3. Björn's Travels and Family Connecting App

Björn Boy is an entrepreneur from southern Germany who has already embarked on long term travel with his family of four and is soon planning to leave on another open-ended world trip. 

On today's show, he tell us more about his family's style of travel, how they approach time together and education on the road as well as the costs of their first 16 month trip and their budget for their upcoming travels. 

You'll learn about the various resources his family uses to plan their travels as well as his ingenious idea for a traveling family app. Linkease will help connect traveling families with like-minded families all around the world. Look for the release in summer 2025!

If you're a German-speaking family, please also check out his traveling families podcast called Nomad Kids. 

If you're interested in traveling more long term and need help figuring out the finances, find me at www.yourfamilymoney.com. 

If you're a traveling family or a worldschool leader and would like to be featured on the podcast, please email me at info@yourfamilymoney.com. 

Links:

https://boy-media.de/#home

https://nomadkids.de/

https://open.spotify.com/show/2N3oZr4jJRmpyyoShchhK3?si=49d34854b6a345e9

https://www.instagram.com/littletravelfamily/

https://linkease.app/

Saludos,

Suzy

Email: info@yourfamilymoney.com

IG: @yourfamilymoney

www.yourfamilymoney.com

Transcript

 Hola and hello, I'm Suzy, and welcome to the Wander Slow Family Travel Podcast where we discuss the stories, logistics, and finances of long-term traveling families and the multitude of ways to learn and educate along the way. So sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride.

 Welcome back to Wander Slow Family Travel podcast. Today I have, the honor of having, Björn Boy on from Germany,

Tell us a little more about, who you are, your family, where you're living and some of your recent travels.

Thank you for having me first. And, we are a family of four. I, my wife and, and I, we have a daughter,, she's eight and a son, and he is just turned six. So we are living in Germany, south of Munich, close to the border, to Austria, and we did a world trip back in 22, 23., And now we are on our mission to start the next world trip in August, for open end. 

That's exciting. We'll definitely get into some of the, where you plan to travel to.  Are  you and your wife also working right now in Germany? 

We were both working. My wife is working part-time. I'm an, entrepreneur, video editor and videographer.

So I'm self-employed and, but I'm working full-time . 

 So those are jobs that you can take with you and even incorporate into your travel. 

Yes. In some, regions for sure. We definitely have to, to see where it's possible to work on the road, remotely. In some countries  it's not allowed.

But in some others it's, it's possible, yes. 

What is one of your earliest travel memories? 

My earliest travel memories was, last year we headed to Oman.

So in the Saudi Arabia region,  we had, a jeep with a rooftop tent. And yeah, we went to Oman for I 10 days. 

What was the best part about that trip? 

I am completely honest. The best part was the hotel before and after the rooftop tent tour. It was new for us.

We, we booked this, Jeep and the rooftop tent and we wanted to experience that kind of travel style, but it was not as expected. It was too chaotic for us, with two kids, to live out of a Jeep and everything was not very well organized. So yeah, I'm honest it's not our style of traveling.

What would you say is more your style of travel? 

We have a big RV or big RV for German, comparisons. We are normally camping in our RV and we have our own house on wheels, with us and everything is organized and we have proper kitchen and proper bathroom and everything.

So that's our style of traveling.

 We did a two months to Canada and we didn't have a full rv, but we did have all of our stuff with us. And I do find that, especially with kids, when you can have the toys and some of those comforts and bring basically everything with you, that can be very helpful, especially at the ages of your children.

My kids are five and a half  and eight.. So same ages. 

Yeah. Yeah. 

So you mentioned that you did, a longer family travel trip. 

Yes. And in 2022 and 2023, we,  went on a world trip for 16 months and traveled 25 countries. And that was, our first world trip experience with the kids.

They were little. They were five and two. And, we enjoyed it that much that we thought, let's go in another one. 

That's great. What was, that, like traveling through that many countries, was it, a mix of fast travel mix in with some slow travel? Or what did you find work best for your family?

It was kind of a mixture. We started in Costa Rica for three weeks and then we, continued to the US and traveled through the US and Canada, with our own rv, which we shipped over from Germany. And that was slow travel in terms of how many countries visited, during that, that time of six months.

But we were quite fast in like how many places we visited. So, we made a full round of the US I think 26 states and up to Canada and it was quite fast. So we get bored after two or three days on the same, on the same spot. . And after that, we decided to go to French unis and New Zealand and after that, Southeast Asia.

And we stayed for two or three weeks in every country. And, then we headed back to the home direction to,  Cyprus and Jordan. And then,  finally back to Germany again. And then we picked up our RV and we made a Europe trip again to the north of Europe, like Sweden, Norway, Estonia, Latvia.

And then, and there we just stayed for a week in these countries.

And when you were not with the rv, did you wish you had the RV or was it working well with the family to do more of the backpack traveling? 

Yeah, that was fine. , Airbnb is totally fine for us to, for a certain amount of time. And the kids are also. I would say they prefer the rv, but they are also fine with our accommodation Airbnbs.

And you mentioned you're coming up on another trip, planning to depart in August. Tell me more about where this trip will take you. 

It's one of our biggest project. I think we are leaving Germany completely. So we are deregistering here and, leaving our home, behind us and then we are going again, to Canada and the US and, also Mexico.

With our rv. So we were shipping it over the second time. We should have left it just over there so the plan is to explore North America even more. And, stay for a year probably. And then after that, make the round, I think around the world, nothing is booked.

Everything's flexible, but I want to go to, French Polynesia again and, probably New Zealand and maybe Australia. My wife wants to go to Australia, but who knows?

So open-ended travel. 

Yes. 

That's exciting. And how are the kids feeling about this upcoming trip?

They're excited. So our daughter is, very excited. She's, had enough of her school experience. I remember a sentence she said last year, and we're talking about, our plans a lot with our kids. And I asked her if it's okay if we go on a world trip, next year, and she said, yes,

dad, that's all right. I think one year of school is enough for me. So she's excited. She wants to go and, leaving everything behind. And our son also is maybe a little bit sad because he loves kindergarten and, his friends. But, he's also fine with it and he's looking forward to have a lot of, lots of nature and, experience new things.

It can be a different, way of thinking when it comes to  schooling on the road versus more in class.  My husband grew up in Germany, so, he says it is very different in many ways . Have you thought more about, if you'll follow a curriculum or do more unschooling world schooling. What type of educational plan have you thought about for your children?

We will, have a combination, from world schooling, road schooling, . And we also follow a curriculum from, an institution or a company called the Deutsche Ula German Remote School, translated. So they provide us with all the papers and worksheets and also materials.

We have 50 kilograms of materials with all the stuff for them, rubber gums, pens, paper, everything, little dolls, , ropes and everything they use to, , integrate into the, curriculum and into the lessons and into the classes. So we put all this in our rv and we try to, to school our, children with world schooling and also their remote school.

I can see why you would want to have an RV even more with all those materials. That would be an entire suitcase, . 

Even more.

With the open-ended travels coming up, you mentioned that you do work, online and hoping to expand on that business. What has worked well for, a location independent business for you? And then what have been some of the challenges? 

I think the biggest challenge is the time difference.

So if you have customers in Europe and you are working from Southeast Asia or also New Zealand has a digital nomad visa now, and you are working from New Zealand, then you have a 12 hour time difference and you might, have meetings in the middle of the night. So I think this is the biggest challenge.

Apart from that, it's the same work, same things. Of course you need good internet and a good connection for calls or uploading and downloading stuff, but I think the time difference is the biggest challenge 

that can be difficult, especially with children where they're sleeping and maybe you're trying to do a work call.

Living in Spain with my husband working from a us It's actually worked well. He works like noon until eight, and it's when the kids are at school and then we have dinner late in Spain anyhow, it is one reason we landed here because you're right, you do have to take into account time zones,

 Do you have a typical monthly travel budget that you try to stay under?

We have quite the experience from our recent world trip. So we spent, in 16 months, we spent around 80,000 euros. About five and a half thousand euros per month. We worked a little bit on the road, but we had also savings. And this time we also have savings, because we can't work in the US and Canada, with our visas.

We have to rely on our savings during that time. But apart from that, at some stage, you need some income to, have in your bank account to make it sustainable. 

That's sounds like a great budget and I'm sure it's pretty comparable or maybe even less than what someone might spend

living at their home in Germany, certainly in the us that type of  spending could be very typical. So it's amazing to think that actually you can travel full-time as a family for sometimes the same or even less than what someone would spend in their home country. 

Yes, I think it would be even less, this time because last time we had, quite a lot of expenses on, not expected things.

And also the shipment of the RV is quite expensive, , that there was one big block of spendings. The longer you are traveling in an RV and you can boondock and just free roam and, you don't have to pay for every night.

Then it's getting less and less expensive, , we plan to cut the budget a little bit. Five and a half thousand or 5,000, and we wouldn't spend here in Germany. And then we don't have to pay rent on the road, so it might be less . 

That seems like one of the benefits of having your own lodging with you is that it can spread out that cost.

Did you have any troubles finding places to boondock or to stay? Are there resources that help people find places to stay depending on the country and the location they're at? 

The only place where it's not so easy to find overnight places, it's in the city. Like in Los Angeles.

It was, challenging or not possible at all. San Francisco was also, a bit hard, but apart from the cities, if we go open desert areas, Arizona, Utah, it's all fine. Just there are apps, we were using. I overlander app and Free Roam. Both apps are absolutely incredible value you have

thousands of places you can look up and they have reviewed, they have photos and you can read if it safe, what the amenities are where it's located. You have GPS coordinates and everything is in one app and I think the new I Olin app is $10 a month, so very cheap. And in New Zealand there's another app, called Campa Mate.

I think it's for New Zealand and also Australia, and it's the same system. So it's very easy to find, cheap overnight places for your  campervan. 

I've also heard of harvest hosts. You get to stay in different farms or maybe some unique locations.

And it seems like there could be a cost involved, though

yeah, harvest starts. We also use that one. Five or six times. 

Oh, great. Not as 

often as we thought we'd, it would be, but it's also a great research because you can just, call them or book online.

And you have like places on wineries or golf courses or even in private, driveways and then typically the membership relies on you are staying for free, but then you, buy some stuff from their homemade bread or cheese or whatever the farm has or whatever the winery has or the golf course offers.

And so it's a give or take. 

I like that even better. You probably want to, experience their  farm or wine. Anyhow, so that seems like it could work out really well. Thank you for sharing more about your budget because I think as families are trying to think about, is this something I could do, they're thinking logistically how to make this work.

Do you have any tips or tricks that you've learned along the way to save money while traveling? Certainly bringing your own accommodation can help, but anything else you found that helps with, financial aspect of long-term traveling? 

I think one of the biggest things we are not spending money on is food.

Like we are always preparing our own food. We are not eating out and not spending a lot of money on restaurants . So we typically make our own meals every day. And that's one of the biggest savings I would say, if you're not going and dine out everywhere. Accommodation and food is the biggest block of your budget for sure

and there you can save a lot of money. 

Absolutely. Have you been tempted though to sometimes experience a local cuisine? It can be so varied in parts of the US that it's not necessarily always local, but, I think that's been our balance of,  we wanna try different things, but obviously it can add up quickly as a family of four.

Sometimes we just felt for a pile of pancakes or in some places it's not even possible to prepare your own food in the middle of the city and

strolling around and try , to explore the area and then you think Okay, it's noon again, we have to find something to eat, so we have to, go to a restaurant or grab a snack or something. We can't avoid it all the time, but we try , to make it, not so often . and especially in the US the cuisine is quite fast food, heavy, so we try to avoid that as well. In places like New Zealand, they also don't have very big local cuisine, like in Italy, for example. So I think their most popular meal is, fish and chips in New Zealand. So nothing I must have every day. So, we are fine with cooking our own meals and not eating out.

Absolutely.  What are some of, either on your last trip or as you're preparing for this next trip, what are some of the joys about planning and thinking about long-term travel?

And then next we'll talk about some of the challenges. 

I think the biggest joy is spending so much time with your kids. We wake up, we have time with our kids and we go to bed and, we can just spend the whole day with them, exploring , the nature. We can hike a lot. We are quite active, so we try to hike a lot and we just enjoy being in the nature. I think this is our biggest, goal or our biggest, benefit from, traveling. Because here in Germany we have a house, with a small garden. Sure we can go outside, when the weather is good, but it's nothing compared to have long hikes and eight 10 kilometers hikes with the kids to a waterfall and bath into some waterfall ponds.

So this is great and we just like the nature. 

My husband grew up in Germany, so he does joke that it's not about the weather, it's about what you're wearing in order to get outside. But living in Spain where we can be outside year round makes a huge difference in terms of just the ability and the ease of being outside in nature.

So I completely understand the desire to be somewhere where you can be outside more, especially with children who are active and wanna be on the go., But what are your tricks to getting your kids to hike up to 10 kilometers? We are not quite there yet, so I'm open to any tricks or suggestions ?

When we started our world trip, our son was two, and he was able to maybe walk for 500 meters. So he wasn't the hiker at all. And after our world trip, I think the longest hike we had was 14 kilometers in New Zealand to waterfall, about six or seven hours. And I think the key is to insert snacks all the time, every half an hour.

Snack time, just sit down, have a rest. Just relax and keep it easy for them. Try to entertain them a little bit. Make some, games or tell them about the plants or the surrounding areas or anything, what's interesting for them. And then, they are, , more likely to cooperate for longer hikes.

Those are great suggestions. Snacks for the win.  what are some of the challenges, either from your last trip or as you're getting ready for this next long leg of travel?

I think the biggest challenge is to be flexible, with your schedule or with your timetable or with your plans. When you're traveling you can always plan ahead a certain level of having accommodation or stops or anything, but you have to be flexible. Something doesn't work out as planned.

We had some situations on our last world trip where we had Airbnbs not looking very good, so we had to change, places and I think the biggest challenge or the biggest thing on, your travels is you have to be adaptable to new situations for you as a parent or, as a couple, and also for the kids and even more with kids, because you are in a challenging situation, but the first thing you have to think about is keeping the kids happy, because if they're not happy, then you are obviously also not happy, and then it makes the whole situation worse.

Very true. What does a typical day look like? You mentioned spending a lot of time with the children, what does a typical day look like, in terms of getting out and exploring and incorporating schooling? 

Last trip, our kids, weren't go to school, so we had quite a little bit more time. And we plan this time to wake up, have breakfast quite early. Around seven or half past seven. And then we want to have a routine with, schooling maybe for an hour, maybe one and a half, and then go

whatever the place is, offering us if we go on a hike or if we explore the city or the little town. And then we are also quite strict on, , planned meals at, 12 or 1230. We need a good meal. And, after that it's maybe driving time to go to another place or, just explore other regions.

And then having more time to play with the kids, in the evening. They're playing great together. So, this is great for them to have some free time. They are listening a lot to audiobooks. It's kind of a normal day,

 Sounds like an awesome day. Those are the type of days that actually go by quite quickly. Yes. And then you look back and  we just ate and played and drove a little bit.

And got to see the sites, it feels full, but also routine . In a good way. 

Yes, yes, 

Tell me some of the resources that have helped you in terms of, being on the road

long term. 

It depends on which, type of traveling we are, when we are RVing. The biggest resource, is, the apps for the, overnight stay and Google Maps. So we look everything up in Google Maps. Where's the next hike? Where's the next, site or what we want to see?

We use Instagram quite a lot to be inspired by others. And we, we do the markings on our Google map and we have 500 markings already on the US and Canada. What places we want to see. And, if we are not in ROV and we are in Asia or, in these places, I think the biggest resource is, we used quite a lot TripAdvisor.

The last thing we did on TripAdvisor was a cooking class in Thailand, so we look that one up or a elephant, sanctuary . Yeah. I think TripAdvisor is also great for families to look things up.

Great. And you're offering a new resource soon. You wanna tell us more about your app that you're working on? 

Yeah, sure. We found ourselves in the situation where we thought, how great would it be if we knew, or we have a map where you can see other families with

like-minded people and same age kids. And we see on the map where they are. And maybe there are some families just around the corner, a few kilometers away, and we can just catch up and they can have a play date or we can have a coffee and the kids have some more socializing with other families.

And there's not an app of this kind, not even a website of this kind. And then I, started to develop it, with this very small team, with one developer. We are developing it in the last stages. Now we are ready to launch, hopefully in two or three weeks. And the app will hopefully, help a lot of families to find other families to chat.

You can upload pictures, you can even, scroll in the timeline and you can add your roots. And then you can, at your roots where you will be in, in the month or in three or four weeks, and then you can see where others are in three or four weeks and you can maybe catch up if it aligns with your travel plans.

It sounds very useful and very needed. I agree, that's one reason the Facebook groups are so popular, but, you miss things in there. I'm sure there's just great conversations happening that I don't always catch or we don't see because of the algorithm.

So having an off Facebook platform where people could put their travels and then matching up with different families that are traveling. And what will the app be called?

Link Ease,

Make it easy to link up. 

Yeah, hopefully. 

That's great. I will look forward to when it comes out, fully published and I can download it on Google Play.

I'll make sure to share that in the show notes so people can check that out as they're interested in connecting with traveling families. So  it sounds like you could, put in, where you're going and would you have a family profile with your family's information?

Yes, you can put up, some photos of your family, of your kids if you want. You can put your interest, each of the kids. You can put up your roots, your next destinations. And you can filter the map. Exactly for these interests or country of origin or language spoken, next travel route.

Lots of filters to, be applied and then you can, just look on the map and see what comes up or where the families are. 

We're very excited to see that come to fruition so people can use that to help coordinate meeting up with traveling families.

Anything else that you want to share about either your family, your journey, your upcoming travels, or any other resources ? 

Apart from our own app, we are using Instagram. Our username is little travel family, so anyone who wants to follow our travels, it's in German.

My wife is, the active part of Instagram. She's doing all the stories and the posts . So yeah, if you want, just follow us along the road and maybe we can catch up in the US or anywhere else Canada, who knows? 

And tell me a little more about your travel podcast  . 

We started that one I think half a year ago no, last year in November . And, we thought about what else can we do to inspire families? Because, back when we started our family world trip, we inspired one, family, friend of ours, and they decided to go on the same world trip, also same rv, also same shipment to the us.

They decided it in three months. So they made it work in three months to go on a world trip. 

That's impressive. 

Yes, absolutely. And then we decided what can we do to inspire others even more?  I'm a videographer, but I don't like to spend a lot more time on videos and I'm already doing my business.

And my wife is listening to podcasts . So, she said, let's do a podcast and just talk about, other families and interview other families and what they are doing. And then we started our Nomad kids, podcast on Spotify. It's in German, but we interview every two weeks, one long-term traveling family.

The families have been mainly other German families that you've connected with before, or who else have you been able to connect with on your podcast? 

Yes, it's mainly German speaking families. So Austrian, Switzerland and Germany.

It's great to have different options to connect with people. My kids like if we connect with other English speaking families, but since they're learning German and Spanish. I appreciate if I get to connect with other families where they get to practice those languages.

 Tell me where people can connect with you if they want to learn more about you or your podcast or your resources. 

First on, on Instagram, little Travel Family. Then we also have a website, it's Nomad kids, de where  📍 you can also find the podcast and it's on Spotify and Apple Podcast. And all platforms, where you can listen to podcasts. And also Linkease for the linkease app. 

Thank you so much. I appreciate you coming on. 

Thank you