Worldschool adventure.

06/23/2025

Today we reunited with our dog Everest after 378 days apart. We were curious how he would react to seeing us, would he remember us right away, etc. We filmed the reunion for posterity.

You can see he immediately recognizes the Francesca and the girls, but when he sees Ryan - who is about a foot taller, has longer hair and looks quite different from when he left - Everest keeps his distance and actually barks at him. Poor Ryan was gutted as he used to be Everest's favorite. By the end of the video he's still not quite 100% comfortable with Ryan, but I'm sure they'll find their groove in the next day or two.

https://youtu.be/GbBuWkZGeAU

06/21/2025

I used this fun (albeit a bit clunky) app called Pictramap to create an animated video of our 12 month journey. There was a limit to the number of locations so I kept it to just the places where we spent a significant amount of time.

https://www.pictramap.com/app/view?p=2fe1ee

Created with PictraMap, this travel map with pins shows a trip to San Francisco, California, London, United Kingdom, Mirtos, Greece, Athens, Greece, Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia (Various Cities), Spain (Various Cities), Morocco (Various Cities), Translyvania, Romania, Thailand (Various C...

06/21/2025

We returned to the US, but we're not HOME yet. We spent the last three days in LA visiting both our former homes when we lived here for 11 years, meeting up with some of the kids' friends from when they went to school here, meeting up with our former neighbors, bosses, coworkers and friends and hitting Francesca's favorite artisan noodle shop, Tsujita for their Tsukemen.

It was a great way to re-enter the States and to start the acclimitization process back to "normal life". Heading to the aiport soon for our final flight home.