An Experience of a Lifetime

What 4.5 months of Traveling Village taught us about community and ourselves

This article was originally written in German and translated into English with the help of AI.

Three weeks ago, Travelling Village came to an end.

After a little distance, a lot of fresh air, time with friends back home and still probably not quite enough rest, I finally managed to write down some of my learnings.

It was intense. Too intense?

In the end, we were tired. I think there were several reasons for that: the constant social interaction, a full calendar, intense and often big cities, foreign cultures and the never-ending WhatsApp chats.

We do enjoy intensity. That is not the issue. But maybe we need to approach the whole thing a little more calmly next time. More time to come down. More time offline. And sometimes just let the community be the community without feeling the need to be part of everything.

So we can recharge ourselves.

FOMO is real

Our challenge is that we genuinely want to soak it all up. If something is offered, we want to join. We want to be part of it.

That is where we could probably get better: consciously saying no to activities. And instead maybe taking ourselves out for a few days. Into nature, for example.

Growth vs. overwhelm

It is fun to discover new things. And I do believe it keeps you mentally fit and expands your horizon.

But how much new input is actually needed? And where does growth turn into overwhelm?

With this kind of life and travel, that is not so easy to answer. Families who have been on the road for longer seem to have found a better balance there.

It does not all have to be “nice”

Growth and real insight usually only happen when something also hurts a little. When there is friction. When it does not just feel like the perfect holiday.

Nikolaj, the founder of Travelling Village, reflected that back to me towards the end. And I think he was right.

The intensity and the length of the experience are exactly why this time is still so present in my mind. It is why I am still trying to make sense of it and take something from it.

That probably would not have happened after three weeks of relaxed group travel.

Community is amazing — but it comes at a price

I am not going to list all the benefits of travelling and living in community. There are many.

But the big offering of interesting people and activities also means that you have less time as a couple and as a core family.

That is something to be aware of. And something to actively block time for.

If we ever do this kind of trip again, we would try to handle that a little better.

Conflict is part of it. And it should be addressed.

With 19 families and such an intense form of community life, conflicts are probably unavoidable.

Especially when you temporarily live together in one place and also have to make financial decisions as a group.

With a group of this size, you also cannot expect everyone to become best friends. But what matters is that people keep trying to communicate well, even when they disagree.

That did not always work.

Partly, I think, because so much communication happened digitally. One or two more honest, personal conversations would probably have been good for the group.

Even though, of course, some conflicts also resolve themselves over time.

The recipe for success: everyone opts in

One big advantage of Travelling Village is its focus on community. Apart from a few visitors — parents, siblings and other guests — it was just us.

That means you can almost always find someone for spikeball, dinner, playdates, conversations or sports.

At home, that is different.

Besides work and school, our friends and neighbours also have their other friends and families, all competing for the same scarce resource: time.

That makes it much harder to build a real sense of community back home.

There is no closed group like there is during Travelling Village. Everything is a little more non-committal. The outside distractions are bigger.

Are 19 families too many?

I am not entirely sure.

On the one hand, the big advantage of having so many individuals is that almost everyone will find someone they connect with. That is true for the adults as well as the children.

On the other hand, we noticed that this size also means that the all-family events — when the whole group came together — were overwhelming for some people.

Especially more reserved children and adults had a harder time finding their place in that kind of dynamic.

Size vs. depth

The bigger the group, the more superficial the communication often becomes.

At the big group gatherings, there was often a lot of small talk.

And that can be nice. It has its place.

But in our eyes, the Village would become even more valuable if the group size were a little smaller. Or if there were more meetings and activities in smaller groups.

Both the depth of conversations and games, and the diversity of friendships, could benefit from that.

Too homogeneous?

Different nationalities, cultural backgrounds and children of all ages.

At first glance, it looked like a very colourful group. But in some ways, it was still very similar.

All participants were families with children.

No old people. No people in their mid-twenties. No singles.

Maybe the community would benefit from adults who do not constantly have to look after their own children, but who might actually find meaning in helping within the community.

That could support some of the families and make the whole experience even more diverse.

I have no idea whether that is realistic or practical. But it is definitely a thought worth exploring.

Damn phone

In the end, there was too much communication via WhatsApp for me.

You basically had the choice between constantly reading along — and therefore having your phone in your hand all the time — or ignoring the messages for a while and then feeling overwhelmed in the evening or missing activities.

Of course, I understand that a lot of spontaneous communication is necessary.

But it still felt wrong.

Maybe a slower Village rhythm and stronger routines could also reduce the communication load. But with five weeks in one place, that is not so easy to create.

Maybe I also need to find better routines for myself to deal with this kind of communication while keeping our everyday life slower at the same time.

Do you really have to fly that far?

For us, the community was definitely the main thing.

At this point in our lives, we would not have travelled to these countries on our own.

But we also enjoyed discovering new places and soaking up foreign cultures.

Still, it is fair to ask whether a similar experience would also have been possible in less foreign countries.

Of course, pleasant weather at that time of year plays an important role. And that is not so easy to find in Europe or North America in winter.

So maybe it belongs in the category of growth experience after all.

Did we really get to know the country and culture?

Five weeks in one place. A full programme. A lot of focus on community.

There is not much space and time left to really get to know the country you are in.

Maybe the main phases or the breaks would need to be longer for that.

But maybe it is also okay not to be able to have everything at once.

Coliving is amazing

For us, one of the biggest insights was how much we all enjoyed coliving.

The spontaneous encounters between children, but also between adults, without much planning effort, are worth their weight in gold.

You get to know the people you live with much more deeply.

Especially those who tend to be quieter in larger groups.

Our crowd

Even though the participating families came from many different countries, there was a strong overlap in basic values.

We felt at home among people for whom freedom — both for themselves and for their children — matters in a similar way as it does to us.

We met so many wonderful people who gave us inspiration for our own family life.

Getting to know our child in a new way

When you leave familiar surroundings and step out of your own comfort zone, growth happens.

With our daughter, we saw this especially in how flexible and persistent she can be in playing with other children.

As long as the groups are small — one to three other children — she can play with the wild kids as well as the quieter ones.

Only the big groups still remain challenging for her.

Which does not exactly make the topic of school any easier.

In general, one insight stayed with me: extroverted children have an easier time in big groups.

Quieter and more reserved children need smaller groups to unfold their full potential.

Healthy routines are hard to maintain

It takes quite a lot of discipline to keep up healthy routines during this kind of life and travel.

Enough sleep. Enough natural movement. Time for relaxation. A balanced diet. Not too much junk food. Access to the right supplements.

Everything is just a little bit harder. And because of that, things fall through the cracks more often.

If we ever take part in an event like this again, we need to find ways to make sure our health does not suffer too much in the long run.

The nervous system always on edge

One central aspect of taking care of my health is taking care of my nervous system.

I am already the kind of person who is constantly activated and not particularly good at taking it easy.

In an environment with constant interaction, a full programme and never-ending highlights, it becomes even harder for me to calm my nervous system down.

Here, too, I would need to prioritise the right routines — massage, acupressure mat, sauna, breathing exercises — to stay sane in the long run.

Cities are too stressful for us in the long run

For this kind of travel and community living, you need the right infrastructure: accommodation, supermarkets, restaurants, community spaces.

And you mostly find that in cities.

But for us, easy access to nature was missing over time.

Almost always, you first had to take a scooter, bike or bus somewhere to find real nature and quiet.

That becomes stressful over time.

For future events, I would wish for more nature. In that regard, the campervan trip, TV2, clearly had the upper hand.

School is not the only solution

For four and a half months, we were surrounded by families who approach education differently than most people in our environment in Germany.

Unschooling. Worldschooling. Homeschooling.

Children learning through travel, being taught by their parents or spending phases at international schools around the world.

It was exciting to see that there are other ways.

Especially in a rapidly changing world with new challenges and greater mobility, the German school attendance requirement feels somewhat outdated.

We would love to see more flexibility, ideally allowing families to combine school and travel.

We’ll see.

Friendships that will last?

Even though we were ready to go home at the end, there were still some tears.

So many warm-hearted people with whom we shared something extraordinary.

Unfortunately, after four and a half months, everyone goes their separate ways.

Many of them we will probably never see again. With some, we will definitely stay in touch.

And hopefully also in the real world.

Because purely digital contact is not enough for me.

Would we do it again?

Definitely.

Maybe with a few small improvements here and there to the event itself. And with healthier routines for us as individuals and as a family.

But yes.

The combination of travel and community was amazing.

Aliveness matters

In the end, the big insight is that we are looking for aliveness.

A life that feels intense.

Not ordinary.

There is no one perfect life design for that.

It is more of a constant search for balance.

Questioning yourself and your environment again and again. Adjusting course. Trying something new. Correcting again.

Experiencing adventures.

Learning from them.

And then beginning again.