An English couple has yanked their two boys out of school to travel the world as a family after feeling robbed of quality time together in the hustle-and-bustle of their old life.
Emma Niblett, 36, said she and her husband, Dan, 40, rented out their West Yorkshire, England home and left for Bali in August with their two sons, Noah, 8, and Issac, 5.
“We recovered from the COVID pandemic and felt [like] we were repeating the same cycle,” Emma Niblett told the UK-based outlet LeedsLive.
Niblett said she and her husband decided to uproot their life when they realized they were spending most of their time cooped up in their home, focusing on little things like chores.
They quickly realized it was robbing them of quality bonding time as a family.
“We weren’t having time together as a family,” she said.
The mother of two also noticed that her boys were slowly getting wrapped up in technology and wanted them to see life was much more 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 conversing about traveling last Christmas but wanted to let their boys finish the school year before leaving.
Niblett, who works remotely as a head of technology, took advantage of her job’s flexibility and did “something completely different.”
“We decided to leave and go as far as we could go,” she said.
The family then uprooted themselves and headed over 7,700 miles away from their home to live in Bali.
She explained that the province of Indonesia was “safe, cost-effective and sunny” and seemed like an excellent place for her family to reconnect.
“It’s 20% of what we were paying in the UK,” Niblett shared.
She said the family could have three meals in Bali for about $40 to $50.
However, the much cheaper cost of living wasn’t the only necessary 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 boys could enroll in that followed a schedule similar to their old one in the UK.
The boys attend a pop-up school from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., Monday through Friday, but she noted some differences in how they are taught when compared to England.
“The ethos is different. They are able to pick their own projects, [and] they are learning about the local area and language,” Niblett told LeedsLive.
“It’s less academic and more about functioning in the world. When they started, the boys said, ‘Where are the desks? Why are we not sat in rows?’”
She said that since her sons have been attending the school, she’s noticed they have been “a lot more creative” and are also “surrounded by kids from Singapore, Australia, and America.”
However, the mother feels what her sons are experiencing goes far beyond what they’re being taught in the classroom.
“Just being with people from different backgrounds, it [can] open your eyes to so much more,” she said.
Overall, Niblett said living in Bali has allowed her family to reconnect and make lasting memories their old life couldn’t have offered them.
“Living in Bali is really encouraging us to slow down and live in the moment,” she said.
Niblett also said the culture of the locals has vastly opened their eyes to what’s essential in life.
“We’ve been so used to rushing around 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 shared.
Niblett said her family was only planning on traveling for a year, but given how eye-opening their experience has been so far it could go on much longer.
The family has traveled to Sydney, Australia, and around Bail and plans to spend Christmas in New Zealand and Japan, according to LeedsLive.
They then plan to travel around Vietnam and Borneo after the holidays.
